HERE in the northern hemisphere, it is, very nearly, the shortest day of the year. We are deep in the season’s darkest days — and it would be only too easy to sink into the gloom. Reasons not to be cheerful include what feels like an increasingly unstable world, riven by conflict; closer to home, economic hardship; and what the Bishop of Rochester describes as the “existential crisis” currently engulfing the Church of England. Readers no doubt carry their own, personal burdens, too. We are in something of a bleak midwinter.

The misery endured in what some of us still call the Holy Land seems particularly poignant at this time of year. A reported 45,000 people have been killed without compunction in Gaza since the unspeakable attacks by Hamas on Israel in October last year. The UN suggests that 1.8 million Palestinians are experiencing “extremely critical” levels of hunger; 1.9 million have been displaced multiple times. As Richard Sewell writes from Jerusalem on the facing page, when Advent and Christmas celebrations are set in the context of the hell that is Gaza, images of death are never far away.

And that, surely, is the point of the Christian faith. We celebrate Christ’s birth not despite the suffering all around us, but because the world is messy and broken. If ever there was a moment to surrender to the hope of light shining in the darkness, however faintly glimpsed, this is surely it. Let us embrace the joy of the season as wholeheartedly as we can.