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This Christmas, let us work together to enter into the purposeful life of Good King Wenceslas, striving for charity and compassion for the poor and oppressed.

Most people have heard that wonderful Christmas carol, ‘Good King Wenceslas’ who ‘looked out on the feast of Stephen’. It tells of a kind-hearted king who reaches out to the poor and needy in the name of our gracious God.

There really was a King Wenceslas. It was about 1000 years ago, when a young Christian king rose up to became a beacon of hopefulness, in the nation we know today as the ‘modern’ Czech Republic, known as Bohemia at the time. Wenceslas was only 25 when he was assassinated. He had only ruled for about five years.

We might not have heard of this young man if it had not been for an Englishman named John Mason Neale, who wrote the story of Wenceslas into a popular carol about 150 years ago. Historians tell us that Wenceslas was assassinated partly for explicitly promoting Christianity. He was living his faith and was showing to his people that this new Christian religion, which was only recently brought to their land, was promoting a way of life that was ‘different’. Wenceslas worked for social reform in his country, to change the stars for those people who were cast aside or trampled down.

Opponents to Wenceslas had him assassinated, but then came the extraordinary miracle, as often happens. In his dying, Wenceslas became an admired hero for the people and Christian teachings spread throughout the country.

John Mason Neale wrote his carol to remind us to be always acknowledging the great blessings that our God has given to us, by looking out for those in need. At Christmas time, we say our ‘Thank you!’ to God. We thank God for providing for us in abundance by saying ‘As God gives to me, so I give to others’. In the carol, John Mason Neale ends with the suggestion ‘Therefore, Christians all, be sure, wealth or rank possessing you who now will bless the poor — shall yourselves find blessing.’

Daily in our contemporary world, we hear of victims of war, in the Middle East and in many forgotten corners of the globe. How can we give to others as God has given to us? God bless you as you reflect on the message of the Christmas story: of the baby in the manger and of the angel’s declaration of ‘peace on earth’. Let us work together to enter into the purposeful life of Good King Wenceslas, striving for charity and compassion for the poor and oppressed, living that last line of Neale’s Christmas song, ‘You who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.’

On behalf of the people of the Lutheran Church in Australia and New Zealand, I pray that you and your family may discover the holiness and happiness of the good news of Christmas.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours! (Luke 2:13-14)

Reverend Paul Smith is Bishop of the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand

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