Our Christmas service followed on from our Advent theme and focused on the Unexpectedness of Christmas, and in particular, the Unexpected Result of Christmas.
Christmas Greetings
597 O
come all ye faithful
The
Unexpected Result – our Christmas Candle
Lighting the Christmas Candle
We light our Christmas candle
And think of the unexpected result
Of the birth of a baby who grew to a man
Who would have thought it
For the one born to be King?
No life of regal splendour
But a life lived with those no one else
Had time for.
A life lived for other people.
A life that seemingly ended in tragedy
Yet opened up life in all its fullness
For all of us to share.
John 1:1-5 and 14 – the Congregation
In the beginning was the Word,
---
and the Word was with God,
---
and the Word was God.
---
The same was in the beginning with God.
---
All things were made by him;
---
and without him was not any thing made that
was made.
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In him was life;
---
and the life was the light of men.
---
And the light shineth in darkness;
---
and the darkness comprehended it not.
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And the Word was made flesh,
---
and dwelt among us,
---
and we beheld his glory,
---
the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father,
---
full of grace and truth.
At that time the Emperor
Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Roman
Empire . 2 When this first
census took place, Quirinius was the governor of Syria
4 Joseph went from the town of Nazareth
in Galilee to the town of Bethlehem in Judea , the birthplace of King David. Joseph went there
because he was a descendant of David. 5 He went to
register with Mary, who was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant, 6 and while they were in Bethlehem
A New Nativity by Alan Tichmarsh – Caroline
A
New Nativity.
by
Alan Titchmarsh.
When
all those long, long years ago a child came down to earth below,
To
save the likes of you and me from evil, harm and misery,
Do
you suppose that even then, there were some doubting, heedless men
Who,
rather than believe the word, just turned their backs and never heard?
You
see, today we all recall, the baby in the ox's stall.
The
ass, the stables, shepherds, Kings, - all ancient, rural, rustic things.
But
what if, here, this very night, it happened....on the Isle
of Wight
Would
we rejoice and all be merry? Would we dash off and catch the ferry?
If
Christ was born in Walthamstow, would builders drop there tools and go?
Would
Wapping printers stop their presses?
Would supermodels ditch their dresses?
In
Hampshire and in rural Kent
Walk
miles to see a newborn child, whose mother, unmarried, although mild
Had
given birth to a baby boy, not at the Dorchester or Savoy
But
in a garage, there's the rub, round the back of the local pub.
And
yet I like to think that we, despite the e-mail and DVD
Would
know to go, when star shone bright, and make that journey through the night
To
see the child who saves the world, in some old oil drum safely curled.
The
nativity for the Millenium. Would anyone
out there like to come?
72 Away
in a manger
Unexpected Presents
Greeting from Stefan and Birgit
Christmas Greetings
Sermon – The Unexpected Result
When the unexpected happens it can fill you
with fear and trepidation, it can be pretty scary.
Mary did not expect to be expecting a baby:
she was frightened.
Joseph did not expect to take on the
responsibility of a father: it was scary.
Joseph and Mary did not expect to have to
make the long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem
Joseph and Mary did not expect to have to
make do with the squalor of an unexpected stable: it filled them with fear
The Wise Men did not expect to have to take
special measures to avoid the clutches of a King Herod determined to do away
with the Christ child: Herod’s power and his abuse of power was terrifying
Mary and Joseph did not expect to have to
flee south from Bethlehem and escape across the
border to become refugees in Egypt
Think back a year to the last Christmas and
in that time unexpected things have happened … not a few of them have been
pretty scary.
A year ago who would have expected the Arab Spring to have
happened? Tunisia ,
Egypt , Libya , Syria
And then things that have happened very
much closer to home – someone taken ill: I wasn’t expecting that. Uncertainties at work, issues in the home,
someone very close who has died. I
wasn’t expecting that to happen.
How do you cope with the unexpected that is
so scary and troubling?
Two thoughts contained in two words that
for me are particularly special this Christmas.
Of all the words I associate with
Christmas, of all the words that crop up in the Christmas story, there is one
long word that I want to hold on to. It
seems to me to be the word that speaks directly into all the fears that come
when the unexpected happens.
It is the word, Emmanuel.
It sounds like a name. But it is a name with meaning. And it s the meaning of the name that is all
important in the face of the unexpected.
Emmanuel means ‘God is with us’.
That’s not just a conviction to hold on to
in the face of everything that goes wrong.
The point of Christmas is that it is a reality that is there, come what
may, even when we feel it not to be so.
God is with us. That’s what comes across in the prayer
letters that come from the Middle East – it is the promise that shines out of
the Christmas letter from Alex Awad
and his congregation in East Jerusalem and his college in Bethlehem
God is with us.
How can we know that to be true?
That’s where my second word comes into play. It’s my favourite word. The word ‘serendipity’. The joy of discovering the unexpected unexpectedly. The Christmas story is full of serendipitous moments. Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men, the Shepherds – they all were in totally frightening situations. But in the fear, quite unexpectedly, they had a sense of the reality of God with them, the reality that God is with us. Wonderful, serendipitous, God moments.
When I wrote about my favourite word in
Highbury News I had a response from Peter Petrie, one of our evening congregation. He had been digging into the derivation of
the word ‘serendipity’. It was coined by
Horace Walpole in 1754 when he recounted a tale form the East of the Three
Princes of Serendip, Serendip the land
once known as Ceylon , now
known as Sri Lanka
What fascinated Peter was the number of
scientific discoveries that have been made as a result of ‘serendipity’. Indeed it is a commonplace term in the
history of science. Maybe a Christmas
quiz is to list scientific discoveries made unexpectedly. You might include penicillin, the microwave
oven, Teflon!
The point Peter made in his email to me, however,
was an interesting one. Though they
appear to have been discoveries made by accident. Something else was involved as well. Each of the people responsible had the wisdom
to recognise that something special had happened.
Serendipitous things happen and you have
the joy of discovering the unexpected unexpectedly when ‘accident and sagacity’
are both involved. Chance and wisdom.
That’s the other observation I want to make
for Christmas. Maybe the Christmas story
should encourage us to seek the kind of wisdom that will recognise the God
moment when it comes. And that is
something we can work at.
Putting yourself in a position where you
are exposed to thinking about God, thoughts of God, in the pages of the
Bible. Prayer and praying have their part
to play – those Christians facing persecution in the Middle East share that
with us constantly, I pray for you each night, was said to me only on Friday,
by someone who is not able to get out and do a great deal – but it meant the
world to me as they shared that thought.
It reminds me to look out for the God moment that comes unexpectedly.
One other thing – it is as we step out of a
concern simply for ourselves and step into a concern for other people that
maybe, we shall encounter God unawares.
To love another person is to see the face of God.
From the squalor of a borrowed stable
Prayers of Concern
85 Good Christians all rejoice
Words of Blessing
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