Christmas worship resources Here you will find everything you need to reflect and worship with us during the Christmas period, from prayers for individual use to sermon notes for your church.

Christmas prayers 2013 for individual use Prayer before opening presents In the opening of presents and the delight in what we find inside we remember those who will not find joy today or who mourn the loss of someone to share them with help us to be a gift and a blessing to others as we celebrate Immanuel, God with us. Prayer before Christmas dinner In the bang of crackers and the spread of dinner with all the trimmings we remember those who labour hard for little reward or who will go to bed hungry tonight help us to be generous in sharing what we have as we celebrate Immanuel, God with us. Prayer before a Christmas walk In the breathing of cold air and the need to walk off a Christmas dinner we remember those who are unable to go out through illness or disability or age help us remember to pop in to say hello as we celebrate Immanuel, God with us.

Christmas Grace For the year that is past its joys and its tears we give thanks that you have been God with us. For this Christmas in feasting and celebrating we give thanks that you are God with us. For the year that is to come in our hopes and dreams we give thanks that you will be God with us.

Christmas prayers 2013 for use in a service Prayer of Approach

Prayers of gratitude and concern

God, giver of life, on this day let us not forget you. Give us steadfast love towards those who depend on us.

‘The soles of his feet have touched the earth. All hail, let there be joy’. (Carmina Gadelica, 56, p71.)

God our maker, make us laugh with joy for birth, that we may never take its miracle for granted. Mothering God, who loves us with a tender love, still our restless hearts to rest in you. God who is both Father and Son to us, accompany us through our fear, that we may be practical bearers of hope and courage to others. Creator Spirit, visit us with your divine imagination, that we may recognise you even when you come in unexpected ways. God, midwife of our lives, pull us into life and breathe new spirit into us, that our song of joy may break forth with gladness.

On this Christmas Day, we gather with friends around us, and with sisters and brothers across the world, to hear good news for all the people. In the hungry places, where want and worry fill the days, even there, a child is born, and so we join the angels to proclaim: Do not be afraid. All hail, let there be joy In the darkest places, where chaos and violence are all around, even there, a child is born, and so we join the angels to proclaim: Peace on earth All hail, let there be joy In the lonely places, where loss and anguish haunt the heart, even there, a child is born, and so we join the angels to proclaim: Glory to God All hail, let there be joy O Saviour Christ, come to the hungry places, bringing hope, come to the dark places, bringing justice, come to the lonely places, bringing love. come again in Bethlehem, come in us, and through us, and even despite us. That all may join the angels’ song. Glory to God in the highest heaven. All hail, let there be joy.

SERMON NOTES: Christmas Eve Watchnight sermon ISAIAH 9:2-7, LUKE 2:1-14 Do not be afraid

Peace on Earth

‘Do not be afraid’, proclaimed the angel to the shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night in the Bethlehem fields. ‘Do not be afraid’. It’s one of the great Scriptural refrains. And there can be few women about to give birth, especially for the first time, who have not felt a degree of fear – of the pain to come, that she will come through it safely, and above all, that her baby will be healthy.

It is precisely because of their contemporary resonances that the Christmas scriptures can make for uncomfortable listening. How shall we hear Isaiah 9, speaking of dividing captured wealth, of defeated nations, of lifting the burden of oppression and exploitation; how shall we imagine the boots of the invading army and their blood-stained clothing?

All new mothers need that encouragement: ‘do not be afraid’. There are so many women in the world who, like Mary, have to give birth in conditions that are unsafe, unsanitary, unassisted; whose pregnancies have not been supported by good antenatal care; so many babies in the womb for whom birth is a highly dangerous venture into an unwelcoming world, just because they are poor, or born into war-zones, or are at risk of HIV transmission. We believe that fullness of life is the divine intention; and so it matters that our hopes and prayers are given practical expression. Ensuring that birth is a safe and secure experience for both mother and child is a mark of faithfulness to the God who holds all mothers and children precious, and sacrifices for them, and longs for the new creation already happening. Christian Aid partner Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) is one of the organisations seeking to bring new life in a very difficult environment for health. It has cited the doctors’ Hippocratic Oath as one of its guiding principles: ‘I will keep them from harm and injustice.’ And this is important because, if you are sick in the occupied Palestinian territory, ‘harm’ and ‘injustice’ may well be what you could face. PHRI is an Israeli organisation working to protect the right to health for all. It sees itself primarily as an advocacy and campaigning organisation, which also provides primary medical services as a way of lessening some of the negative impacts of the occupation on Palestinian health, keeping in touch with the situation on the ground, and, importantly, bringing Israelis and Palestinians together in peaceful interactions. In a situation of immense fear, mistrust and insecurity, its barrier-breaking work gives new meaning to the angel’s message ‘do not be afraid.’

