May the Peace and the Beauty of the Christmas Season Bring You Happiness
Now and Throughout the coming New Year 2006.
The colleagues from the Editorial office of the Adventist Press Service APD
Basel/Switzerland

CHRISTMAS PRAYER 2005

When the world was dark and the city was quiet, you came.

You crept in beside us.

And no-one knew.

Only the few who dared to believe

that God might do something different.

Will you do the same this Christmas, Lord?

Will you come into the darkness of today's world, not the friendly darkness as

when sleep rescues us from tiredness, but the fearful darkness in which people

who have stopped believing that war will end or that food will come or that a

government will change or that the Church cares.

Will you come into that darkness

and do something different to save your people from death and despair?

Will you come into the quietness of this city, not the friendly quietness as when

lovers hold hands but the fearful silence when the phone has not rung, the

letter has not come, the friendly voice no longer speaks, the doctor's face

says it all.

Will you come into that darkness,

and do something different,

not to distract, but to embrace your people?

And will you come into the dark corners

and the quiet places of our lives?

We ask this not because we are guilt ridden or want to be, but because the

fullness of our lives depends on us being open and vulnerable to you as you

were to us when you came to us wearing no more than nappies and trusting

human hands to hold their maker

Will you come into our lives

if we open them to you

and do something different?

When the world was dark

and the city was quiet

you came.

You crept in beside us.

Do the same this Christmas, Lord

Do the same this Christmas

Amen.