A Christmas prayer

Our Father, we come to you this Christmas day seeking to be mindful of your most precious gift to us. Though world would seek to drown him out, it cannot. By his continuing work in the lives of your people, the gift that is your Son still brings you glory today.

Lord, help us this day to remember how the darkness was once long ago pierced by the cry of a baby on an otherwise obscure night in an otherwise obscure village in Palestine.

Help us this day to be mindful of that same cry, which thirty-three years later would pierce the darkness that sin had cast upon all our hearts.

And help us this day to never forget that this is the same cry that will in a day yet to come that will once and for all put an end to sin and death and bring your people home.

Help us to set our hearts and fix our eyes and ears upon Jesus, in whose name we pray.

Amen.