“O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Saviour’s birth.”

First performed in 1847 in Roquemaure Written by Placide Cappeau Music by Adolphe Charles Adams

Banned! “Unfit for church services” because of its ‘total absence of the spirit of religion’. Translated by Abolitionist John Sullivan Dwight in 1855 Present day- one of most recorded spiritual songs

Long lay the world in sin and error pining, Till He appear'd and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Glorious hope of salvation Isaiah 43:19  Behold, I am doing a new thing;     now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness     and rivers in the desert.

Truly He taught us to love one another; His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother; And in His name all oppression shall cease.

John 13:34-35 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

1 John 3:16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

“It is easier to love Humanity than it is to love individual men and women, especially those who are uninteresting, exasperating, depraved or otherwise unattractive.”

1 John 3: 17,18 But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE: If we have been to the cross how can we go back to our old lives? How can we show by our actions that we love others?