Christmas Day
Yes, it's short - do I expect complaints on christmas morning? NO.
Christmas morning
You might have felt that the whole week has been building up to this morning – that’s certainly the way it’s been in my household! – but for the modern-day Magi – those who like to watch the stars and planets, the big event this week was the lunar eclipse on Tuesday morning. At about 6.30 in the morning, the moon passed into the shadow of the earth & so for a little while went first a coppery-colour & then quite dark – until reappearing as the relative positions of the earth, moon & sun, shifted.
No, I didn’t get up at 6.30am – but there was some wonderful footage on the BBC website – and a very excited astronomer describing what we could see. He said ‘there’s the moon, a quarter of a million miles away; and you can also see Venus, very brightly – 46 million miles away. And in the opposite half of the sky there’s Saturn, a billion miles away. It’s at a time like this we can see our place in the solar system’.
All those millions and billions make me feel that our place in the solar system is very small and insignificant. It’s at a time like this we can see our place.
But today is Christmas Day – and at a time like this we can see our place in God’s universe.
Isaiah says :
‘Break forth together into singing… for the Lord has comforted his people…and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.’
Meanwhile John describes how the one through whom ‘All things came into being… became flesh and lived among us’. It’s Christmas – and at a time like this we remember that despite the enormity and vastness of the universe and the glory of the God who holds it all in being, we are blessed with a child, in whom we can see all the glory and truth of God.
At a time like this, God comes to us in flesh and blood and bone.
At a time like this, God comes in bread & wine & celebration.
At a time like this – at this time, may we know God with us.
And may we know a Happy and Blessed Christmas. Amen
Christmas morning
You might have felt that the whole week has been building up to this morning – that’s certainly the way it’s been in my household! – but for the modern-day Magi – those who like to watch the stars and planets, the big event this week was the lunar eclipse on Tuesday morning. At about 6.30 in the morning, the moon passed into the shadow of the earth & so for a little while went first a coppery-colour & then quite dark – until reappearing as the relative positions of the earth, moon & sun, shifted.
No, I didn’t get up at 6.30am – but there was some wonderful footage on the BBC website – and a very excited astronomer describing what we could see. He said ‘there’s the moon, a quarter of a million miles away; and you can also see Venus, very brightly – 46 million miles away. And in the opposite half of the sky there’s Saturn, a billion miles away. It’s at a time like this we can see our place in the solar system’.
All those millions and billions make me feel that our place in the solar system is very small and insignificant. It’s at a time like this we can see our place.
But today is Christmas Day – and at a time like this we can see our place in God’s universe.
Isaiah says :
‘Break forth together into singing… for the Lord has comforted his people…and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.’
Meanwhile John describes how the one through whom ‘All things came into being… became flesh and lived among us’. It’s Christmas – and at a time like this we remember that despite the enormity and vastness of the universe and the glory of the God who holds it all in being, we are blessed with a child, in whom we can see all the glory and truth of God.
At a time like this, God comes to us in flesh and blood and bone.
At a time like this, God comes in bread & wine & celebration.
At a time like this – at this time, may we know God with us.
And may we know a Happy and Blessed Christmas. Amen
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