In his Christmas message, the Bishop of Durham, the Right Reverend Michael Turnbull, says that, this festive season, we should think about what it means to be human

A YOUNG boy desperately wanted a BMX bicycle and was praying hard for it. His mother tried gently to tell him that Jesus didn't always provide what people wanted - He is more concerned with what we actually need. She thought the message had got home, but as she came downstairs the following morning she noted that the Christmas crib which they had set out in their sitting room had the figure of Mary missing. In its place was a scrawled message, "if you want to see your mother again you had better give me a BMX bike".

Amidst all the present exchanging at Christmas, the heart of the matter is what God gives to us. The miracle of God's taking human form is a gift to us to show us what it is like to be satisfied and fulfilled human beings. There is another story about a priest who, in the run-up to Christmas, promised again and again in his talks to his congregation that, for Christmas, they would have a great living crib. People were anxious to see it.

December 25 was approaching, but nothing new could be seen. The usual crib was prepared in the usual way. Two days before Christmas he again announced the great event. After the sermon he called three students and told them "in these two days before Christmas you will go to the poorest areas of the parish and look for the poorest families. Write down the names of the parents, the number of children and their ages and their exact address. You will bring the results of this census on Christmas Eve."

The students came back with about 100 addresses. The priest had them written on separate pieces of paper, folded and placed in a tray. A few minutes before midnight mass, he placed the tray on a small table beside the altar. When the celebration of the mass started, he went towards the altar carrying two posters. He brought one to the usual crib and left it there, with the writing "dead crib". Then he laid the other beside the tray and people could read on it "living crib".

There was dead silence. People were wondering what was the meaning of that gesture and were waiting for an explanation. The priest talked briefly: "Social justice and poverty have forced Christ to change His address. Today, Christmas Day, He is waiting for your visit at His new address that you will find in this tray."

After mass, the church emptied, and so did the tray. The baker that day sold more bread, the butcher more meat, the shops more rice and beans, and the milk disappeared. Clothes, shoes, exercise books, pens, toys, found new owners.

The meaning of that story is, of course, that they discovered the joy of being real human beings. When God became man in the person of Jesus Christ He was identified with the poorest people from the start.

In the last few weeks of 2001, I have been reflecting on how God would want us to react to the devastating events of September 11. The temptation is to retaliate but I cannot help wondering where the retaliation is getting us. We have turned a war against terrorism into a war of territory. No one seems to be quite sure what we will do when we "win". Of course it is very important to track down and silence the forces of evil. And there is no doubt that terrorism is an evil. But eradicating terrorism from the face of the earth also means looking at the causes behind it. One of the most pitiful questions that I heard from Americans at the time of the disaster was "why do people hate us so much?". The answer to that question, painful as it may be, lies in the economic terrorism with which we in the West have been bullying the world for a very long time. Somehow we have made ourselves immune from the stark facts of the whole world in which we live. Eighty per cent of the world''s population lives in sub-standard housing, 70 per cent are unable to read and 50 per cent suffer from malnutrition. We should have realised that, sooner or later, the injustices of the world would blow up in our faces. The world is saying like Eliza Dolittle in My Fair Lady "don't talk of love - show me".

But the miracle of Christmas is just that, it is a showing of God's love. That is His gift to us and it provides a pattern for how the world, particularly this Christmas, should be reacting to the growing number of refugees and underfed which are partly the result of economic inequalities and partly the result of military action. Tragic and appalling though the events of September 11 were, in numerical terms they pale into insignificance with the numbers of people who continue to suffer in many parts of the world. Christmas means that God is showing us how to be human and setting a pattern, however challenging that may be, for human beings to be what God intended them to be.

Christmas not only shows us what it means to be human but also what it means to be God. Evelyn Underhill once said that Christmas is such a mixing of this world and the next - but after all that is the idea. We pray for an understanding of God but seldom watch a sunset. We desire proofs for the existence of God - even as life in all its marvels continues around us. We tend to look for God everywhere, except in the place where incarnation took place - our flesh. God shows us Himself in the baby of Bethlehem.