Patrick Comerford
Christmas has arrived, and this is Christmas Day. Later this morning, I hope to join the choir of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, at the Christmas Eucharist (9:30 am) and then settle in to a quiet family Christmas day.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 2: 1-20 (NRSVA):
2 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
14 ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
Today’s Reflections:
It is interesting that each Gospel begins to tell its story each in its own unique, different way:
Saint John begins at the beginning, at the very beginning: ‘In the beginning was the word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (John 1: 1).
Saint Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus, generation after generation, with long lists of sometimes unpronounceable names (Matthew 1: 1-17), before he summarises the story of the first Christmas in seven crisp verses … and even then he seems to concentrate more on how Saint Joseph’s fears and suspicions were allayed than on the Christmas story (see Matthew 1: 18-25).
Saint Mark has no Nativity narrative, and has no story of the first Christmas. Instead, he begins his Gospel at the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist in the River Jordan, an event that comes a little later on in the other three Gospels.
Saint Luke begins with a personal explanation to Theophilus of why he is beginning to write the Gospel (Luke 1: 1-4), before moving on to the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1: 5 ff). It takes him a full chapter before he gets to tell the story of the first Christmas (Luke 2: 1-20).
There is a telling, short sentence at the end of this Gospel reading: ‘Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart’ (verse 19).
At the heart of this Gospel narrative is the understanding that things are not always going to work out the way we would like them to. But at the heart of the Gospel story of Christmas is the truth that God is always with us, and that God’s expectations for us, God’s awe and wonder at being in our presence, should be as much a source of mystery as our awe and wonder at being in the presence of God.
When we wrap our presents and gifts in festive colours, and decorate our homes and workplaces with lights and tinsel, it is easy to think we have bundled our fears and despair away – at least for the next week or two. Our popular celebrations of Christmas become comfortable and comforting as we sing carols and try to convince ourselves that ‘all is calm, all is bright.’
Yet all is not calm in our world, in the US, in Russia and Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Europe, in our land or in our economy. Nor is all bright for those who are homeless this Christmas, who live in dark fear of poverty or who dread what the future may hold.
All those well-wrapped, warm and homely celebrations are in danger of forgetting that the first Christmas was one filled with fear and dread. Immediately after the birth of the Christ Child in Bethlehem, the scene in Saint Luke’s account moves to a hillside where shepherds are working at night, in the dark and in the cold, easy prey to wolves, thieves and the cold weather, less valuable than the animals they tend. And the Gospel writers tell us that those poor shepherds are terrified when they see the angelic host.
The initial task of the angels is to calm those fears. Their first words to those frightened shepherds are not ones of call or command, but words to calm them: ‘Fear Not’ … ‘Do not be afraid’ (verse 10).
This Christmas time, when the world is a cold, frightening and uninviting place for many, the first task of the Church must be to bring hope where there is fear, love where there is hatred and no peace, to give rather than receive. The angels’ call to the shepherds to ‘fear not’ is not a platitude or an invitation to piety, but one that is linked with the promise of Good News, the promise that God’s plans for humanity and for creation are brighter than the darkness of their night: ‘Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people’ (Luke 2: 10).
But where is there good news for the homeless, the unemployed, the elderly, the parents of vulnerable children?
Where is the hope of great joy for people around the world denied democracy and human rights, for those who live in poverty and under oppression?
In a thought-provoking column in the New Statesman some years ago [19 December 2017], the Revd Lucy Winkett, the Rector of Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, wrote:
‘This festive season, I find myself musing on the often-repeated thought that “it’s for the children”, and hoping that the estimated 70,000 London primary pupils who go to school hungry children each day, and the estimated 300,000 unaccompanied child refugees in camps across the world, get some of our attention. Especially at the Feast of the Incarnation, when Christians celebrate God becoming real to us in the vulnerability of a baby, but with the light and power and warmth of the sun.’
On a visit to Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, earlier this year, I noticed a slogan: ‘Christ did not come so that we could have church and that more often. He came so we could have life and that more abundantly.’ For many people this Christmas, their principal fear is about life, the apprehension that they do not have the abundances to face the future without fear.
In his poem Christmas, John Betjeman dismisses the commercialisation of Christmas and challenges us to return to the truth of the Christmas message:
And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all …
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
When, in John Betjeman’s words, the ‘Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’,’ we are called not only to hear the story of Christ’s birth, the story of a child born to a couple for whom ‘there was no place’ in Bethlehem, but we are called too to ensure the words ‘Happy Christmas’ are not hollow and meaningless.
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 25 December 2025, Christmas Day):
The theme this week (21 to 27 December 2025) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Love Brings Life in Tanzania’ (pp 12-13). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Imran Englefield, Individual Giving Manager, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 25 December 2025, Christmas Day) invites us to pray:
Lord Jesus, born among us, fill our hearts with joy and hope. Let your love shine brightly in the world, bringing peace to every family and strength to the weary.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
you have given us your only-begotten Son
to take our nature upon him
and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin:
grant that we, who have been born again
and made your children by adoption and grace,
may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God our Father,
whose Word has come among us
in the Holy Child of Bethlehem:
may the light of faith illumine our hearts
and shine in our words and deeds;
through him who is Christ the Lord.
Additional Collect:
Lord Jesus Christ,
your birth at Bethlehem
draws us to kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth:
accept our heartfelt praise
as we worship you,
our Saviour and our eternal God.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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