Very moving reflection from Rt. Rev'd. Stephen Cottrell...
One of my best Christmas memories is from the church in Chichester where I was the parish priest. Because the building was so small, and because every other available inch of space was needed for chairs, we used to put the crib underneath the altar.
One Christmas morning, about halfway through the service, a little girl, Miriam, toddled up to the front of the church. She can only have been about two or three at the time. For several minutes she stood before the crib, gazing intently at the figures. Then, very carefully, so as not to wake the baby, she stepped inside and sat down. And as people looked at the crib that Christmas, as well as the shepherds and the angels and the ox and the ass, and Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, they saw Miriam. She sat there for the rest of the service, content to have become part of the story.
She was the best Christmas sermon I have ever experienced. I think this is also the best example I can muster of the how to get ready for Christmas this year.
STOP
* Now that all the preparations are done – or at least now that there is no more time for any more preparing – stop, and find a place of quiet.
* Be still. Get inside the story. Sit down. Make yourself smaller. In your imagination go to Bethlehem. Bend beneath the lintel of the door of the stable and come in.
* God comes to us in the vulnerability of a child. We can come to him in stillness. We can find him in silence. And Christmas can be put back together. And enjoyed.
Do Nothing Christmas is Coming. By Stephen Cottrell. Published by Church House Publishing 2008
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