St. Bartholomew’s Kirby Muxloe Welcome
asking if a baby had been born.  King Herod was greatly distressed by this and made plans to kill the new born baby.  When he couldn’t find the child, he gave orders…‘When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under’ (Matthew 2:16). Jesus was then born in a stable.  In a place far from home, under threat from a king who had ordered a whole generation of babies to be killed.  And yet we have this image: ‘Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright. Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child. Holy infant so tender and mild, sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.’ I’m not sure how you are feeling at the moment.  We certainly all experience ups and downs.  But, my prayer for you this Christmas, is that you may know ‘heavenly peace’.  That you may find joy, hope and love, and a peace that comes from none other than God Himself. God bless, and merry Christmas! Rev’d Gareth Hutchinson December 2023
‘Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright. Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child. Holy infant so tender and mild, sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.’ Christmas is coming!  I was looking at a list of the best loved Christmas carols in the Classicfm website and came across the following in relation to Silent Night… ‘Originally written in German, ‘Stille Nacht’ was composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber with lyrics by Joseph Mohr, and was translated to English in 1859. During the Christmas truce of 1914 during World War I, the carol was sung simultaneously by English and German troops.’ What an image that story paints.  In the midst of the long-endured horror of gruesome trench warfare, a moment of peace, of stillness.  It’s a story that is oddly appropriate to subject of this carol.  The situation that Jesus was born into was similarly horrible.  Matthew 2 (in the Bible) gives the account of Magi, anticipating the birth of Jesus the heavenly king, went to visit the current earthly king, a man named Herod,