'O Holy Child of Bethlehem...' - Advent Day 20

            O Holy Child of Bethlehem

            Descend to us, we pray;

            Cast out our sin and enter in,

            Be born in us today.

Nostalgia is, to its core, bittersweet. A longing for something that was, but is not any more. “Do you remember when…”; “What would it have been like to be there when …?” A present detachment from the event is a requisite for true nostalgia. Indeed, we need not have ever experienced that which we long for in order to know nostalgia for it.

The first Christmas seems a prime candidate for such emotions, separated as we are by two millennia from those glorious events. And yet, it cannot be! There are two reasons for this – firstly, the promises of Christ heralded by the first Christmas are still here to be taken today. Secondly, the hope of Bethlehem is still to be perfectly fulfilled in an age to come. Therefore, we are not detached from the first Christmas, nor is it ‘not any more’.

The final verse from ‘O little town of Bethlehem’ recognises our present connection to the first Christmas through earnestly pleading for Jesus to ‘be born is us today’. We need Jesus to cast out our sin, to be present with us and to be preparing us for His final advent. There could not be a better prayer to pray this Christmas time!

O Little Town of Bethlehem - words by Phillips Brooks