How to hold onto hope this Christmas

The hope of advent seems a long way off against the backdrop of war, famine and disaster. That’s where lament comes in, says Tim Farron MP

I’ve got my Christmas tree, I’ve put the lights up and we have, as a family, decided it is now acceptable to watch Christmas films. We’ve already had weeks of tedious controversy over the content of various Christmas adverts and then, last week, we had a deluge of incredibly festive weather that brought with it chaos and hardship to many of my communities in Cumbria. A reminder that some things can look magical at first sight, but be less so in reality.

Advent is thrilling, but what it points us to is a reality that is epic beyond measure. It’s a story rooted in eyewitness testimony. Here, we are talking about hard history, not a feel-good festive fable.