Canon Mark Collinson of Six Fen Churches shares his thoughts

One of the things I love in the six Fenland villages where I minister is welcoming the children from the various schools into church for their Carol services.

The parents are all crammed in at the back eagerly straining their necks to see their child sing. And the children have all learned their lines as they tell the Christmas story.

One thing we can be sure of as a Christian country, is that by the time our children leave primary school, they will have rehearsed and learned the story of the Nativity.

But like a lot of children’s stories, there are things that are miraculous that don’t tend to happen in ordinary life: like Mary having a baby even though she was a virgin; like angels appearing and speaking to Mary and Joseph; or a heavenly host singing to the shepherds.

And what about the star that the wise men followed from the East?

As we go through the rest of life, the Christmas story becomes just like other stories we loved as children: old favourites like The Snowman, The Gruffalo, or Little Nutbrown Hare saying to Big Nutbrown Hare, ‘Guess how much I love you.’

As children begin to question how Father Christmas has time to climb up and down millions of chimneys in one night, so the Nativity can become one more fairy story that doesn’t translate into grown up life.

Come the New Year, reality bites, we renew our gym membership, work hard to pay off the Christmas credit card, and struggle to keep our heads above water.

It’s as if we grown ups can’t rely on fairy stories any more, and we become spiritually malnourished. What feeds our sense of wonder, our joy? What gives us hope? How do we recover from tragedy or trauma or betrayal?

Maybe, dare I suggest, that we need to keep feeding our spiritual lives after we leave primary school?

The more I look into the Bible stories, the more they resonate as accurate historical accounts of a God who knows us, cares for us, and, guess how much he loves us?