(All our songs this morning are from Singing the Faith (StF) numbers will be given where available)
Welcome to our Sunday Service, today shared on paper across our circuit and with the congregation at Baildon Methodist Church led by Mervyn Flecknoe one of our Circuit Local Preachers and Lay Pastor at Baildon.
Click on the blue links to follow them for bible readings and associated links
Our worship this morning is the beginning of four weeks’ Anticipation of the birth of the Christ Child. It used to be a time of fasting and repentance, like Lent. Nowadays is more about chocolate and alcohol and little doors to open each day.
Collect for Advent
Anticipated Jesus, strengthen our resolve to live good lives, so that You may find an eager welcome at Your coming this Christmas; call us to live and work guided by Your Holy Spirit, in the Heaven that life will be in Your company. Amen.
So, while we think about anticipation, awaiting, and aspirations, let’s sing a hymn by Henry Burton, who was best known for the poem he wrote, set to music many times by many composers:
“Have you had a kindness shown? / Pass it on; /’Twas not given for thee alone, / Pass it on; / Let it travel down the years, / Let it wipe another’s tears, / ‘Til in Heaven the deed appears -/ Pass it on.”
We are not going to sing that one. We are going to sing this one.
Song – StF 188 – There’s a light upon the mountain, and the day is at the spring
Reflection 1
Advent is all about anticipating, awaiting, about aspirations. On many occasions, we believe that life can be better for an event that we are anticipating, but not always. I’m sure that we all believe that becoming a teenager or winning the lottery is going to improve our lives; although if you are awaiting a bailiff calling, we might be fairly certain that the anticipated event might not. So, for some, the anticipated event is expected to reduce our quality of life, we fear this, sometimes with good cause, sometimes as a result of inborn or learned anxiety.
Ours is a joyful Advent.
Let’s think about two advents. One of a child awaiting Christmas presents, the other of someone expecting the birth of a baby.
A child anticipating Christmas is probably anticipating receiving Christmas presents. The child thinks about receiving presents too wonderful to do anything but dream about. Curiosity about the packages and about the process of delivery, which involves a man with a white beard and a red cloak. We are assuming that this is a child whose parent can afford Christmas presents.
Contrast that with a parent-to-be anticipating the birth of a child. She will have a much wider range of emotions. Trepidation, confusion, eagerness, excitement, as well as curiosity about the package and about the process of delivery, involving people in white coats rather than red ones.
For the child at Christmas, after the excited unwrapping of presents comes the brief period of joy, of learning how to work the kits and mechanisms, and then the ennui of a week after Christmas, when the novelty has worn off, when the toys have broken, when the Duracell bunny really needs a new battery, and so do the parents, and when it is clear that other children got better presents.
For the parent expecting a child. Contrast the anticipation of birth with the reality of having a new baby, pain, the lack of sleep, the anxiety, the terror, tears, panic, and the unexplainably growing love for this tiny ball of wants and needs; the mutual learning that goes on between parent and child, over the next, say 50 years; the realisation that no-one else has a child anywhere near as beautiful, talented, or precious. As the saying goes: “A child is not just for Christmas” and that goes for the Christ child too.
The safest way to approach the impending gift of either a present or a child or indeed the impending gift of the Christ child at Christmas is with an open mind, without clear expectations about what this gift, or this child will be like, or what effect it will have on you. Being prepared for anything is the key to happiness here.
The people who are most successful in preparing to celebrate the coming of the Christ Child are more like a parent-to-be than a child looking forward to presents. And it does require more work to live a Christ-centred life than it does to unwrap a present. Let’s prepare ourselves for changes this Advent.
Our next hymn, by Tim Dudley Smith, is
Song – StF 186 – Tell out my soul, the greatness of the Lord
Lectionary Reading
Now we can give thanks to our God for you. We thank him for the joy we have in his presence because of you. Day and night we ask him with all our heart to let us see you personally and supply what is needed in your faith.
May our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus prepare the way for us to come to you! May the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow more and more and become as great as our love for you. In this way he will strengthen you, and you will be perfect and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all who belong to him.
Reflection 2
Our advent experience is an anticipation of the coming of a child into the world who changed the world. When St Paul wrote thus to the church in Thessalonia, he talks about the growing community there of people who are experiencing the love that arises from joining together to pursue the ways of God. As new people join, they become embraced by this loving feeling. The thing is, people generally like being part of something bigger than themselves.
This is one of the reasons that many well-meaning Germans joined the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930s, fuelled by the resentment felt after the settlement that robbed them of so much pride after WW1, with the promise of joining with many other Germans, proud of their heritage. The bond between them was both fear and resentment, and loyalty to a powerful leader who would rescue them from humiliation and poverty. In fact, anywhere that there are unemployed young men, there is trouble of some sort, because it is better to be in a gang than being on your own.
