With Christmas trees seemingly everywhere, we are particularly grateful for the tree and lights so wonderfully donated and set up in the St Luke's churchyard by Gareth and Bev.  They have placed it in what would have been one of the darkest corners and now it is ablaze with light.

In a few days, people around the world will be listening to the opening verses of John's gospel; those words pour over you in a confident, powerful statement about who Jesus was and is.

The words that come to mind from that wonderful passage are these:

'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.'

'The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.'  Key words that our beautifully lit Christmas tree reminds me of, in our dark corner of the churchyard.  Note that the words do not say 'shone' but 'shines'.  This is not something that happened a long time ago, a flash of a torch on a dark night.  It isn't something that just shone during Jesus's human life on earth and was then snuffed out as that life ended.  No, the light shines.......it shines forever.  That was John's message when he wrote those words at the end of the first century A.D., probably 60 years after Jesus was crucified.  As John said just a few lines later, 'The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world'.

As we look at our Christmas trees and their bright lights, so easily put out at the flick of a switch, we might think about a light that simply shines forever, and that no darkness can overcome.  That light was Jesus and his life in the world.  No matter how dark the world around us, no matter how dark our feelings or thoughts, that light shines.......and the darkness did not, cannot and never shall overcome it.  That light shines into our hearts, our minds, our memories, our past, present and future.  That light shines into the NHS wards as desperately tired staff care for the frightened, the sick, the dying and their suffering relatives and friends.  That light shines into the areas of life where bad deeds are committed, whether in the dark of night or in hidden areas of public life.  That light shines into and onto you and me, and nothing we can do can stop it.  Our call every Christmas is to follow that light, follow that star, follow the man who came to earth to show us what it really means to be a good human being.  Follow the light that came into the world, that walked a road that led to a cross and then rose again in a blaze of glorious light to show us that another life was possible, one in the light forever.  Amen.