Brothers and Sisters At this time of year, with Advent calendars being opened and Christmas trees going up in at least some homes, with early Christmas celebrations vying with Advent we are perhaps more aware than any other time of the cost of everything. The presents, the food, the crackers, the extras, the parties and the staff lunches, the Christmas cards or the notice on Facebook to tell all your friends that you are not sending cards this year but have instead purchased a flock of chickens or a goat for a family being supported by Oxfam. It all costs, and we complain or at the very least note, that the cost of living is going up and up.

The cost of a life in the time of Jesus was 30 pieces of silver – that’s why Judas was paid that much, 1600 years earlier in the time of Joseph, his brothers sold him for 20 shekels of silver. A shekel was worth around 60p and a piece of silver was around £18 so over 1600 years, price had gone up from about £12 to about £540. When we look at the lives of so many of our brethren who are being impacted by deforestation, by flooding, by lack of water, we may want to say that the cost of living has indeed gone up, but the cost of a life has never been lower.

Over the next few weeks, as we consider how to celebrate with and for our own loved ones, we can perhaps also wonder about how to speak to the value of every life in this world. It may be that we choose to shop from one place rather than another, or to adopt an animal or support a village or one of the other myriad ways in which we can try to make a difference. Perhaps most importantly though, we can in our own thinking and conversation remember that all people matter. God made all of us in his own image and that must mean something more than just a saying – it must mean that we treat all people, even those we don’t know, as important.

During this first week in Advent, we remember that the first candle is associated with God’s people and with hope. As God’s people we hope for the promised return of Christ, but also the coming ever nearer of the perfecting of God’s kingdom. A perfection that can surely only be when all people matter as much to us as they do to God.

God bless you this Advent-tide.

Vicci