Hey, You!

Dec 22, 2024

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In a first, Julie preached tonight dressed as a sheep… not a sentence that can be written frequently! Taking inspiration from the children’s musical ‘Hey Ewe!’ by Antony Copus, she explored the idea that we are all sheep (see Ps 100:3) and that God is frequently described as a shepherd (Ps 23:1, John 10:11). We have been learning interesting facts about sheep (such as the fact they have four stomachs), but it’s also interesting to see how many Bible heroes had that profession (e.g. Moses, Jacob, Amos and David.)
Sheep tend to go astray, as Isaiah 53:6 makes plain. All of us are ‘black sheep’ in the sense that we want our own way and often rebel against God. Christmas reminds us that God has done something about our sheep-like tendencies and has given Jesus, His only Son, as the way we can become reconciled to Him. Isaiah goes even further and says, ‘the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’ (Is 53:6) Everything we have done wrong, all our sin and our wrongdoing, have been placed on Jesus, and because of His sacrificial offering to God, we can know forgiveness and salvation and can have peace with God. Christmas is an important chapter in the story of salvation, for we begin to see how God saves us: through a sinless child, born to a faithful woman. The rest of the story involves His perfect life of service and His death, resurrection and ascension, all key aspects of God’s salvation story.
Sheep need shepherds, and John 10 reminds us that Jesus is the good shepherd, unlike the thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy. The Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15) reminds us that God cares about the individual and has gone to great lengths to rescue each one of us. But as the play on words in the title song makes clear, this is a personal call (‘Hey Ewe!’ – Hey, you!)
Will we be like the curious sheep who realised ‘something’s going on; I just know it. Nothing’s as it seems; can’t you see?‘ or like the others who dismissed this as nonsense? If we will come back to God, ‘everything’s going to be alright’ (see 1 Pet 5:4; Rev 7:17). It’s up to us – God is still calling us!

Hey Ewe!

Dec 22, 2024

This evening we had our carol service, with the children taking part by singing songs from the Nativity musical ‘Hey Ewe!‘ by Antony Copus. First of all, we had the song ‘Hustle Bustle!’ which reminded us why Mary and Joseph had to go to Bethlehem.

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Then we had a curious sheep (Lady Baa Baa) who realised that ‘something’s going on’, even though the other sheep were soon tired of her constant noisy bleating.
The children’s favourite was the song ‘Hey Ewe’ when the sheep had to run from the sheep pen and be rescued by the shepherds!
Finally, the sheep and shepherds made it to the stable to see baby Jesus and to sing their praise to the King who came to save us all.
Our thanks to all the children for the effort they put into this and to Esther as narrator and Rebekah as Lady Baa Baa for being brave enough to sing a solo.

Love Came Down At Christmas

Dec 22, 2024

The final Advent theme is love, a fitting end to all our reflections throughout December, since God is love and love is the most excellent way.

Christina Rosetti’s poem ‘Love Came Down At Christmas’ reminds us of this fact:

‘Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love divine;
Love was born at Christmas;
Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, Love divine;
Worship we our Jesus,
but wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token;
Love be yours and love be mine;
Love to God and others,
Love for plea and gift and sign.’

In the midst of all the busyness, keep your eyes fixed on Love!

 

Waiting For God

Dec 22, 2024

Dave spoke this morning from Luke 2:22-35, when the baby Jesus was presented at the temple. Simeon was waiting at the temple for the Messiah and declared that this was the Messiah he was holding in his arms. We know very little about the childhood of Jesus, and so this incident is of enormous significance to us.
Simeon was waiting for the fulfilment of God’s promise to him; Mary too had seen God’s promises fulfilled in the birth of this miracle baby. Waiting for the fulfilment of God’s promises is not easy, but He is faithful. He will fulfil all that He has promised to do and must never ignore when God speaks.
Mary treasured the things that she was told by Simeon and Anna as well as all she had witnessed, including the shepherds’ vsiit and then the visit from the Magi. We do well to ponder and treasure all that God has promised us and remain faithful to Him as we wait for His fulfilment.

Keep Going!

Dec 20, 2024

By this point in Advent, many of us are flagging. We have been involved in school concerts, choir concerts, Christmas fairs and special activities. We have bought and wrapped countless presents and arranged deliveries of these to those we will not see over Christmas. We have written endless cards and posted them off. The three weeks of Advent have probably been busier than the rest of the year put together, and still we have carol services and special meals to prepare in the week to come. I’m hugely glad my granddaughter shares her birthday with my Dad’s (Christmas Eve), but it does mean we have birthday activities to add into the hectic mix as we try to make that special for her as well! Joy can seem in short supply at this precise moment in December, or at least it feels stretched thin.

I follow the Bible In One Year reading plan to ensure I read through the whole Bible every year, and I’m always struck by the reading in December which looks at Proverbs 30. That chapter starts, ‘I am weary, God, but I can prevail.’ (Prov 30:1) It always raises a smile in me, as it encapsulates exactly how I feel at this time of the year!

Joy giving us strength (Neh 8:10) is God’s promise to us as we approach the last week in Advent. Christmas Day is less than a week away. We may feel weary, but we can prevail – we can thrive and not just survive! Keep focussing on Jesus; keep lifting your head to gaze on Him. Study how He did it and keep going. (Heb 12:1-3) For the joy that was before Him, Jesus endured the shame of the cross. We have joy ahead; don’t give up.

 

The Insidious Nature of Sin

Dec 20, 2024

To end our 2024 Bible studies on the life of David in 2 Samuel 11 is a sobering experience. Here, the king who has made it through the wilderness experience of unjustly being hunted by Saul, who has withstood feigning insanity before foreign leaders and who has shown mercy, grace and forgiveness to many is seen to be an ordinary mortal like the rest of us. The depths of sin to which David falls in this chapter – self-indulgence and complacency leading to lies, deceit, lust, coveting, adultery and murder – remind us that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jer 17:9) and that if we think we are standing firm, we must be careful not to fall. (1 Cor 10:12).

David remained in Jerusalem while sending his army out to fight. He opted to stay in bed until evening and ended up lusting after Bathsheba, being prepared to accept the culture’s views on sexual morality instead of following God’s specific commands to kings (see Deut 17:17-20). So often we accept our culture’s ways instead of being led by God’s word; we live in a culture where sexual sin still abounds, where abortion and euthanasia are widely accepted, where God’s laws are being forgotten. Such cultural conformity will inevitably lead to sin.

David shows us that sin mushrooms; there is an insidious, incremental element to sin. We can cover it up and hide our sin from many; we can rationalise what we do so easily, even when it involves deception and murder. The only way we can overcome temptation is to defeat it with the word of God as Jesus did. (Matt 4:1-11)

James reminds us that temptation is not the same as sin (see James 1:13-15). Paul reminds us that God is faithful and will not give us more than we can bear, that He will provide a way out from temptation. (1 Cor 10:11-13) But David reminds us that no one is immune and that the only way back is through confession and repentance.

We will find out ultimately that God is a forgiving and compassionate God (see Ps 145:8-9, 2 Samuel 12) But we end the year with a sobering reminder that sin is always crouching at our door, that the devil is a roaring lion seeking to accuse, deceive and trip us up (see Gen 4:7, 1 Pet 5:8). We must remember that it’s only in Christ that we can overcome the enemy and that we are called to take up our cross daily, deny ourselves and die to sin. (Mark 8:34-35, Rom 6:1-11)