This is the point in procedings where I am supposed to remind you all of the evils of commercialism, but as you know I rather like materialism.

Tradition in my house that we could open one present before Church on Christmas Day – but as I answered the door to the postman and it was in a heavily marked box – I know what this is already, but I'm going to open it now, cos its rather exciting!

It's Magic wand. A real one. Well real at least as far as controlling the TV goes.

Lets see if it has other uses. (play the organist)

What would you do with a magic wand? And don't go all Beauty Pagaent on me and think of world peace, I'm sure you can do better than that.

In all seriousness You may want a magic wand. Plenty of times I've wanted one. A few years ago the Queen said she had had an annus horribilis. Which I thought meant an Itchy bottom. Apparently it means a Bad year. Well maybe we can identify, because we've had a bad year, many of us here and as a church community. A year in which many times we may well have wished for a magic wand to turn things back to how they were.

Now Christmas is supposed to be magical and Jesus is often sold as a magician. But magical power is, often to our disappointment if we are honest, not what religion offers us. Any good superhero movie will have told you that when problems are solved by the application of more and more power, bad stuff usually results. We may want our deepest desires granted, but be careful what you wish for.

The story goes that a poor little lonely old lady lived in a house with only her cat as a friend. One day, the lights went out as she sat knitting; she had been unable to pay the electric bill. So, she went up to the attic and got an old oil lamp from her childhood. As she rubbed it clean a genie appeared and allowed her three wishes.

"First, I want to be so rich I never have to worry about money again.''
"Second, I want to be young and beautiful again.''
"And last, I want you to change my little cat into a handsome prince.''

As you would expect, there was a loud explosion, with a lot of thick smoke. As the smoke cleared she saw she was surrounded by big bags of coins, and that in the mirror was a young beautiful woman. She turned as the handsome prince walked in the door, held her in his arms and said, "Now I'll bet you're sorry you took me to the vet for that little operation."

or

There was a girl looking at old stuff in her attic when she found a bottle. She pulled out the cork and out came a genie.

"Since you freed me from this bottle, I will grant you one wish," said the genie.

"I wish that I could be irresistible to boys," said the girl ... and POW! The girl turned into a brand new remote control car.

These jokes of course share the message of the super hero films. They suggest to us that magical powers and fulfilled wishes may not be the answer. Even Harry Potter discovers that the answer is not the power in his wand but the power that can be found in love, in loss and sacrifice. It is only as the superhero comes to embrace his flaws, make peace with his weaknesses, learn to need, learn to trust others, learn not to always rely on his power, that he receives the ability to triumph over what faces him.

In fact at the heart of Christmas we see this message. Christmas is not about wish fulfilment, however much it may be sold as such.

In his book, Finding my Way Home, Henri Nouwen says:

"I have found it very important in my own life to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen for me.

Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.
And what you want to give me is love,
unconditional, everlasting love.

That first Christmas God did not descend in power waving his magic wand or his smiting stick. Rather he came quietly alongside the world, and alongside us, in the ultimate weakness and dependency – in new born child, in the animal shelter in the basement of a tavern.

Christmas is not so much a demonstration of God's power, it is his embrace of our weakness. It is not a cure for it, rather he is a companion in it.

Henri Nouwen again, this time in the Road to Daybreak, says:

"When we honestly ask ourselves which people in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."

So to paraphrase St John.

But to all who receive him in that spirit, who believe in his name not as a magical cure-all, but as a place where his humility can touch our own, he gives us power to become not supermen or magicians but children – children both not of blood or the flesh or human will, but children of God. Because the Word came to us in weakness, shared our sorrows and did not wave them away with a flick of his wand. And in that we have seen his glory, as of a Father's only son. Full of grace and truth. Amen.