How shall people hear Isaiah 9 in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how shall they read of censuses and mangers in Bethlehem, Bethlehem of checkpoints and barbed wire, Bethlehem under occupation now as it was then? Our sacred scriptures are not simple or safe or capable of only one interpretation, only one truth. They are complex and dangerous and full of different, sometimes opposite meanings, and we have a habit of finding in them the truth that suits our own interests. But life is complex and, for many people, dangerous, and we negotiate our way all the time through different truths, and hear the same story told from a thousand viewpoints. ‘Peace on Earth, goodwill to all’: we might hear this message as a warm blanket of false optimism, pretty words and pretty stories to wrap around us, shutting out the reality of violence, injustice, war and huge agony. Sometimes we could cry, as Jeremiah did thousands of years ago…‘why do you cry, “peace, peace”, when there is no peace’ (Jeremiah 6:14). But perhaps there is a different way to understand the message of the angels, which is, after all, a message for us also. We can offer up our penitence for our complicity in over-consumption; our passionate prayers for those whose Christmas will be spent lonely or bereft, or sick or anxious, in prison or in exile, or in danger or on a battlefield or under bombing; our outrage for those whose lives have been violently ended. Yet we can also offer our gratitude for the care and generosity it brings out in so many, respect for the courage of people who refuse to let adverse circumstances destroy the human instinct to feast and be joyful, sheer wonder at the fact that the dream and the hope of a more just and loving world refuses to die in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that the star still leads us on. In 2011, through the support of Christian Aid to PHRI, Waleed Badir was one of the children who received a hearing aid. His mother, Rufaida Rasheed Badir, reports this year that the transformation in his life has been profound. She says, ‘He is communicating much, much better with people around him all of the time. It has

changed his personality a lot. Now he is standing out much more. He’s getting over his shyness; he’s far less shy. He can speak and so many times he stands out and says certain things. I found it surprising because suddenly his whole personality changed.’ Waleed is only one child, but the new life he has found is repeated whenever the children of the West Bank are assisted in gaining access to the medical treatment and follow-up care that they need. Rufaida also says: ‘For a community living under occupation, the resources are very minimal; especially if you have a child with a hearing disability. The only way that you can help him is to either go to Israel and that, of course, costs a lot of money and you need to get the right permits, and [go through] all of the bureaucratic procedures. The other option is to go to Amman, Jordan and that costs a lot of money, and a lot of people can’t afford it. So the fact that PHRI comes here shows that it is in touch with the community and understands what the community needs. I see how it has changed my life and my family’s life, and it keeps changing the lives of many around because it’s not just about giving them the hearing aid but also doing the follow up. Also it costs a lot of money if you need to get it fixed and if it doesn’t get fixed right on time then it can affect the child’s development. So I am very, very thankful for the fact that [PHRI] is here and does this. It gives a sense that there is some hope left.’ Glory to God As we seek to find meaning and hope and justice in a dangerous world, we can be glad that the star leads to Bethlehem, where a baby is being born into great danger in a shed in a place under military occupation. We can be glad to pray for children and soldiers and healers, imperfect families and extravagant gifts, hard journeys, mysterious messages and life-changing meetings. Above all, we can be glad that the birth of a baby in Bethlehem is a sign, not of retreat into Christmas Disneyland, but of the life of God placed in human hands, not escaping from history but entering into it. The word of life and hope and love made flesh in Jesus speaks in and through all our compromised realities, all our frailties, all our failures, all the difficulties and complexities of life. If it does not speak in these, and if we do not speak it to these, then it does not speak at all. But the word speaks, in Bethlehem and across the world. It says: ‘You are a human being. You are loved and precious.’ It says: ‘We must be human’. It says ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven. God is great.’

