Signed, sealed, delivered

First days covered

Stamps tell the beginnings of the story of Jesus

Royal Mail’s stamps for this Christmas

Feature by Philip Halcrow

NEW stamps are tracking key

moments in the Christmas story. Since their first appearance in 1966, Royal Mail’s Christmas stamps have featured various subjects, including seasonal traditions, Wallace and Gromit, and Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. This year’s collection is sticking to the story behind the celebration.

The designs by artist Katie Ponder depict scenes such as the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary, the newborn Jesus lying in a manger and the wise men carrying gifts.

David Gold of Royal Mail says that the ‘charming style’ of the art decoinfluenced designs ‘sets the perfect tone for the festive season’.

For philatelists who want more information on the issue at hand, Royal Mail has it covered, thanks to the Rev Lucy Winkett. As well as checking on the theology of the stamps, the rector of St James’s Church in London’s Piccadilly has written a reflection for the presentation pack, setting the scene for the time of year.

‘I think people, irrespective of their religious belief, often use Christmas to mark time,’ she tells the War Cry. ‘They’ll say that it is their first Christmas without a loved one who has died or their first with a new baby.

‘I wanted to think about what Christmas says about God, who is in eternity, and our own lives that are lived in time. So I point out that Jesus of Nazareth was born in time in Bethlehem around 4BC – the dating of our western calendar is a bit out – as a human being, a very bodily experience, but that his birth has a whole other dimension: at Jesus’ birth, God in eternity is poured out into the world.’

In the presentation pack, Lucy writes of how the eternal perspective of Christmas ‘is vividly illustrated’ in the stamps ‘in details such as the gold of the angel wings and the intensity of the gaze between Gabriel and Mary’ and of how, at Christmas, ‘eternity somehow breaks through and changes things’.

When the War Cry asks how eternity changes things for her, Lucy says: ‘I live in the middle of a city, the news is always

terrible and it sometimes feels like I tell the time by looking at the second hand on a clock. It ticks round, and it’s not inaccurate, but I’m never going to know the time by looking at it. For me, Christian faith is looking at the hour hand. It’s no less contemporary, no less accurate, but it has got a different rhythm. People often The birth of Christ in eternity breaking into the world helps use Christmas me have a different perspective on living and dying. to mark time ‘It doesn’t mean today’s events don’t matter – they matter very much. At my church we serve meals and sit and eat with people who are homeless, so the day-to-day struggle is important. At the same time, we sit and eat in a building that is there to help us pray to the God of eternity.’ Such a perspective, she says, is about hope. It’s about imagining the world as God intended it to be and acting accordingly. ‘It’s practical and at the same time deeply hopeful and focused on eternity.’ And perhaps the images on people’s cards and packages will be, she says, ‘a tiny reminder of the reality in among all the worries and anxieties’.