Sunday's coming!

 Luke 2: 1-7; John 1: 1-14 Last week I read the results of a mental health survey of young people. It was done by ‘Sanctuary’ – who are a charity helping churches to learn more about mental illness and respond with positive help for people around them. They asked young people who were involved in support groups for mental health in churches,   “what makes the biggest positive difference to your mental health?” The young people replied: 1.    Knowing God is with you in the darkest moments 2.    Knowing you are not alone   - that you can be part of a community of friends or family or church   I hope that at Christmas these young people know that God is with them and that they are not alone. Yet I know Christmas can be a difficult time for everybody, whatever our age, in all sorts of ways.   I was very touched by these words by Revd Moira Biggins, a chaplain at East Midlands airport.   For those who are trying to keep ...

How lovely it always is to see different nativity scenes – Mary, Joseph, the baby in the manger – and then shepherds, kings, maybe angels – if you’re lucky the innkeeper: and then the animals – sheep, often resting at the feet of the shepherd; the cow or ox, looking hungrily into the manger; the donkey, resting after its journey. And sometimes birds nesting up in the eaves of the stable, or, as one of our poems imagined.. mice rustling in the hay. The accounts from Luke are wonderful – but a bit short on animals. There is the flock, being watched over by the shepherds – but no suggestion that in their ‘haste’ to go to Bethlehem they drive or pick up any of their livestock to go with them. There is no account of the kings or magi – so no chance to catch a glimpse of a camel. There is just the mention of the manger – the animals’ feed trough: which implies there must be animals somewhere.   But we love to imagine the animals, to write poems about them, to re-tell the nativity story f...

So here we are again, singing our carols and hearing the readings and, like Mary, pondering in our heart what it all means. Last weekend, at the Nativity Fest at Tiers Cross, I suggested that we could look at our nativity scenes and hear the story of the birth of Jesus and imagine what role we might play in the story. We could think of ourselves like the  Magi , the wise ones, looking for signs of God’s coming among us – and finding Jesus in the least likely place. He wasn’t in the grandeur of Herod’s palace, he was in a humble stable. Or we could imagine ourselves like the  Shepherds,  wanting to protect God’s people from the wrong sorts of messages in our world, helping God’s ‘flock’ to concentrate on the theological significance of the coming of Jesus this Christmas, rather than being swept along by all the things we can buy. Or perhaps we can be like  Mary & Joseph , welcoming Jesus into our lives with prayer and wonder. But today I want to think about one of...

Intro to reading: Our reading this morning is the song of Zechariah. We might want to remind ourselves who Zechariah is: he is a priest, married to Elizabeth, who is a cousin of Mary of Nazareth. Zechariah & Elizabeth were childless, but Zechariah is visited by an angel when he is serving in the temple, and told that Elizabeth will have a child, whom Zechariah must call ‘John’ – he is to prepare the way for the Lord – he will grow up to be John the Baptist. Zechariah is struck dumb by this vision of Gabriel, but Elizabeth does indeed have a son, and when Zechariah writes “his name is John” he can speak again – and this is what Zechariah, inspired by the Holy Spirit, says:   (Rejoice & Sing 738)     Luke 1:68-79    I wonder whether the song of Zechariah gets eclipsed by the much better known ‘song of Mary’ – the Magnificat: perhaps in just the same way that the birth of John the Baptist is eclipsed by the birth of Jesus.   But in this time ...

 John 18: 33-37;   Revelation 1: 4b - 8 Next Sunday is Advent Sunday, December 1 st .   Christmas is undoubtedly getting closer and I wonder how we’re all feeling. Do you feel excited when you see Christmas lights lit up – or do you feel that it’s all too early and does it just make you despair at the commercialisation of Christmas? I was talking to someone last week who observed that ever since the 2020 pandemic, it seems that people are putting up their Christmas lights, decorations, and even trees earlier and earlier. There have certainly been lights up among our neighbours since the beginning of November -  weirdly overlapping somewhat with the Hallowe’en decorations. Perhaps it’s that the more life feels to be hard and out of our control, the more we long for bright lights in the darkness and something to take our minds off the news bulletins. My older brother thinks that all Christian faith is like this – just a way of distracting ourselves from the grimne...

Psalm 16   John 15: 13-15 Joseph Scriven was born into a wealthy, devout family in Northern Seapatrick, Ireland, in 1819. He completed his education at Trinity College, Dublin. Scriven’s life took a tragic turn in 1844, just before his marriage. His fiancée was thrown from her horse and drowned in the River Bann, the day before their wedding. Overwhelmed by grief, Scriven left Ireland for Canada in 1845, settling in Port Hope, Ontario. In Canada, Scriven committed his life to God and service. At 25, he vowed poverty, sold his belongings, and helped those in need. He preached and read the Bible in community gatherings, taught in a school, and even cut wood  - all for no pay. He was known as “the good Samaritan of Port Hope”. In 1855, Scriven penned a poem titled ‘What is this Friendship for Which We Long?’ to comfort his ailing mother in Ireland, never intending it for public eyes. She kept the poem safe in the pages of her Bible. A decade after his first fiancée’s death, ...