Thank you.

I'm going to Merry Christmas to you from all of us here at Truth for Life.

On this Christmas day, we are continuing our study in the Gospel of Luke,

looking at Simeon's first encounter with the infant, Jesus.

His remarks were extraordinary, and today on Truth for Life, Alast Gerbeg examines a devout man's astonishing response to the newborn child and helps us understand why it's significant for us today.

Well, the verses to which I'd like to draw your attention are essentially 29 to 32.

These are familiar words to everyone who was brought up in the context of Anglican liturgy,

which means that rules out about 99% of the present congregation. I think they also probably were a feature

of Lutheran worship and certainly of Roman Catholic worship. So they will be familiar words to many

of us, and those of us as well who come from none of those backgrounds. They've actually been with us

in terms of Christendom, in terms of the church, for a very long time, going back even as far as

the 5th century. But they were catapulted into usefulness in the 16th century when Archbishop Cranmer included these verses 29 to 32

as the final canticle or song that was included in the Book of Common Prayer. It was Cranmer

who wrote the first two editions of the Book of Common Prayer.

And we often refer to it here, and do so I think gladly and somewhat helpfully.

It is a matter of encouragement to me to realize that when I turn to these pages,

although they're not obviously the pages that were penned by Cranmer, They still are the same words. Cranmer was born

in 1489. He was the Archbishop of Canterbury, as you remember, during the reign of Henry

the 8th. He also was Archbishop during the reign of Edward the 6th, and also for a short

time during Mary the 1st.

Just in case you're thinking about it and looking for him.

But the point is that for hundreds of years, congregations have ended their day in worship

...