This week’s additions to our Jesse Tree at church continued to tell the Christmas story which stretches way back in time, long before the New Testament was written.

Jacob’s ladder reminds us of God’s covenant with Jacob (grandson of Abraham), who dreamed of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending. (Genesis 28:10-22) Jacob’s later encounter with God earned him the name Israel, the name by which the whole nation came to be known.

The sheaves of wheat remind us of the story of Joseph (Gen 37-50). This important Old Testament story shows how God can use every situation for good, for Joseph was sold into slavery and later thrown into prison, even though he was innocent, yet God used him to protect Israel from famine. The story of Joseph reminds us that God is always working for our good, even when bad things happen to us. Bad things happened to Jesus too (King Herod wanted to kill him because of jealousy and Jesus was later crucified by the Romans), but God was able to work out His plan of salvation even through these terrible events.

Moses’s staff reminds us of this great Old Testament leader who rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt. The parting of the Red Sea was one of the greatest miracles recorded and this great rescue looks ahead to the rescue from our sins which Jesus’s death and resurrection bring.

The stone tablet reminds us of God’s Ten Commandments, given to Moses. These were God’s rules for how to live at peace with God and with each other. God spoke to Moses face-to-face and made a covenant or promise with him to be with His people always. (Exodus 24:4-8). These are the Ten Commandments:

1. I am the Lord your God, and you shall have no other god before me.

2. You shall not worship any statues or other images.

3. You shall not use the Lord’s name without reverence and respect.

4. You shall keep the Sabbath day holy.

5. You shall respect your father and mother.

6. You shall not kill other people.

7. You shall not be unfaithful to your husband or wife.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not speak falsely about other people.

10. You shall not envy or want what someone else has.

These are good rules to live by (Exodus 20:1-17). Ultimately, though, none of us can keep these rules perfectly, which is why we need Jesus. He is both fully God and fully human, and therefore He can live a perfect life and give Himself as a sin-offering for us.

This morning as we walked in Goldthorpe and prayed for our community, we also distributed 41 Advent Angels knitted and crocheted for us as part of the Dearne Churches Together Advent Angel Trail. We hope that these angels will remind us of the message of hope and good news which the angels brought that first Christmas and that they will help to bring a smile to the faces of those who find them and take them home!

Before we even got home, we were thrilled to receive a photo from someone who had found an angel!

Sometimes it’s the little things in life that can make a big difference. We pray these Advent Angels will bring hope and joy into people’s lives this Christmas.

For the past two years Dearne Churches Together have left knitted sheep or nativity figures in local shops in Thurnscoe, Goldthorpe and Bolton-on-Dearne as a visible reminder to local residents of the Christmas story (and the chance to win a hamper by finding their names.) It’s been more difficult this year with lockdown, but instead of leaving knitted figures in shops, church members have been busy making angels! These will be distributed in strategic places in Goldthorpe (and other places if we get more angels!), and if you find an angel, please take it home with you and let it be part of your Christmas festivities this year – and beyond.

You might think this is quite a silly thing to do, but we believe that the symbol of the angels who feature so prominently in the Christmas story is not silly at all. The message those angels brought to the main characters in the story – to Zechariah and Elizabeth, to Mary and Joseph and to the shepherds who were among the first visitors to Jesus – is a message we desperately need today. It’s a message of hope and good news, always starting with the words, “Don’t be afraid!” It’s a message of joy and delight, because the angels came to announce the arrival of Jesus, a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths perhaps, but Jesus, the One who would take away the sin of the world and who would be Immanuel, God with us. It’s a message of peace and a reminder that God cares about us and is working in our ordinary situations to bring good things out of the chaos and light into the darkness.

We need these reminders today, when we have felt so alone and afraid because of the pandemic this year. We need to know there is hope, that we are not consigned to this strange new world of self-isolation, social distancing and face coverings for ever. We need to know there is peace and that we don’t have to live in fear. We need to know that there is joy to life because Jesus has come and will come again. So our Advent Angel Trail is not perhaps as foolish as it sounds and can bring excitement and anticipation to your hearts if you will seek and find.

