Christmas has been controversial over the years, ever since the Pope decided in 356 AD to make  it  25th December.
And this year has been no exception. “Christmas has been cancelled in Bethlehem”  intoned a lugubrious Channel 4 television reporter about ten days before Christmas, accompanying that dire news with pictures of tanks patrolling the deserted, bleak, streets, and families under a curfew.  They kept at that theme some days in a special short news slot. 
It’s happened before, of course.  The Puritans described Christmas  as “an extreme forgetfulness of Christ, giving liberty to carnell and sensual delights” and in 1644 it was banned by Act of Parliament. The House of Commons had to sit on Christmas Day and sheriffs were sent out to force shops to open for business.  
Then there are the revisionist interpretations of the Christmas story, like that of the BBC this year. I can picture the scene in the canteen at Broadcasting House as some young thrusters, prodding their sun dried tomatoes over lunch, decide to “shake up Christmas” with a drama documentary involving the rape of the Virgin Mary, the possible birth of Jesus somewhere others than Bethlehem etc. all backed by some dubious historical research. Well, I admit to a bit of poetic licence as to the origins of that fatuous programme.  
For me the stories surrounding of the birth of Jesus are not really important, beyond being delightful, if often contradictory .  Historical truth is a very illusive concept.  Did Alfred burn the cakes?  Did King Arthur have a Round Table or Robin Hood capture the Sheriff of Nottingham?   Did Shakespeare write all those plays? Was Queen Victoria not amused?  Did this or that politician say and do this or that? 
Different people, different versions of the facts. 
I’ve gone back to basics to-day and chosen a hymn about Bethlehem, that embraces  the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany, and gives the city, with some poetic licence,  a nice nineteenth Christmas card glow of romance.   
No need to apologise for that.  The most important facts about Jesus Christ are, in the words of another carol, that he came down to earth from  heaven, who is God and Lord of All.   He changed the world in all the ways we know, and gave us the hope of everlasting life. 
So may I ask you to turn to hymn 48.  Wise men, shepherds, choirs of angels, manger and cattle and swaddling clothes are all splendid Christmas decorations. But what we are really singing about are those enduring values of Christianity that Christ taught us during his brief time on earth. 
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