Picture Prayer Meditation for December 2008

A Prayer for Bethlehem

(this picture and meditation is on display in the Community Church during December)

O God, whose Son was born in Bethlehem, let us now pray for peace in that place where Mary laid her tiny child.

May Palestine again know joy in new life; be free from walls and restrictions

let us see him in its poor, as Bethlehem is brutalised today

may this Christmas see your love renewed in hope seen again in that place.

We pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Click on the picture to see a larger image.

Artist: Julian E D Flynn Medium: Photograph

During this season of Advent and Christmas, a season of thanks, celebration of gifts and hope in new beginnings, we are reminded of those today who are vulnerable and persecuted and who need hope for their futures. Let us pray for those in Palestine today who are walled-in and who cannot get to work or reach their own fields in order to live.

We come before God and we pray with Christ in his vulnerability, accepting all that is, identifying with that small baby on the first Christmas day, being reminded again perhaps of who we really are and the gift we have been given.