First Sunday in Advent 27th November 2022

Happy New Church Year! Today, we are celebrating both the first Sunday in the church year AND the first Sunday in Advent; and so, yes, the Christmas jumpers have been got out.

And in Matthew, Jesus tells us to “Stay Awake…”. I don’t know about you but I am most definitely going to need more coffee!!!

We are told that, if the house owner knew in advance exactly what time the thief was going to break into his house, then he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. He would be prepared! He would have made plans to protect his home and for the thief to be caught.

Likewise, if we were to receive a warning that something would happen at a certain time then we would prepare and make sure we were ready. If an electricity company says at this time on this day we are turning the electric off then we would make sure that batteries were charged, the torches were working and so on.

We would be ready and alert!

“Keep awake for you do not know on what day or at what hour your Lord is coming.”

We know Christ will return – this is promised and God keeps His promises. What we do not know is the timing – and God’s time is not the same as ours.

So we must be ready and watchful.

Be prepared.

Advent is a time of waiting and preparation.

Are we prepared?

When I ask you “are you ready for Christmas” what do you think of?

Is it whether you’ve got all the presents?

Is it whether they are all wrapped or how much wrapping you need to do?

Is it whether the Christmas cards are all written or who you’ve still got to send one to or whether they’ll be posted in time with the planned postal strikes?

Is it when the decorations will go up or whether they are up already or when they’ll be got out of storage?

Is it whether the Christmas pudding and Christmas cake are made or when they’ll be made?

Be honest – when asked if you are ready for Christmas – who actually interprets this question as:

Are you ready for Jesus?

Are you ready for His birth?

Are you ready for Him to come again?

!!!

“Keep awake for we do not know the hour He will return.”

Thankfully, this does not mean that we all must become insomniacs. It means we need to be Spiritually awake. To be on our guard against spiritual distraction. To pay attention. To spend time with God in prayer and growing our faith. To be more fully alive in Christ.

I was writing Christmas cards this week. I’ve been writing quite a lot to give hope to people who would otherwise be forgotten. And I got quite cross because I found a range of cards that have the greeting “Happy Holidays”.

Now this really annoys me. It’s the same with a lot of television adverts on at this time of year.

Let me share why…

It misses the point!

It doesn’t just miss the point – it totally avoids it with an enormous detour.

And what is it that these Christmas cards and adverts are all missing out?

Well, the clue’s in the name. The reason for the season – Christ. The greatest gift of all.

So we must stay spiritually awake so that we do not commit the crime of leaving Christ out of Christmas. We must be alert and watchful to make sure that we do not demote Jesus to the bottom of the list. We must be on our guard to ensure that we are not just giving Him a cursory nod/brief acknowledgement or lip service just so that we can “tick that box”.

We must be prepared and ensure that we are putting Jesus at the forefront of our lives. Before everything else. First.

So this year let us use this time of Advent to wait patiently for Christ.

Waiting can seem boring. It can be hard to be patient. Especially when there are so many other distractions.

But waiting does not actually mean doing nothing!

It is an opportunity to prepare our hearts, our minds, our souls.

It is an opportunity to put our trust in the Lord. To truly repent, to forgive and to accept forgiveness. It is an opportunity to seek God more deeply in prayer and to surrender to His ways – becoming more alive in Christ.

I’m going to deviate slightly to quote from a Christmas film, which due to this quote is, in my opinion, one of the best Christmas films:

Tonight I want to tell you the story of an empty stocking. Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child’s cry. A blazing star hung over a stable and wise men came with birthday gifts.

We haven’t forgotten that night down the centuries; we celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, the sound of bells and with gifts. But especially with gifts. You give me a book; I give you a tie. Aunt Martha has always wanted an orange squeezer and Uncle Henry could do with a new pipe.

We forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled…all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger. It’s his birthday we are celebrating. Don’t ever let us forget that.
Let us ask ourselves what he would wish for most…and then let each put in his share. Loving kindness, warm hearts and the stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shining gifts that make peace on earth.
The Bishop’s Wife (1947)

So let us use this advent to be ready for and to remember Christ this Christmas as we pray:

Lord, grant that we may stay awake, remain watchful and stand firm in the faith out of our love for you. Amen.

Harvest Festival

As normal, for our area, donations received during the Harvest Festival were mainly in the form of long life goods for the food bank. A representative for the food bank passed on their thanks from themselves and on the behalf of those who need to use the food bank – which was nice!

But, during the service I glanced around at all the tins of food and I was thinking…

I thought back to when I was a child and we were asked to take something in for the school and church harvest festivals. Mother would go through the cupboard and present us with a tin, “You can take that” she’d say “no one likes that one”!

