The Queen's 2022 Christmas Message?

The UK 2022 Christmas Stamps go on sale this coming Thursday. Because they had already been designed, and approved, they will still bear the Queen's image.  

I think our late monarch would have liked this year's set. They depict the Biblical Christmas narrative, and were designed by young illustrator Katie Ponder. The story is told thus...

2nd - the annunciation to Mary

large 1st- angel speaks to Joseph

large 2nd - journey to Bethlehem

1st - the baby in the manger

£1.85 - the angel tells the shepherds

£2.55 - the Magi follow the star 

You can buy a commemorative pack from Royal Mail, and you can opt for one with a postmark from Bethlehem in Wales! The presentation card carries an explanatory piece written by Rev Lucy Winkett, Rector of St James' Church, Piccadilly [ see below] I think the Queen would have been very pleased with her words.

I look forward to hearing The King's Speech - but will definitely miss the wise words of Queen Elizabeth, whose 'annual Christmas sermon' was always a declaration of the Good News.

Some people call the Christmas Story the greatest story ever told. It is set in a particular time and place, and there are ways to know when and where it happened., mostly related to the visit of the Magi, depicted on the stamps this year. It may be, for example, that a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn could have been the ‘great light’ that the Magi saw, and these mysterious visitors definitely went to visit Herod, which locates their journey in the reign of a particular historic ruler.

But the time-specific details of the story are situated within a context that is cosmic. And that is often how births get described: an obviously fleshly, contingent process that has something inescapably miraculous about it. It is not surprising then, that the enduring and eternal yearnings of humankind for peace and goodwill, for light and love, have a place in the story too. The earthly, physical world of the stable is filled with the songs of the angels. Time meets eternity in the body of a child, and in the hopes of all who visit him.