Our tired, cynical and jaded world needs to regain a child’s sense of wonder, says the Archbishop of Wales in his Christmas message.

Wonder is a rare commodity today, says Dr Barry Morgan, but it is one which is at the heart of the Christmas story. It’s a feeling of excitement, joy and pleasure which children easily grasp but which adults have let slip. It draws us to worship God and to help those around us.

The Archbishop, who will preach at Llandaff Cathedral on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, says, “Adults tend to regard Christmas as a children’s festival and not as something for grown-ups.  It is a children’s festival but not in the sense most adults think of it.  Children can, in fact, teach us what it is all about.

“We adults tend to say about many things, be it about the Christmas story, about the prospect of peace in the Middle East or the end of hostilities in Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan, or about the promises of politicians – there is nothing new under the sun – we have heard it all before and we have a tendency to become tired, jaded and cynical. Children can help us regain our sense of wonder. For if the Christmas story is about anything, it is about wonder.” 

The Archbishop praises children for responding to wonder with compassion for others – as school after school he visits are helping those who are destitute and homeless. He urges adults to follow their example.

He said, “God in Jesus is the same God who reveals Himself in the baby, as He does on the cross – the God who puts Himself at the disposal of His world in powerlessness and vulnerability and who associates Himself with those whom the world despises - Shepherds because they had a filthy job and Gentiles (Wise Men) because they were not Jews and all kinds of undesirables during His life and who dies forgiving those who put Him to death because that is God’s nature.

“And the children in those schools, for all their seeming lack of sophistication, had grasped that connection - the connection between God and His concern for the needy and the poor; the connection between Jesus’ birth and His values during His life.

“Our prayer too should be that we grasp the significance of this feast following the example of children.”

The full text of the Archbishop’s address follows. He will preach at Llandaff Cathedral on Christmas Eve at 9.30pm and on Christmas Day at 10.45am. All are welcome. For more information, please contact:

Anna Morrell
Archbishop's Media Officer / Swyddog y Cyfryngau i'r Archesgob
Tel: 02920 348208; mobile: 07 91 91 587 94
39 Cathedral Rd, Cardiff / 39 Heol y Gadeirlan, Caerdydd
CF11 9XF

The Archbishop of Wales’ Christmas Sermon 2012

“Christmas is really for the children”. Like me, you will have heard that sentence many times over the last few weeks, in the Press, on television and at carol and nativity services.

SteveTurner has a poem with that title and this is the opening verse:

“Christmas is really for the children.

especially for childrenwho like animals, stables,

stars and babies wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Then there are wise men

kings in fine robes,

humble shepherds and a

hint of perfume.”

What Turner seems to be saying is that the Christmas story is really for those who have not yet grown up, and grown out of such childish things. Children haven’t acquired the sophistication and the knowledge of adults so the Christmas story is on a par with Santa, reindeers and sleighs - a fantasy world of make believe.

One of the privileges of being a bishop, is that you meet all kinds of people and go to all kinds of places and over the past month, I have been to a number of schools, all of them, of course, preparing for Christmas. I too want to say, yes of course, Christmas is the children’s festival but not because I subscribe to the view that it is too childish for adults, but because the children in these schools have taught me, or rather taught me again, two crucial things about Christmas. As R S Thomas puts it in one of his poems;

“Christmas; the themes are exhausted

yet there is always roomon the heart for another

snowflake to reveal a pattern”

First, they have reminded me again and again, that Christmas is about wonder. In school after school, I have listened to children singing carols. As they sang about Bethlehem and acted out the story of the birth, their faces shone with excitement and joy, pleasure and wonder. It is a rare commodity in our tired, cynical strife-torn world. 

We adults, tend to say about many things, be it about the Christmas story, about the prospect of peace in the Middle East or the end of hostilities in Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan, or about the promises of politicians – there is nothing new under the sun – we have heard it all before and we have a tendency to become tired, jaded and cynical. Children can help us regain our sense of wonder. For if the Christmas story is about anything, it is about wonder. 

Just listen to some of the Gospels. When the Wise Men saw the star, according to Matthew, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy and when they saw the baby in the manger, they fell down and worshipped him. St.Luke writes about the wonder of the Shepherds and the sense of wonder they imparted to others when they told them about the birth of Jesus. And if you look at our carols and hymns, it is about wonder. “A great and mighty wonder – a full and holy cure” and about “Joy to the world, the Lord is come”. 

Children can help us to regain our sense of wonder – for a sense of wonder presupposes that there is an object or event which invokes it. In other words, to be moved to wonder requires that we cease to be self absorbed and look beyond ourselves to the object or experience which evinces that feeling in us. 

If we all adopted this sense of wonder, how different might our world be, because “the wondrous gift is given and God imparts to human hearts the blessing of His heaven”. We need to recapture our sense of wonder. 

But the children taught me something else as well, because when you fall on your knees, you do two things: you may look up to the source of wonder, God, but you also look out at the people around you. In other words, you look towards God’s world. And the central message of Christmas is that God so loved the world that He gave His son and if God loves the world, we too must embrace it with love. 

And in school after school, children had been doing all kinds of things to care for the homeless asylum seekers and refugees and brought their offerings for the destitute and homeless. The paradox also was that the poorer the community in which the school was set, the more plentiful the gifts were. It is often the very poor who know from the inside what it means to go without, an experience that engenders a generosity which is not always found in more affluent communities. 

Worship and wonder have practical consequences. The Wise Men fell on their knees and worshipped and offered Him their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The children too, caught up in wonder, responded compassionately to God’s world.

God in Jesus is the same God who reveals Himself in the baby, as He does on the cross – the God who puts Himself at the disposal of His world in powerlessness and vulnerability and who associates Himself with those whom the world despises - Shepherds because they had a filthy job and Gentiles (Wise Men) because they were not Jews and all kinds of undesirables during His life and who dies forgiving those who put Him to death because that is God’s nature.

The children in those schools, for all their seeming lack of sophistication, had grasped that connection - the connection between the worship of God and His concern for the needy and the poor; the connection between Jesus’ birth and His values during His life, for He spent His time ministering to the poor, the marginalised and the unloved.

Our prayer too should be that we grasp the true significance of this feast emulating the example of the children I met in these schools. It may indeed be a feast for children but only because they have much to teach us.