It is now after lunch, on a warm summer’s day in Auckland. Mum is recounting the event with one of my sisters. Any year when three of my four siblings and children can sit with my father and my aunt is a good one.

But Christmas is not about the lunch. Or the multiple emails I have deleted saying that the sales have already started. It is about the gospel, as the readings for today attest.

Titus 3:4-7

⁴But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, ⁵he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. ⁶This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

1 John 4:7-16

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

¹³By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. ¹⁶So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.

This is not a time to think about politics. Nor is it a time for fights and recriminations. it is a time to be with families — for it is a secular holiday and the end of the functional year in New Zealand and Australia. and a time to recall that the incarnation of Christ was a matter of courage and miracles, but it was for a purpose.

That purpose was our salvation, and at what a cost that came. May you all have a happy, dry and warm Christmas. May those around you be happy with you, and may God bless and protect you next year.