“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep and mile to go before I sleep and miles to go before I sleep.”

Robert Frost

Christmas is a time of promises – promises to be kept and promises fulfilled. . Throughout the season of Advent, the readings have been about God's promise down the ages to the Jewish people to send them a messiah who would be their king and saviour. Mary is called blessed because she believed that "the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.

At Christmas, the promises made by God to the Jewish people and to Mary are fulfilled with the birth of a child in the village of Bethlehem. And in the midst of that most holy  night the world springs to new life with the promise of joy and peace that this birth announces.

On Christmas eve, many people are either in church or at home for this is the night when we try to be together with family and friends in order to be part of the promise of joy and peace which the birth of Christ fulfils.

Our Christmas cards may not have gone out on time or maybe not at all and perhaps this season of advent was not always well spent preparing for this special birthday. But the Christ Child does not mind.  He will be there whether we took the time to invite him or not. And he comes on this his birthday bringing wonderful gifts – gifts of peace, love and forgiveness – for us to unwrap.

Even if we spent the past four weeks of Advent saying "Bah, Humbug"; lamenting the crass commercialism our society has made of Christmas, and generally being so stressed out that we become like the grinch who stole Christmas – even if all of these were true, the Christ Child does not care.

For God fulfills his promise whether we put up a trees, a crib, a stocking, or nothing at all; whether we will spend this Christmas in a place decorated to the rafters with cedar boughs and velvet ribbons or in a bare room.  In fufillment of God's promise, the Christ Child comes to every one of us – no matter what our situation – whether we will be with family or friends or by ourselves the Christ Child comes to us with a simple message.

Christ is born this day not just to save us from our sin, our greed, our pride, and all the failings we recognize in ourselves and those around us. Christ is also born to save us for a life of eternal joy, a life that we will one day in the fullness of time understand and appreciate. The joy and peace of our Christmas day is really meant to be but a taste of that time to come.

God has fulfilled his promises. Let us fulfill ours to him by accepting the message of the new born child. Christ tells us that love is better than hate, peace is better than war, and that happiness awaits those who follow love and peace.

As St. Basil wrote many centuries ago – “Let us dance with the angels and sing, today a Saviour has been born to us.”