Over the last few years the “Songs of Praise” TV programme, the BBC Classical Music Magazine and the Classic FM radio station have all run opinion polls, trying to find out which Christmas carol is Britain’s favourite. I suspect that the outcome of these surveys has a lot to do with who’s being asked, but the results are surprisingly consistent. One carol that is always at, or near, the top of the list is “In the bleak midwinter”. And many of you will agree with one enthusiastic writer who asked, “Does any other carol get to the very heart of Christmas as understatedly but effectively as this?” and went on to declare that “Christina Rossetti’s poem is nigh-on perfect as a carol text”.

Well, I may be about to upset you – because “In the bleak mid-winter” is a carol that I simply cannot stand! In my opinion it’s a poor specimen of sentimental Victorian poetry (writing “snow on snow, snow on snow” feels lazy; and the idea of “bringing a lamb” is so twee); while its words have an irregular rhythm and don’t fit the music properly (for even if they’ve successfully negotiated the extra beat of “Our God, heaven cannot hold him”,  almost every congregation I’ve been in has got into trouble with the line “And what I can, I give him”). But the worst thing about this carol, to my mind, is the picture it gives us. For yes, Jesus was born in a stable (although it wasn’t the sort of building we might be thinking of); but no, he wasn’t born during an Arctic blizzard but in a Middle Eastern spring or summer when the sheep were free to roam the hillside instead of being cooped up indoors. In other words this popular carol reinforces an inaccurate and unhelpful myth.

Tonight’s service, however, takes us back to grim reality. For a Christmas Eve Communion service not only fills us with joyous anticipation for what tomorrow may bring but also compels us to think about the other end of Jesus’s story. That doesn’t focus on a baby but on a grown man, not on friendly animals gathering round but on a cruel crowd hurling jeers and insults, not on proud parents welcoming their newborn son into the world but on an anguished mother whose world is collapsing in horror, not on a manger in a cowshed but on a cross atop a hill, not on the beginning of a new life but on the barbaric and unjust death of someone still in their prime.

For, although we are tonight singing with the angels who proclaimed the Saviour’s birth and joining the shepherds in rapt adoration, we are also sitting solemnly with the disciples at table as Jesus says, “This bread is my body that is broken for you, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Eat and drink in remembrance of me”. And, jarring as that scene may seem to be at Christmastime, it is essential. For Jesus’ birth means nothing without his death and, of course, his resurrection. Few people in Wales will be thinking of Easter tonight – yet Christmas without it is totally meaningless and spiritually empty.

But of course there is more, for Christmas and Easter don’t tell us the whole story of Jesus, not by a long chalk. Although we know nothing of his early life, we do know how for three years he walked the roads of Palestine, mingling with people of all classes (but especially those who were sick, sidelined or downtrodden), enjoying life to the full but also harshly criticising hypocrisy, teaching about God in exciting new ways and, of course, performing miracles. Jesus the baby in the manger became Jesus who lived among people, spoke and listened to them, wept with and healed them. Ultimately he gave them hope, which must be something that so many people are seeking this Christmas.

For let’s make no mistake: this winter is proving to be a bleak one for many people – and it’s not over yet. The World Cup excitement is over, the fun and enjoyment of Christmas have just a few days to run, and we’ve passed the winter solstice which means that the days are getting longer rather than shorter – but we still have to get through two more cold dark months before spring arrives to cheer us. “Blue Monday”, the third Monday in January, is supposedly the most dismal day of the year, the day when we find it hardest to get ourselves out of bed, when the weather is at its worst, when the bills we’ve amassed over Christmas come home to roost, when we glumly realise that we’ve already broken all our New Year’s resolutions, when we accept just how hard it’s going to be to shift those pounds we put on over the holiday season. Although the notion of “Blue Monday” has no real scientific basis (and may even have been devised as a bit of a joke), it does chime in with our general mood of a midwinter that’s bleak.

For this winter seems to be a particularly bleak one – and I’m not just thinking of the temperature which dropped to -13C in parts of Wales just a week ago! I don’t need to repeat the gloomy details that I spoke about at last Sunday’s Carol Service: we’re all aware of the depressing outlook that many folk – including some of us here – are facing in the coming months. But I do want to say that tonight’s service shows us how God understands and identifies with our world. For he didn’t have to send his son from heaven to experience human life in the raw. He didn’t have to choose a frightened teenager to become the mother of the Messiah. He didn’t have to ask Jesus to suffer and die at the hands of misguided and weak men. Yet God did all that: to show us that he does love us and care for us. And perhaps that knowledge may light up and warm these winter days, making them just a little bit less bleak than we had feared.