I thought about comments I have heard from varying sources on such occasions of: “And everybody bring a tin. Everyone always has something in the cupboard they don’t like so there’s no excuse.”

I thought that, whilst given the choice between nothing and a tin of food that has only been chosen as a donation because nobody likes it then there may well be some gratitude, because anything may well be better than nothing – if it is the only food you can get and you are actually starving. BUT does that make our reason the right reason when we choose what to give?

I thought, shouldn’t we be giving the best we can offer. It is to God to whom we are giving our offerings. It is to God we are giving thanks for the harvest and that we are fortunate enough to have something to eat. When donations leave the altar and make their way to the food bank to feed those in need they are also “feeding Jesus”. Surely, therefore, it should indeed be the best we can offer.

Whilst it is true that people have different tastes and it may well be that a food one person hates is another person’s favourite; the important thing is the motive. What is the motive behind the choice of product? Is it the best we can offer or is it actually just a case of wanting that item out our cupboard? Are we giving our Lord the best of our harvest or the dregs?

What is written in our hearts is known. No excuses can be made.

So when such choices are to be made, remember we should be giving of our best with a pure heart (the right motive) – not finally getting rid of that tin that nobody likes but providing a feast fit for a King – our Saviour.

Poppet lying on a sofa hugging her pumpkin.

Amen

Recently I was watching some of the programmes showing compilations of Paul McCartney performing and the following quote was put up on screen:

“I’m not particularly religious, but I do believe in the idea that there is some sort of higher power that can help us,” says McCartney. “So, this song becomes a prayer, or mini – prayer. And the word ‘Amen’ itself means ‘so be it’ – or ‘let it be'”
Paul McCartney speaking about his song “Let It Be”

This got me thinking about the word ‘Amen’ and all the different ways we use it. For me, the main use of ‘Amen’ is to conclude a prayer or as a response to a prayer but having started to think about the word and its other uses I looked at this word in more depth.

So, next came the English definitions of the word (just because that is the language I speak – no other reason) and these were listed as:

let it be
verily
truly
it is true
let it be so

The word is thought to be of Biblical Hebrew origin and appears many times in the Hebrew Bible as a confirmatory response and especially following blessings.

However, its root word is now common to a number of languages with the meaning:

to be firm
confirmed
reliable
dependable
to have faith
to believe

Having been imported into Greek from the Judaism of the Early Church, the word ‘Amen’ continued to spread becoming part of many other European languages, thence to Latin and then English. It can also be found in Arabic translations of the Bible and also other texts, for example after recitation of the Quran.

Sometimes ‘Amen’ is translated from the Hebrew word as ‘so be it’.

The phrase “Amen to that” can seem quite familiar but what do we actually mean when we say that. We use this to express strong agreement with something, as a declaration of affirmation, to say “that’s sorted then”. We also use it in the same way we might say “fine” or “just leave it there”.

I mentioned earlier about it being a concluding word in, or a response word to, prayer. Jesus’s response when asked to teach us how to pray was “The Lord’s Prayer” in which is included the line “Your will be done”. He teaches us to recognise and acknowledge God’s will. He teaches us (as He prayed at Gethsemane) “yet not my will but Yours”. How apt then that Amen also means “your will be done”. So when we pray we are confirming that whilst we ask God, we acknowledge that He can see the big picture that we cannot and He knows what is best even if we cannot see it at the time and therefore we are praying “if it is your will let it be done”.

As such, “Amen” is a prayer all by itself. If you are ever stuck and thinking that you don’t know what to pray, don’t worry, God knows what is in your heart. A sincere Amen is sufficient.

The Lesson Of A Dog

A dog is a bundle of never-questioning, unceasing love. An animal small (on average) in size but with an enormous heart of love.

Dogs are love.

God spelt backwards is dog. God is in dog.

God is love!

Like God, dogs:

love unconditionally
forgive freely
are always happy to see you
want to be by your side
do not abandon us
walk with us on our journey
are peaceful and calming
are full of grace and mercy
are our friend forever.

Dogs willingly take on this facet of God. Man was made in the image of God yet turned away by giving into sin.

How much better it would be if we learnt the lesson of the dog and walked in Jesus’s footsteps, returning to the way God created us.

Jesus’s Baptism (notes for 9th January 2021)

Two weeks ago we celebrated Jesus’s birth – the birth of a tiny baby. Last week we remembered the Wise Men finding and worshipping Jesus – a toddler. Today, we jump forward nearly three decades, doesn’t time fly, Jesus is thirty and being baptised.

