There is a chorus song that has the line 'Open our eyes Lord, we want to see Jesus' , and as the inevitable build up to the celebration of Christmas grows and grows, this may well be a sentence we could pray each day. 'Open our eyes, Lord we want to see Jesus'.

 
I am sure a great deal of you will have heard ministers remind everybody that the word Christmas begins with the word 'Christ'. And slogans or advertisements in the church press saying 'put  Christ back into Christmas'. And then of course there are the sections in the Christmas card shops earmarking 'religious Christmas cards'. The problem with all these words is that it seems to acknowledge there is a sacred and a secular Christmas celebration and then almost by default implying the sacred and spiritual is better than the secular and physical.

The truth is that Christmas is about the sacred and spiritual, BECOMING secular and physical, as the Gospel according to John records it; 'The word became flesh and dwelt among us'.

Through the cuteness of the nativity plays, the well known words of carols and Christmas songs, and the now traditional Crib and carol services which can end up being good entertainment as well as worship, we need to say this prayer 'Open our eyes Lord we want to see Jesus.

The shepherds on the hillside all those centuries ago saw in that bundle of swaddling clothes not only a tiny helpless baby, but also with their own eyes they saw the Saviour of the world that the angels had told them about.

The Magi from the East saw a star and once they had found the young child Jesus (who by then was living in a house not a stable) they fell down and worshipped him, realising this human being was a king in the heavenly sense and  worthy of their presents and adoration.

Mary cradling her first born son must have wondered with sheer amazement that here she was - feeding the Son of God. What a time to treasure in her heart.

Christmas is a time to treasure and a time for children, so they say, quite right- for we are all children of God and if we are all children of God, then like that bundle wrapped up in swaddling clothes we must all be sacred and secular, not one or the other.

Our sacredness affects what we do with the secular, if we want to see Jesus God will open our eyes. If we see Jesus in the children who are suffering in the world, if we see Jesus in our friends and neighbours, politicians and world leaders how different would the world be? How different would we be? As we move into a new year 2010, perhaps we could pray that we will see our sacredness and our secular, together, being part of God's world, not one against the other.

 Happy Christmas to you all, and I pray that we will all continue to WANT to see Jesus with our own eyes and see the Word that has become flesh and still dwells among us. Amen.