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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with The Rt Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells, Bishop of Dorking

Good morning.

I hope you had an enjoyable day yesterday – even if it wasn’t quite a normal Christmas. In my household it was simpler, humbler and more outdoors. The house got tracked with mud from our boots… How very apt, I suddenly realised - a little bit more like the original Christmas. Shouldn’t that be the one we call normal?

The first people ever to celebrate Christmas were a bubble of shepherds tracking mud from their boots, into a stable that was full of mud. As to simpler, humbler, more outdoors: that describes it pretty well. The shepherds were humble folk who lived simply. Their lives were lived entirely outdoors - in the fields a good distance from town - because others shunned them. Not the people you might expect to gather: not religious, not educated and not ‘safe’. In today’s terms we might call them vulnerable – obliged to self-isolate, lest their lifestyle and uncleanness be contagious. Yet these are the ones who get the news, who get invited, who get to the party.

So, mud and boots is just what Christmas is all about! At the incarnation God does not get precious and does not keep distance from the mire of our world. The pristine Word is made earthly Flesh! In the promise of a Messiah people expected a figure of power, owning a palace, riding a steed, dressed to impress: but God chose it simpler, humbler and more outdoors: metaphorically speaking to put on his boots, and not shun the mud of our world.

Lord God at Christmas despite the mire of our world, you came to us - that we might come to you. Open the doors of our hearts to live simply and humbly – and like the shepherds to discover the wonder of the Word made Flesh. In Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.