But maybe your club is the Guiding movement, glued together by enthusiastic leaders, by the corporate desire for young women to grow up strong and independent. Or table tennis, or some underwater flower-arranging society.
Whatever it is, we do like to belong, we like powerful leaders who appear to know what they are doing.
If we don’t choose to belong, we complain that we are lonely, and that no-one visits. Making the effort to join up pays dividends.
A task
Can I ask you to think of those things in your life of which you are most proud. I hope that there are many to choose from. Maybe a qualification, maybe a long marriage, maybe maintaining good friendships, maybe a career, maybe successful parenting. Now try to identify those for which you did not have to make any effort. What?! Not a single one?!
The same applies to our membership of the Christian Church; making the effort pays dividends, because if no one makes the effort the church dies, taking with it every activity that takes place on its premises. Let’s not take our churches for granted. We all need to progress from being merely guests to becoming hosts, Churches, working mens’ clubs, and even underwater flower arranging societies, will fade and die without the efforts of many people. The added bonus of belonging to a Jesus-Shaped organisation is that, like disciples of Jesus through the ages, we get the bonus of belonging, bringing with it happiness and long life. Yes, these are not just pulpit assertions, they are both outcomes supported by extensive research. More importantly, we also have a divine purpose in bringing the love of God to the world. We have a powerful leader in the life, teaching, and example of Jesus.
Our next hymn was written by Charles Silvester Horne
Song – StF 185 – Sing we the King who is coming to reign
Reflection 3
So, here’s a question, whom do we admire for their achievements? Is it a sportsman, or a musician, or a politician, or maybe someone closer to home. It is commonly understood that 10,000 hours of practice is required to turn a reasonable musician into a great musician, and I am sure that the same applies to other disciplines.
Even inviting someone over for a meal requires preparation. Often the preparation takes longer than the meal.
Coming to church on a Sunday is not the same as inviting Jesus into our lives to guide us by his life, teaching, and example. Becoming more like Jesus takes effort. And the future of the Church? That takes the efforts of many people who are each also striving to live in a Christian way. So, what do we need to do to ensure that the Church is still here for future generations? Or is that not important?
What can we do apart from await during this Advent? Are there changes that we need to see in ourselves, in our churches, of which we can become a part?
While I was preparing this service, I took a service at Northcliffe where I saw a most emphatic wall poster. It reminded me that preparation for the Christ Child must include preparation to obey His most well-known commandment. The poster went something like this (thank you Gwen)
Love the neighbour
Who doesn’t look like you – Love your neighbour
Who doesn’t think like you – Love your neighbour
Who doesn’t love like you – Love your neighbour
Who doesn’t speak like you – Love your neighbour
Who doesn’t pray like you – Love your neighbour
Who doesn’t vote like you – Love your neighbour
No exceptions!
Well, that is going to take some hard work, isn’t it? But the rewards of loving are wonderful, life-changing, energy-giving, joy-sharing, laughter-making. Let’s practise this Advent.
Please stay seated, join in with the singing if that helps you. My father used to say that, if you were singing and the feather on the hat of the lady infront of you was not bending, you were not putting your heart and soul into it. But let’s treat this hymn as a reflective activity.
Song – StF 173 – Into the darkness of this world, into the shadows of the night
Prayers
Lord Jesus, as we prepare to celebrate your birth, we pledge ourselves anew to following your commandments and taking example from your life.
We prepare to love better those of our neighbours who are not like us, and who maybe don’t like us.
We prepare to work for those whose lives have been less happy than ours, whose relationships have been less successful, whose relationships with drugs has threatened their families and their sanity.
We dedicate ourselves to becoming selflessly more interested in the effect of our living on the world around us, on the people around us, and on the lives of those who will follow us.
We confess that we have not always made Your Way to be our priority.
We have enjoyed luxuries that others have paid for, and that others will pay for, in terms of dirty air, dirty rivers, dirty streets, rising temperatures, and extinction of other species.
We cannot make reparation, we cannot go back to put right what we have destroyed.
We cannot go back to thank those to whom we owe so much debt.
We can only pay forward, with love and kindness to those less fortunate, to those who will follow us.
We ask, Lord, that we will become more conscious of the love that you make available to us; that we will feel the warmth of loving relationships and the rewards of selfless living.
The Lord’s prayer, this version is used in many primary schools
Our Father in heaven, you are awesome!
Show us who you are and how you want us to be.
Make earth more like heaven.
Please give us what we need to keep going each day.
Help us when we are wrong and clean us up on the inside.
Help us to let other people off and move on.
Keep us from bad stuff. You’re in charge!
You’re strong and powerful and always there.
Forever!
Amen.
Song – StF 167 – Colours of day dawn into the mind
Benediction
Come with us Lord Jesus, Fill us with your Spirit, Shape us into your likeness, use us to enfold with love your needy world. Amen