SERMON NOTES: Epiphany Service ISAIAH 60:1-6, MATTHEW 2:1-12 Pull back the curtain on Bethlehem’s stable. Strip off the tinsel and peer through the dark. Look at the child who’s a threat, yet in danger. Homeless and helpless, he first makes his mark. Love’s the secret, love’s the secret. Love is God’s cradle, God’s table, God’s cup and God’s ark.* The Feast of the Epiphany on the 6 January, traditionally the 12th day of Christmas in the season of the Incarnation, is a time of gifts. It celebrates: • the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ • the visit of the magi (or three kings, or wise men) to the baby Jesus, and their bringing of gifts • the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan river, remembered by Eastern Christians and seen as his manifestation to the world as the Son of God. In many parts of the world, Epiphany is marked by feasting, special food, different local customs and the giving of gifts (in some places, the gifts that we in the West exchange on Christmas Day are given at Epiphany). And in the midst of the greyness and gloom of Northern Hemisphere winter days, we peer through the tinsel and tawdriness of so much of our commercial Christmas to find the precious jewel at the centre; the nativity, that birth, that magical story of mystery and angels and starlight and song that glows through time and space to lighten our darkness, to warm our hearts, to dazzle our senses. And so we should, because it is indeed infinitely precious, that moment of love and self-sacrifice and cherishing, that moment of freely chosen obedience and risk and hope, that moment of God speaking. Indeed, the glory of the Lord has risen upon us. (Isaiah 60:1) But we should not forget that the precious jewel of the Incarnation does not sit outside history like a gem in a glass case or a scene in one of the paperweights that children shake. The birth of Jesus took place in a real world of corruption and power-politics and military occupation. It took place in our world. And Mary and Joseph, just as we do, had to struggle with the interface between personal hopes and political struggles. In today’s gospel, we can see just how much is happening, how much is going on around this insignificant Jewish couple, not just in the birth but in its aftermath. Strange visitors travel bearing gifts, somewhat unsuitable for a baby, but well intentioned. But the outcome of their journeying was something different; a brutal military repression set in motion unintentionally by the foreigners whose well-meaning

arrival in the wrong place aroused suspicions and created new dangers. We call them wise and I had always thought of them that way. Respecting the pilgrimage of anyone who sees a star and follows it to his discomforting being prepared to change. And yet in following their star, the star that was to lead them to enlargement of the soul (their own)… they blundered mightily, and set in train the massacre of many innocents. Naïve and foolish men they were, not wise to go and ask of Herod ‘Where’s your rival, where is he who might unseat you?’ I wonder if, back in their own countries, for all that they themselves were born again, they heard the voice of Rachel weeping for her children refusing to be comforted because they were no more?** And the outcome of that well-intentioned visit was flight into Egypt for Mary, Joseph and Jesus as refugees, asylum-seekers fleeing in fear, political power interfering with the personal hopes of one small family – and a devastating massacre of innocents. These are circumstances with which Christian Aid is, unhappily, all too familiar. They describe many of the humanitarian emergencies we, through our partners, respond to, as we are currently responding in Syria. In this time of gifts, as we celebrate above all the gift of Jesus, God with us, we can be grateful for all the gifts of our lives. And we can give thanks that it is not in spite of the fallible and corruptible events of the world that God acts, but through them; not by standing apart from them but by transforming them. And that the Incarnation, the Word made flesh, is not a political programme or a religious doctrine or a church law, but rather a way, a stance, a decision, a person. It is in that very difficult place where the personal meets the political, where our needs and hopes encounter the needs and hopes of our fellow men and women, that we walk the way, give flesh to the Word, have the opportunity to do what the angels cannot do – change a world of hurt and shame into a world of justice, love and peace. At every moment, Christ seeks to be born in us, just as at every moment, Christ brings us to die and to rise to new life. The gift and the hope of Jesus go beyond optimism into a divine reality in which the means of love are never lost or wasted, and cannot finally be overcome. * John L Bell and Graham Maule, from Wild Goose Songs Vol 1, Wild Goose Publications, 1987. ** Kate Compston, from Bread of Tomorrow, SPCK/Christian Aid, 1992.