After a tragic and difficult year, the Archbishop of York, DR DAVID HOPE, considers the good news of the Christmas story

ONE of the very enjoyable aspects of my work and office as Archbishop is the opportunity I have to visit and meet so many different people and places. And at Christmas time it is always a very special joy to be able to visit schools for their carol services and nativity plays.

This year, as usual, I visited my local school in Bishopthorpe. This is now the seventh production I have seen - different again this year - in the evening rather than first thing in the morning, and with the Christmas story mixed in with some rather more light-hearted fun.

As I watched the presentation - with the whole school involved - I thought not only of past presentations but also of the hundreds, even thousands, of nativity plays and carol concerts taking place not just here in this land but throughout the entire world this Christmas time.

In war-torn Bethlehem itself, with tanks in Manger Square; among our armed forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere; among the poor and homeless in Africa - in so many different ways and different places and among so many different people - the same good news is told: the simplicity of the birth of Jesus Christ as St Matthew tells it, and at the heart of it all the holy family, Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in the manger.

It was said following those terrible and tragic events of September 11 that the Third World would never ever be the same again. The truth is that with the birth of Jesus Christ the world has never been, and never could be, the same again. For in Jesus Christ, God intervened finally and decisively for the whole family of humankind, for the entire created order.

This is certainly the clear message in a Christmas card I received this year from a friend of mine living in New York in downtown Manhattan, and who had experienced the effects of the after-shock of the collapse of the two towers of the World Trade Centre.

He wrote in his card: "It's a painful picking up time for us in New York - but we look to the Christ child for hope..."

And it's certainly a painful picking up time too for many in our region following the flooding of last year, after the train crash at Great Heck, in the wake of the foot and mouth crisis which devastated the farming and rural communities, as well as the tourist and travel industry.

And following September 11 and the current hostilities, we remain fearful and anxious - many people I hear saying "What next? Where is it all going to end?"

It would be all too easy to allow ourselves to be totally overwhelmed by the events of this past 12 months.

We need, however, to remember that even in the most tragic of circumstances such as struck the United States on September 11, there emerged an almost equal volume, if not altogether greater volume, of goodwill, good wishes and good deeds.

There are the public services which all too often we take simply for granted - the firemen still remembered for their sheer heroism and self-sacrifice; huge numbers of people volunteered to join in the rescue operation; large numbers of ordinary people organised themselves on an informal basis to provide food and shelter and respite for those working in the aftermath of September 11.

And in a different way this has been true here in our own region - people rallying round, ready and willing to help, assist and give generously.

And this certainly reflects my own experience. Amidst the gloom and despair of much of the bad news there is also the bright and shining lights of so many unseen and unspoken-about people who voluntarily do so much and give so much to others in their neighbourhoods and communities, in our towns and cities and villages. And who in often quite modest but very significant ways make all the difference to the quality of life and living.

Christmas is good news for us and for our world and its people.

It is the good news that the final word is not with the aggressor, the terrorist or the assassin, but rather the final word is God's word, spoken in the birth at Bethlehem, a word in time for all time, of peace and of justice, a word which more than ever we need to hear in our world today.

May God's gift of peace and joy be with you and yours this Christmastide.

Updated: 10:05 Monday, December 24, 2001