The Christmas Eve scene in the gospels of St Matthew and St Luke paints a picture that is recognisable all over the world. It’s on most Christmas cards. What is so beautiful and so memorable about it as a picture, however unreal it may seem to some?
This tableau shows a world where all of creation is enjoying a moment of deep peace. The earth, the night sky stars, the various animals, the people of very different kinds from very different places, are momentarily at one in a moment of profound contemplation. All this variety, all this range of life and experience, seem in this one sacred moment to be in some kind of mysterious harmony. As if they were moving and pausing to some kind of silent music that flows through them all and inspires them all, to dance with the creator of all things. And remarkably this portrait is painted against a background of terror, insecurity and prejudice.
Nevertheless, the people in the scene centre themselves on a new and transformative life, a baby of destiny whose life, wisdom, death and rising again will offer the world a new kind of hope in spite of the evidence in the world to the contrary.
This picture is of course a fleeting image in our fraught and transient lives, and in our conflicted and peace elusive world. But the image is a sacred one that can in some mysterious way be found deep inside us, as the image of God in us, motivating us to make the picture more real, more visible, and more permanent in everyday life.
Every time a St John shuttle driver cares for someone by the roadside and wishes them well , every time a St John cadet learns how to help someone heal , every time a St John ambulance team saves a life , every time someone in the St John Eye Hospital sees again, the meaning and the message of the Christmas scene gets repeated and glimpsed , however briefly. And we have reason to think again that hope is possible in the midst of pain and despair.
We are in fact called in our Order, which is a sacred mission, to be the presence of this Christmas scene; hope in our own neighbourhood. And if our context seems unlikely for this, remember that so was the original one in Bethlehem. If it could happen there, however briefly as a foretaste of what is possible, then it can happen anywhere. It has to if we are to grow into the fullness of the stature of Christ and bring in the new creation for which he gave his life and blood.
Wishing you the deep peace of Christmas Eve wherever you are. You are the place where God chooses to dwell.
Sir David Moxon KNZM GCStJ
Prelate
December 2025
