For many, the busyness of the past week has been marked by last-minute shopping, late thoughts about names missing from lists and cards and - for some - panic about gifts not yet bought. When all the hustle and bustle is over, many will sit back after the weekend, breathe a deep sigh and give thanks that it is all over until next year. But in doing so, there is a danger of forgetting the real meaning of Christmas too.
If the shopping and the presents overwhelm us and we are tempted to believe that Christmas is best left to the children, we should remind ourselves that it has nothing to offer to two million children who died in armed conflicts in the last decade, two million children who are exploited in the commercial sex trade, or 246 million child workers throughout the world, including 171 million who face hazardous conditions in the work they do.
The Gospels tell the story of the Christ Child being born into a world of busyness, over-burdened with lists and demands and a world of hustle and bustle and bright lights. Without the emperor's demands for a list of names, would Mary and Joseph have visited Bethlehem? Without the bright lights, would the shepherds and wise men have visited the new-born babe? Without the demands of a cruel and capricious Herod, would the child and his family have returned home safely to Nazareth instead of becoming refugees in Egypt?
The Christmas story is not a comforting one: it tells of the disturbing experiences of a young mother threatened with rejection, about families on the move who find every door closed to them, about low-paid workers who are called to higher glory, about wise foreigners who come to see the evil in the misuses and abuses of political power and about homeless refugees forced to leave their own country.
If the Creation story tells us that humanity is made in God's image and likeness, then the Christmas story teaches us that God came to us in our own image and likeness. It confirms God's complete identification with humanity when we are most vulnerable and most broken and His complete identification with those who are rejected and forced to the margins.
If the vulnerability of the Christ Child at Christmas disturbs us, we should be disturbed too by the 600 million children worldwide - an estimated one-in-four - who live in absolute poverty and the 10 million children under five years of age who die every year from preventable diseases, the vast majority of them in developing countries.
If we are disturbed by the pregnant Mary who could find no open door in Bethlehem, we should question the inadequate resourcing of women's refuges in our own country. If the lowliness of the stable upsets us, we should listen to those who speak up for children's rights. And if Herod's cruelty and the wise men's decision to return by another route are a source of unease, we must give more thought to the lot of new immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers in our midst.