Christmas in Wenceslas Square, Prague (above photo by Karelj – Wikipedia). A reminder of Good King Wenceslas of the carol we sing, who showed Christmas kindness to that poor peasant gathering winter fuel on The Feast of Stephen.

Immanuel – God with us

I am challenged by this stirring poem, a mother’s eye view, of the very real birth of Christ into an inhospitable and unwelcoming world. With a mother’s foresight, like Mary herself, she looks ahead to what is to come as the child grows:

In sleep his infant mouth works in and out.
He is so new, his silk skin has not yet
been roughed by plane and wooden beam
nor, so far, has he had to deal with human doubt.

He is in a dream of nipple found,
of blue-white milk, of curving skin
and, pulsing in his ear, the inner throb
of a warm heart’s repeated sound.

His only memories float from fluid space.
So new he has not pounded nails, hung a door
broken bread, felt rebuff, bent to the lash,
wept for the sad heart of the human race

‘Kenosis’ By the modern North American poet Luci Shaw

When talking to children most parents and knowledgeable adults will try to squat down or sit at the child’s level to make eye to eye contact with a smiling face. God had to bend and squat down at the first Christmas to talk with us human beings, as this lovely prayer from Uganda so beautifully illustrates:

‘Blessed are you, O Christ Child,
that your cradle was so low that the shepherds,
poorest and simplest of earthly people,
could yet kneel beside you, and look,
level-eyed, into the face of God.‘

By a Ugandan Christian (Quoted in a Church Mission Society prayer leaflet)

In the last post we looked into the vastness of the Universe made by our Creator. Yet, wonder of wonders, because of Christmas, we can ‘look level-eyed into the face of God’. But in order to do so we will have to kneel like those shepherds and feel with humble gratitude those tears that Jesus ‘wept for the sad heart of the human race‘.

In Jesus, there is hope for our sad world.

Wishing you a real Christmas of humble joy and hope.

Thank you so much for following my blog over the year. Though I usually only write about Britain, it’s encouraging to have visitors from many other countries. You are always so welcome here.

– Richard