O holy Child of Bethlehem
Image by brushworksbyrford.com on Pinterest
It’s a week to go until Christmas Day! Are your cards written and sent? Have you had a works Christmas party? Hopefully, you have nearly completed your Christmas shopping.
Wherever you go, it seems the air is filled with the ‘classic’ Christmas soundtrack of Wham!, Mariah Carey, Michael Bublé and Slade!
I’m pleased to say that I have done all my Christmas shopping, but not wrapped it yet. Our family does a creative Secret Santa. This year we could only buy from a charity shop.
At first, I was a little daunted, but after visiting a few shops, and searching around, I found some fun and suitable gifts. I really like this idea, as it’s different and we get to support good causes too.
One of the lovely things I get to do this time of the year, is to take Christmas assemblies. Recently I was invited to a school to talk about the real meaning of Christmas.
The hall was packed with excited students. I took my guitar, and we started off singing Jingle Bells. We then played a game, before I played a cartoon video about the birth of Jesus.
I then gave a short talk explaining that the birth of God’s Son is not just a story performed in Nativity plays, or cute images seen on Christmas cards.
Rather it is the moment God broke into our world in a way he had never done before. The effects of Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension are still influencing people today.
On Christmas Eve, in 1865 an Episcopal priest, Phillips Brooks, travelled on horseback from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to visit the place where Jesus was born.
Three years later, he wrote a poem for a Christmas Sunday school service and asked his organist, Lewis Redner, to set it to music. It has become one of the most popular Christmas carols, ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’.
The final verse encapsulates the true meaning of Christmas. Let me encourage you when you hear it, or sing it this Christmastime to make it your personal prayer:
“O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born to us today
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel
O come to us, abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel”
God bless you :)
Gary Bastin - Hope Community Church leader