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The GB News Advent Calendar, Day 10
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Welcome to the Anglican parish of St Andrew's Wimbledon, where I serve as vicar
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And what's Christmas all about? Fun, food, festivity, family? It's meant to be the best of times
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But how easily for many of us it can also feel like the worst of times. The empty seat at the table, the broken relationship, the old wound that hasn't healed
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It's easy to think if Christmas is just sentimental escapism. Angels, a donkey, a cute baby
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But the Bible story is much more gritty and raw than that
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Eight centuries before the coming of Christ, the prophet Isaiah wrote of the baby who would be born of a virgin
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But what would he come to do? He will swallow up death forever
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The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces. Christmas according to the Bible is not just sentimental escapism for a few days
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it's actually confronting evil and darkness forever what an amazing story God writes himself into our human history
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to overcome death to taste death for us Christians believe that Christmas hope was born
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light triumphs over darkness life over death and I've often wondered where else could we possibly hope to find
