We live in a very strange world. I’m aware that more than half the people living in the UK are unwilling to identify themselves as Christians but I do find it a little bit weird to read that the University of Brighton has advised its staff to avoid using the word ‘Christmas’ when communicating with their students. Their suggestion is the rather less than inspiring ‘winter closure period’ should be used when referring to the end of term. The word ‘Christmas’ it would appear is reckoned to be too ‘Christian-centric’ and could prove offensive to non-Christians!

How daft can you get? Indeed, how far should we go? As a Christian for example should I find ‘Wednesday’ offensive because it derives its name from a Germanic god? And what about ‘March’ which marked the start of the year for the Romans? It was named after the Roman god of war. If the word ‘Christmas’ is potentially offensive to non-Christians, then March could easily distress a pacifist! If we keep on going like this we’ll end up in a linguistic fog not knowing where to turn and what to say about anything.

This attempt to ‘sanitise’ the word Christmas is more than daft though, it is also illogical because ‘Christmas’ is synonymous with all-inclusive love. As Christina Rossetti wrote ‘Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine; Love was born at Christmas; star and angels gave the sign’ We can deny it of course. That is our God-given privilege. We can dismiss the Christmas story as nothing more than legend if we choose, but we cannot deny that the New Testament writers wanted to convey a very simple truth: the babe who was born in Bethlehem was God’s loving answer to our most basic need, and the source of our eternal hope. He was ‘Immanuel’ or as Charles Wesley’s great carol tells us ‘Veiled in flesh the godhead see’.

Michael Card sums this up well in his magnificent song ‘To the Mystery’. ‘When the Father longed to show a love he wanted us to know He sent His only Son and so became a holy embryo… No fiction as fantastic and wild a mother made by her own child, The hopeless babe who cried was God incarnate and man deified’

In spite of my initial doubts, I came to the conclusion that this assertion is true - although I would never claim to understand it fully. But I do know just how reassuring it is to know that life is not meaningless and that death will not have the final word.

Christmas assures us then that every one of us is loved in a way that goes beyond our understanding, and that God offers us the opportunity to live in His eternal Kingdom, a Kingdom shaped by that love. We are free to reject His offer, which is why the University of Brighton’s logic is so absurd; because nobody is under any compulsion to become a Christian.

As I finish, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and blessed Christmas. I pray the God of love will bless you and the Christmas story will inspire you to live a life of love too. Thank you for taking time to read this column, and, of course, a special thank you to the editor and team for giving me the opportunity to share these thoughts with you.