Christmas Eve has already begun as I write this. It began for me this morning while listening to BBC Radio 4's Something Understood broadcast at 6.00am. This is a weekly religious broadcast presented by Mark Tully (who lives interestingly in Delhi, India, and is known to the Brothers there) in which he explores a theme using literature, music and recorded interviews.

This morning's theme, appropriately, was: "Who is Jesus?". Tully ranged over a number of answers to this question, beginning with Diarmuid O Murchu's call for the liberation of the person and message of Jesus from dogmas and canonical scriptures and moved on to Marcus Borg. For balance he included an interview with James Alison, a Catholic theologian who resolutely defends the traditional view of the Incarnation and the relevance of dogma in defending the "criterion from elsewhere" that judges human affairs. All very interesting and stimulating stuff at that hour of the morning.

My suspicion is that Mark Tully himself tends toward the more spiritual and mystical interpretation of the Christ-event. I have always been struck by his choice of music, his love of Bach for instance, his featuring of Arvo Paart's hauntingly minimalist protest against soul-destructive atheism, and the beauty of John Tavener's musical exploration of mystical themes in Greek Orthodox spirituality.

It was with Tavener that he ended this morning's programme. Perhaps that is where any confrontation with the experience of Christmas finally arrives, at the mystery of Spirit's on-going presence in the daily incarnational events of our own lives.

One of the poem's cited by Tully this morning was from the English poet, U. A. Fanthorpe, the first female Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1929. The poem is called "This Was the Moment". It is a poem that goes to the heart of ordinariness of what happened in Bethlehem two thousand and six years ago (give or take a few years!).

This Was the Moment
From BC: AD

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future's
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazardly by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven

by U. A. Fanthorpe