A FEW weeks ago, I went with my family to Manchester Arena to see a comedy group. We had a great time and while the audience roared with laughter it was hard to imagine that it had been a place of, horror, death, injury and darkness just months before.

This has been a very dark year for many people in this country and across the world. It has seemed, at times that, the darkness of terrorism and fear might engulf us completely and that we might lose our love of life, our courage, and our hope. But outside Manchester Arena, on Westminster Bridge, Finsbury Park Mosque and other places of darkness people gathered to light candles, tiny symbols of light in the darkness, of hope amid despair. The season of Advent falls at a time when the days are getting shorter and the nights longer but there is light and hope ahead for us all, and that light is Jesus.

At Christmas, we remember and rejoice that Jesus was born into the world to bring God’s love, God’s light and God’s forgiveness by his death and resurrection. John’s gospel tells us that his shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. When darkness comes close to us, let us remember Jesus presence with us and that with him the darkness did not, will not and cannot overcome us.

The Rev Shanthi Thompson, Staveley, Ings and Kentmere