In some ways, it is not strange to us that we celebrate Jesus’s baptism shortly after His birth. After all, it is not a rare occurrence for a baby to be baptised, making them a part of the family of God, washing away the consequences of the original and actual sin, granting them the hope and promise of salvation and professing the faith on their behalf whilst promising to bring them up in that faith.

Baptism is linked by Jesus to salvation. It is a symbol of the forgiveness of sins, the death of old life and the start of new life and acceptance into God’s family.

However, Jesus was not a baby. He was a grown man and the sinless Son of God.

So why did Jesus need to be baptised?

Indeed, John the Baptist asked the same thing saying “I need to be baptised by you, yet you come to me?”

Jesus replied “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”

Jesus was to be the one to separate believers from betrayers. Jesus was also to bring a purifying and transforming baptism of fire; which enables us to be empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was baptised to identify Himself with sinful man, who He came to save. He took our sin to save us. His baptism marks the end of His old life marking the acceptance of and the start of His ministry. He is annointed by the Holy Spirit whilst He is affirmed by God as His Son (a parallel with Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down on the church).

This affirmation from God that Jesus is the Messiah also provides confirmation to John that he has completed his mission of preparing the way for the Messiah; whilst Jesus begins His earthly ministry with the blessing of God His Father and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Father God, we ask that you baptise us all again with your Holy Spirit empowering us to do your work. Amen.

Back To Basics

Sometimes you need to just do nothing!
Enjoy the peace and the silence!
And just rest your soul!

Forget the hustle and bustle.
Listen to the silence.
Listen to God speaking to you in the silence.
Listen to the sounds of nature.
The babbling brook.
The rustling leaves.

Be at one with yourself
And remember who you are
A much loved child of God.

Cake

Cake is really the simplest thing to bake. Obviously I am talking about really basic cake (like what I bake) and not the really amazing designs you can buy from experts for special occasions.

It follows the basic rule of three (like The Holy Trinity):

150g butter (3×50g)
150g sugar (3×50g)
150g self raising flour (3×50g)
3 eggs (3×1)

Mix it up and bake in the oven till cooked – yum yum yum.

So with cake being so popular in today’s society, if Jesus came to us today, what if He said “I am the cake of life” instead of “I am the bread of life”?

Would it have the same effect? Would it have the same meaning? Would it be more popular?

Okay, so we know that unless someone really hates cake the likelihood is that it would definitely be more popular. The thought of being able to live on cake is certainly popular around here.

But Jesus wasn’t trying to win a popularity contest. He came to save us. And if we are honest, if we want to be healthy, we can’t actually just eat cake (sadly). We have to accept that we must eat healthy food to live. So cake goes back to being bread and for this we are thankful as the sacrifice of Jesus and God’s forgiveness saves us from spiritual death. Trust in God and He will provide for us and sustain us.

Be Born Again

(John 3:1-17)

Nicodemus was a pharisee well educated and well versed in the scriptures. He recognised and acknowledged that Jesus was from God and that God was with him. Yet he came to see Jesus at night, being at the beginning of his belief in Jesus, not wanting his fellow pharisees to know that he had sought out Jesus.

Later, once Nicodemus’s faith and believe had grown he defended Jesus in front of the council and annointed Jesus’s body after the crucifixion.

Jesus responded to Nicodemus’s greeting by starting to teach him how the Kingdom of Heaven can be reached. As is a common factor in conversations today, we are given the impression that Nicodemus has taken Jesus’s answer literally. Nicodemus is an intelligent man and some question whether he was merely stalling for time. However, whether he took Jesus’s answer literally or whether he was questioning it to allow him time to think, it is beneficial to us because this questioning opened up a further response from Jesus and the conversation that followed.

What does lend credence to the idea that Nicodemus was stalling for thinking time is that the Jews were not unfamiliar with the idea of rebirth and considered those converted to Judaism to have been reborn – just as we take those who have turned to Christ to have been reborn in Christ. As usual, like with the parables, Jesus was using metaphors and terminology the Jews were very familiar with.

So, being born again does not, thankfully, mean that Mothers are giving birth to the same person twice. In fact the actual rebirth is not even done by us but by God. What we must do is believe, believe and be baptised in water and in the Holy Spirit. We must receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and, with Jesus as our root, let it be fruitful so that we live with love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

Aptly, this reading this year fell on Trinity Sunday when we celebrate that God is Three in One – the Father (Presence of God), the Son (Voice of God) and the Holy Spirit (Breath of God). As we who believe are born of man, water and the Spirit. Three in One and One in Three.