Here is the story I told at our morning service on Christmas Day in place of a sermon.
What can I give him?
And a couple of Christmas Carols from our choir - Silent Night and Away in a Manger (Arranged by Eric Harvey, with Grace Prescott as soloist.)
And below are some special prayers and thoughts for Christmastide, some old and some new, to help you reflect on God's gift of love. May we all have a peaceful and blessed Christmastide.
PRAYERS AND REFLECTIONS FOR CHRISTMASTIDE
God did not send into our tormented world
technical aid,
Gabriel with a group of experts.
He did not send food,
not discarded clothes of angels,
even less did he extend long term loans.
Rather he came himself,
born in a stable, starved in the desert
naked on a cross.
And sharing with us he became our bread
and suffering with us he became our joy.
Anon.
Blessed art thou, O Christmas Christ,
that thy cradle was so low that shepherds,
poorest and simplest of earthly folk,
could yet kneel beside it,
and look level-eyed into the face of God.
Anon.
O God, the source of all insight,
whose coming was revealed to the nations
not among men of power but on a woman’s lap;
give us grace to seek you
where you may be found,
that the wisdom of this world may be humbled
and so we may discover your unexpected joy,
through Jesus Christ.
Janet Morley
How I admire the Lord,
The Creator of the world!
He wanted to be born
Not surrounded by gold and silver
But just on a piece of this earth.
St Jerome , died 420
God’s Son became human, so that human beings might have their home in God.
Hildegard of Bingen 1098-1179
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