There’s a Scottish  gritter that has been christened ‘Wee Freeze’. Well, I say ‘christened’ but surely everyone knows the Wee Frees don’t go in for that sort of carry-on. We’ve never been much for laughing either. After all, mirth may lead to dancing, and dancing to goodness knows what else. (The reason we don’t know what else is largely because Wee Frees have no imagination, Calvin not having been very keen on them either).

This has obviously led to hilarity about the gritter not going out on Sundays. Of course, if the comedians really knew their Wee Frees, they’d actually be expecting it to appear twice on the Sabbath, and again on a Wednesday night. In fact, if Wee Freeze was a Lewis-based gritter, it would be doubly useful, being more than likely out both ends.

All in all, though, we are regarded as joyless miseries, however frequently we’re out. This perception is compounded at this time of year by our failure as a denomination to officially mark Christmas. It’s not for the reasons you might think, either – we were against it long before the invention of tinsel and crackers. I hate to blame everything on Calvin but, well, he was generally opposed to the church doing anything for which there wasn’t a specific biblical warrant.

As a child, I saw lovely Anglican services on the tv (yet it never exploded into flames) and couldn’t understand why some churches were all about the choirs and candles, while we resolutely averted our eyes in the Free Church. I asked at least once and was told that it was because Christ’s death was the crucial thing, the thing he asked us to commemorate. My childish logic answered this with, ‘but he couldn’t have died if he hadn’t been born first’.

And, you know, I wasn’t wrong. Not only was I not wrong, but in fact I was treading unwittingly on a profound truth. He came into this world in order to die. Christmas sometimes glosses over this, or airbrushes it out, opting instead for a narrative that says this baby’s birth brought the world hope and peace . . . Well, yes, indeed it did – but the fulfilment of those things depended entirely on his willingness to die.

He died, not just in the literal sense either. Christ was entitled to glory and honour; Christ IS glory and honour – but made himself of no reputation for our sake. His humble birth, his humble life, the fact that he really was despised and rejected, homeless and, when the chips were down, friendless, all point to a man who truly sacrificed himself in life and in death. 

I am trying very hard this Advent to find that Christlikeness in myself. It’s sadly lacking, and I know it. Recently, a passive-aggressive letter I received suggested that what I write publicly shows me in a better light than my actual lived conduct. Yes, I know. In fact, I try to acknowledge this in all that I DO write. It is not my intention to portray myself as perfect – who would believe it, and what would it prove if they did? 

Being a Christian is not all about my conduct, though I should keep a check on that, without doubt. It’s about who I trust, who I place my faith in, who I look to for strength when I’m failing, or when strangers write only to tell me how bad I am.

This week, my thoughts for Advent are being broadcast on Radio nan Gàidheal. I have spoken about the waiting that is at the heart of Christmas, yes, but also of the Christian life more generally. We wait, not as the shepherds or the wise men waited all those years ago, but as those who know the Saviour for whom we are keeping vigil. 

He is making his way back to us. We know this because we know him, and he has promised. I take comfort in my waiting that he doesn’t expect to find me ‘a perfect Christian’, but an earnest one, whose whole hope is founded on him.

That, I can promise, I am. And so I say, ‘O come, o come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel’.