Christmas Eve
Almighty God, you make us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of your Son Jesus Christ: grant that, as we joyfully receive him as our redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold him when he shall come to be our judge; who is alive and reigns. . . Common Worship.

Christmas Night
Eternal God, who made this most holy night to shine with the brightness of your one true light: bring us, who have known the revelation of that light on earth, to see the radiance of your heavenly glory; through Jesus Christ. . . Common Worship

Christmas Day
Almighty God, you have given us your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin: grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ. . . Common Worship

FOR those of us who are “cradle Christians”, the story of Christmas was our earliest introduction to the Lord Jesus. As very young children, we perhaps heard the story of Bethlehem at our mother’s knee. Then, at infant school, we delighted to use crayons to depict the Holy Family in the stable, with attendant angels and shepherds. Best of all were those richly apparelled and gloriously crowned kings from the East.

It came as a surprise, therefore, later to learn that, for the first generation of converts to Christ, the story of Bethlehem was unknown. Neither St Paul, whose letters make up most of the New Testament, nor the authors of the Gospels of Mark and John referred to what the Church later came to regard as the fundamental icon of the incarnation: Christ’s birth at Bethlehem.

In the Early Church, the festival of Christ’s nativity was secondary in historical terms to Easter. It was not until the fourth century that 25 December received general recognition as the date on which to celebrate Christ’s birth. By then, the Western Church, which looked to Rome, and the Eastern Church, which looked to Constantinople, had borrowed from each other’s traditions, creating — in the West, at least — a continuous narrative from Christmas to Epiphany. Our calendar then acquired its familiar markers: 25 December (Christmas), 6 January (Epiphany), and 2 February (The Presentation of our Lord in the Temple).

THE collects provided for Christmas in Common Worship are drawn ultimately from Latin sacramentaries, dating from the fourth to the eighth centuries. The one for Christmas Eve (see above) strikes a happy note with its references to our joy and gladness. It first appeared in the Gelasian Sacramentary for use in Advent, which explains the allusion to the Second Coming. The language lifts our minds from the scene at Bethlehem to thoughts of redemption and judgement. Cranmer used it as one of the Christmas collects in his 1549 Book of Common Prayer, but later omitted it. The Alternative Service Book (1980) restored it, as did Common Worship (2000).

In recognition of the growing popularity of the Christmas midnight eucharist, the Liturgical Commission has provided us with a collect for use on Christmas night. It derives from the Latin Missa in gallicantu (mass at cockcrow) in the Sarum Use.

Also showing the influence of its Latin origin is the collect for Christmas Day. It is based on the one in the Book of Common Prayer, which, in turn, echoes a collect from our pre-Reformation past. This, the last of the three collects set for Christmas, with its reference to “adoption and grace”, is closer to the prologue of the Gospel according to St John than the homely narrative of St Luke.

FOR the earliest mention of the incarnation in the New Testament, we need to turn to St Paul; for it is he who gives us the first written evidence of Christ’s nativity, which he does without mentioning the stable at Bethlehem. As he was writing some time between the years 54 and 63 (scholars are divided on the exact date), his reference to the nativity predates those in Luke and Matthew:

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2.6-11).

THIS developed Christology, which is present in the concise language of the Christmas collects, informs the other texts that are basic to the Prayer Book, as well as Common Worship. Among so many examples, the most obvious are the Nicene Creed, the Te Deum, the Gloria, and the Eucharistic Prayer in all its manifold variety of forms. In all of these, it is the fact of God’s incarnation that is proclaimed, not the circumstances. Bethlehem gets no mention.

This is also true of the collect for the Sunday after Christmas Day:

1st Sunday of Christmas
Almighty God, who wonderfully created us in your own image and yet more wonderfully restored us through your Son Jesus Christ: grant that, as he came to share in our humanity, so we may share the life of his divinity; who is alive. . . Common Worship

This collect derives from the Leonine Sacramentary, and was the collect for the Octave of Christmas in the Sarum Use. For some reason, Cranmer did not use it in the 1549 Prayer Book, but the Liturgical Commission has included it as one of the collects provided in Common Worship for the First Sunday of Christmas. It echoes Genesis 1.26: “Then God said, “Let us make humankind [Adam] in our own image,” thus recognising God’s incarnation in Christ as the pivot and turning point in the story of the human race.

The Revd Adrian Leak is a retired priest. His most recent publication is After the Order of Melchizedek: Memoirs of an Anglican priest (Book Guild, 2022).