The Sunday school lesson.

It probably happened in a cave, and most of those present at the scene were simple folk. Farmers, carpenters, shepherds. Men who worked with their hands, women who had long known the draining hardships of common life. Others too, of course. Strangers who wore exquisite robes and who held precious gifts.

To present to a tiny baby born of a persecuted people in a troubled land. His mother and step-father spoke Aramaic, a hybrid language that was itself the result of oppression. The spoken Hebrew of their ancestors had been largely lost amongst the ordinary people. As had been many of their dreams.

Even now as a tiny baby He had enemies. A mighty ruler slaughtering little boys in the hope of killing Him. Deeper, darker forces vomiting their fear and disgust at the thought of pure light suddenly let loose on the world.

Poor, vulnerable and despised. Yet His birth changed the world and gave hope and meaning to everything, to everyone.

Certainly to George. He was only nineteen years old when in 1942 he first saw action in North Africa. This night was a particularly brutal one and the Germans were closing in fast. A shell landed close to the field gun on which he was working. So close, he thought, and so loud. But why could he not feel anything, and why was he so cold when the gun and the work normally made him so hot?

Suddenly words spun through the fog that seemed to engulf him and he realised that people were shouting at him. His best friend, Frank, was asking him something. Over and over and over again. Then the words made sense. "You've been hit, you've been hit. Can you hear me?"

George looked down to where his legs should have been. No pain, no fear really, just a strange clarity. "Frank, you must do something for me, you have to do something for me." "Anything," his friend replied. "Go to Mr. Norbert Johnson in Parkdale in Toronto. Norbert Johnson. Tell him, tell him that now it all makes sense. It all makes complete sense. Now I understand and I know it is all true. Please buddy, please do it."

"Of course I will," Frank replied, and held his friend close to him. And then George died. In the middle of a vast desert, a very long way from home.

Frank arrived back in Canada several months later on a rusty old troop-carrier. After visiting his parents he took a train to Toronto.

He walked around Parkdale for almost an hour before he found the right address. A knock on the door. No answer. Another knock, harder this time. He heard movement. Slowly a figure approached the door and then opened it. An elderly man, bending with the burden of the years.

"Mr. Norton Johnson?" "Yes, I am." "Mr. Johnson, I'm not really very good at this, but I have some news, some bad news, and a message to give to you."

The two men went into the house and sat down. "I'll get straight to the point. George Petersfield was my friend. He was killed in action earlier this year. Before he died he insisted that I see you and tell you that 'it all made sense now, that he understood and that it was all true'. That was all, just that."

The old man's face became pale. He asked for the name to be repeated. "George Petersfield. He said it all made sense, that it was all true. Said I had to tell you."

At which the old man began to cry. "Yes, I remember young Georgie Petersfield," he said, mopping the tears that bisected his craggy face. "I remember the little guy. I didn't think he listened to a word I said, didn't think I achieved anything with the rascal."

A pause, and a fighting back of more tears. "God forgive me, I thought that for all these years I had been a failure. You see, I was Georgie's Sunday School teacher. I taught Sunday School."

And a long way away George smiled, and felt a strong, reassuring arm around his shoulders. The arm of a man who was once a tiny, vulnerable baby. Merry Christmas.

Michael Coren can now be booked for public speaking