Tuesday 2 January 2018

Christmas Day

We have journeyed through Advent together. We have remembered the 
pregnant waiting of Christmas and the hope still to come of Peace on 
Earth. 
We wait with the poor, with the homeless, the refugees. 
So we light this candle for all those who wait for God's coming. 
God is a God of darkness and of light. 
We have heard again the cry of John the Baptist, and the call to 
justice which cost him his life as it does others throughout the world 
today. 
And we have reflected on the choice of God to use a young woman as the 
vehicle for the divine plan. 
And so today we remember through the symbol of presents, the gift of 
Christ to the world. 
And the focus of this journey centres on a baby and as so often they 
do, that baby becomes a vehicle of hope. 
So the story of Christmas is that hope is brought into being, a hope 
which grounds itself in love. So that the child in the playground crying is 
comforted, and the old lady who thinks that life is not worth living experiences 
love and finds a reason for living. 
And so Christ is not born today in a stable but as a small light in us, a light 
which gives hope, hope to the hopeless and love to the unloved, a light that 
will never go out because it has an eternal fuel. 
Here is our call, our responsibility this Christmastide and all through the year. 
God encourages us to face the powerful, to protect the vulnerable and the 
needy. God challenges us to see his face in every stranger. The Prince of 
Peace calls us to look away from the comfortable and to see the suffering and 
terror in our world. Christmas is a time not just of looking in and being with our 
families but also of looking out, seeking the family which has been left 
outside,. 
God comes to us in many ways, through prayer, through a dream, through 
someone else, a word in time. 
May this Christmas be a vehicle of hope for us all to feed our spirits and our 
imaginations and to inspire us, with the angel’s message, to bring hope and 
peace on earth. 
And may the God of Hope, the God of Light be with you, and you will know it 
by the peace in your hearts. And of such stuff are dreams made of and of 
such stuff is the journey that as Christians we embark on when we decide to 
truly follow the Light of All Lights. 
This Christmas choose to follow the God of the baby born in Bethlehem. 

Winter

Winter

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