This weekend our church family, on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will come and go through the sanctuary for the glorious singing of carols, to hear of a most remarkable birth with hope in our hearts, and with deep appreciation for the light of God that shines in the world.
As you celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ with your church family, your family and you friends, I offer this prayer, which I wrote some years ago for Christmas Day:
O God, you brooded over the chaos and ordered it.
You sent prophets to proclaim the Coming One,
God with us, Emmanuel.
In the trust of a young father,
in the womb of a young mother,
you filled the whole earth with hope.
Jesus Christ, our Savior, we have come from near and from far
to worship you.
Out of our own darkness we have walked into
the awesome glory of your light.
We remember that once we had no room for you.
Today we bear our gifts of thankful hearts
for you first came to us.
In this terror-filled, wonderful world,
you have so loved us as to become one with us -
in the body of a baby, so tender and soft,
so humble, so human.
We behold you and adore you.
We bow our heads before you
and pray with thanksgiving,
“Lord, how we greet Thee! Now in flesh appearing!”
Our Savior, our Christ, our Child, and our God!
