We were told by our midwife that babies always seem to come at night, and so it was with our first baby; 2.35 a.m. on a frosty February morning. It seemed strange that while our lives were being so completely changed, everyone was asleep. But what happened that first Christmas night didn’t just change the lives of Mary and Joseph – it changed the whole world. God met humanity, earth met heaven and the hopes and fears of all the years were met in the birth of Jesus that night. It was so momentous the morning stars proclaimed the holy birth, and yet it happened so silently that humanity slept through it all.

"How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given! So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven"

This is how God always works; silently, invisibly. His coming to us is so quiet and his knock on the door of our lives so gentle that we often do not hear it because we are so busy and noisy with our own concerns. There is so much pressure and rushing in the run up to Christmas that I love that feeling of stillness and hushed expectancy on Christmas Eve. Perhaps then we might hear that knocking – not with our ears but with our hearts. If we open the door and invite God to be part of our lives then Christ is born in us. What happened that first Christmas day, happens to us today.

"No ear may hear his coming; but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in."

This Christmas we are remembering a birth and we are waiting for a birth. If you have a sense, however vague, that in some mysterious way what happened that night in Bethlehem 2000 years ago has got something to with us, here and now, then this is your prayer this Christmas:

"O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray; cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today."

A.R.T.