We wish you all a very happy Christmas – and remember, Christmas begins with Christ.

The famous Renaissance artist and sculptor, Michelangelo, said,“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

Art involves seeing the invisible and making it visible, which is why art is very much like faith. The ordinary person sees a block of stone, of marble, a piece of wood, something shapeless, but the artist sees beyond the shapeless form to the sculpture within. Michelangelo said, “I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free.” The artist, with patience and determination, chisels away at the block until the statue emerges. We are amazed at what the mundane marble can reveal.

Yet the process of uncovering this art is often unglamorous and painstaking. Is there any less glamorous tool than a chisel? Or any more laborious work than using it to chip away at the stone? Most of us would be tempted to get out the sledgehammer, seeking the quick fix, but the sculptor, the carpenter, does not have that option. Theirs is a work of infinite patience and loving care.

Art takes time. And patience. And a belief that the work is worth it.

We are like that marble block. There’s a sculpture within each one of us which God is chiselling to reveal. We grumpily submit to His chisel most of our lives, wanting the work to be finished, resenting the time He is spending on forming our character and shaping the inner man. We want favourable circumstances and happy relationships, but He is busy working to chisel away every imperfection in us, refining us, re-shaping us, re-forming us. It’s a process that He will not rush. It’s a process that we cannot rush. It’s perhaps the reason Jesus was a carpenter on earth.

Touch that finished sculpture in the art gallery and be amazed. Explore its surface. Feel its contours. Marvel at the shape that has been revealed.

God is making everything beautiful in its time. (Eccl 3:11) Even us.

Other attributes of God which we considered tonight were:

God is eternal, without beginning or end, a concept we have difficult grasping. ‘Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.’ (Ps 90:2) We often read about God being eternal or everlasting (e.g. ‘the Lord is the everlasting God’, Is 40:28), but we find it hard to grasp the ideas of eternity since we are so rooted in time. One other attribute connected to this is also the idea that God is infinite: ‘the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain You.’ (1 Kings 8:27) In this sense, we talk about God being immense or without limits. We are limited in terms of both time and space, but God is not.

God is good. (Ps 119:68) This is one of the ‘overarching attributes‘ of God, and whilst we may not feel that life is good all the time, the fact of God’s goodness remains a core belief which shapes our understanding of the world, reminding us that evil will not have the last word (see Rom 8:28). God’s goodness could be said to encompass other attributes which make God who He is, such as His kindness, forgiveness, grace and mercy (see Ex 34:6-7, Ps 86:15, Neh 9:17).

God is righteous and just and holy. This means He will always do what is right and fair; He is not going to be swayed by partiality or overlook sin. He is holy; He is utterly different to us. He is light; in Him, there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5) Nahum tells us, ‘The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foe and vents his wrath against his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished.’ (Nahum 1:2-3) We can find it hard to reconcile different aspects of God’s nature such as the fact that He is loving but is also just or the fact that He is forgiving but will not leave the guilty unpunished. We tend to believe that these things are mutually exclusive, but in God, we see that they are not. God is holy and cannot look on sin, but He sent His Son to be a sin-offering for us so that we can be reconciled to God. (2 Cor 5:19-21) God is just; He will never do anything which is unfair or wrong; as Abraham said, ‘will not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ (Gen 18:25)

God does not change. (Mal 3:6) This is known as the ‘immutability of God.’ James tells us that God ‘does not change like shifting shadows’. (James 1:17) He may well change a course of action as the result of people’s response to Him (as Jonah found out with the people of Nineveh!), but He himself does not change. He is the constant. Heb 13:8 says, ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.’  This truth gives us great hope and encouragement, because it provides us with something which will not and cannot change in a world that is ever-changing.

We did not have time to talk of God’s truthfulness, His faithfulness, His sovereignty, His transcendence, His mystery… but our meditation tonight helps us to have a big view of God, defined by God Himself (rather than our own imagination or other people’s ideas), and this knowledge of God has the power to transform us o we can shine forth like stars in the universe as we hold firmly to the word of life. (Phil 2:15-16)