Life after birth is what most of us mean by ‘life’. We can’t remember being in our mother’s womb; we count our birthdays from the time we made our visible arrival in the world. Our parents tell us about this time and about our early childhood; almost as soon as we arrive, we are being urged on to grow and develop.

The Gospels tell us very little about Jesus’s childhood and spend most of their time describing the three and a half years of His adult ministry, focussing even more specifically on His death and resurrection. Luke summarises Jesus’s childhood in one sentence: ‘the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.’ (Luke 2:40) We may long to know more details (and some spurious gospel writers made these up quite happily!), but the truth is we know very little about what happened after the birth of Jesus until He began His ministry.

None of us knows what our lifespan will be, but we have been given the precious gift of life and God’s aim for each one of us is to grow into His likeness, learning to love Him and others and serve Him and others. Life after birth should be lived for the glory of God, enjoying Him forever. Birthdays are celebrations of this life and need to be treasured. As we celebrate Christmas on Monday, let’s celebrate the life of Jesus and the life His life brings to us.

Tonight’s Bible study looked at some of our favourite psalms, including:

1. Psalm 23. One of the most beloved of psalms, this talks of our relationship to God (our Shepherd), His supply, rest, refreshment, healing, guidance, purpose, testing, protection, faithfulness, discipline, hope, abundance and blessing as well as the consecration and anointing He gives us. One of the most popular psalms to be put to music, this psalm is a favourite to be read or sung at funerals (since it talks of the ‘valley of the shadow of death’), but it sustains many in life as well!
2. Psalm 8. Written by David, this psalm contrasts God’s majesty and our lowliness and we can well imagine David as a shepherd, lying out in the fields at night, gazing at the majesty of God’s creation and marvelling at such a mighty God caring for him.
3. Psalm 139. This psalm reminds us of God’s omniscience and the fact that we are securely known by Him – including our thoughts, words and actions. The psalm marvels at our creation (we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’) and reminds us of the sanctity of life, but also reminds us how loved we are and how God has plans and purposes for our lives.
4. Psalm 27. This psalm exudes confidence in God and also expresses David’s heart for God and for worship. No matter what comes against us, we can be confident because God is with us to help us and use us. Fear has no place in our lives.
5. Psalm 19. This psalm extols God’s power in creaiton and in His word, but we particularly focussed on Ps 19:14 which prays for the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts to be pleasing in God’s sight. We need God’s help to be pure in both thought and word.
6. Psalm 124. This psalms reminds us of the help God gives us, both seen and unseen. Where would we be without God? God’s help is real and very present throughout all the trials of life.
7. Psalm 130. Ranging from the depths of despair (‘out of the depths I cry to You‘) to the confidence of help from a God who does not keep a record of sins but in whom is full forgiveness, unfailing love and full redemption (not to mention mercy!), this psalm also urges us to wait for the Lord, something we rarely find easy to do. We can have confidence to wait and hope, however, because of who God is.

Just to clarify what is happening at church in the run-up to Christmas:

1. Tonight is the Bible study, the last midweek meeting of the year, starting at 7:30 p.m. All who attend are asked to bring their favourite Psalm and we will be looking at how these sustain, guide, comfort and inspire us. In the New Year, we will continue our Bible studies on the Psalms from 11th January.
2. The coffee morning is on as usual on Saturday (23rd December) from 10 a.m. until 12 noon. Come in for a cuppa and a chat and a breather from the last-minute Christmas shopping!
3. We have a morning service (with Communion) on Christmas Eve at 10:30 a.m., but there will be no evening meeting that night.
4. On Christmas Day we will celebrate Christ’s birth with a short morning service, starting at 10:30 a.m.

In the period between Christmas and the New Year, we won’t have any midweek meetings, but there will be an ‘Open House’ at Garry and Julie’s for fun, fellowship and games from 4-8 p.m., with supper provided.

There will be a coffee morning as usual on Saturday 30th December (10 a.m. -12 noon) and a morning service on New Year’s Eve (10:30 a.m.), but no evening service that night.

On New Year’s Day, we will have our usual party at 4 p.m. All are welcome to celebrate the start of the year with us; please bring food or drink to this event!

Have a wonderful Christmas and we pray God’s richest blessings on you all for 2018.

As the end of a pregnancy draws near, there is usually a sense of impatience and uncertainty. When will labour begin? For the first-time mother, there is always the question ‘How will I know when I’m in labour?’, to which Mums tend to say, ‘Oh, you’ll know!’’ which, whilst true, is not particularly helpful to the pregnant mum-to-be! Plans have to be tentative; everything is hedged about with the notion ‘depending on the baby’! Some babies decide to make their arrival early, when parents are still not prepared; others don’t seem in any hurry and the due date passes with no action, leaving mum-to-be waddling around feeling more and more unattractive.

I can imagine Mary and Joseph setting out for this requisite journey to Bethlehem with a lot of apprehension and uncertainty. What if Mary went into labour en route?! Why on earth did the Romans have to issue their edict at this particular time? It would have been so much easier to stay at home! There were no online censuses then, alas!

Uncertainty is a particularly unnerving emotion. It leaves us feeling churned up, insecure, fearful and anxious. Yet, as Dan Millman comments, ‘faith means living with uncertainty.’  We are called to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7), which means we’re never going to be entirely free from uncertainty.

What God does offer us, however, is another paradox: secure uncertainty. We may not know what to do or what is going to happen, but we do know He is with us (Heb 13:5). When we don’t know what to do, we can fix our eyes on Him (2 Chron 20:12, Heb 3:1, Heb 12:1-2). God doesn’t always answer all our questions, but He does promise to be at our side as we walk down the paths that seem narrow, twisted and dark, shedding enough light to walk by. That gives us confidence to keep going.

I am fascinated by paradox in the Christian life, how seemingly contradictory facts can actually be true and how reason isn’t the sole arbiter of truth. Jesus told us that the first will be last (Matt 19:30) and that in order to gain life we have to be prepared to lose it (Matt 16:25). Naturally speaking, that doesn’t make sense, but the more we dive into God’s life, the more we find we serve a God whose ways are far above our ways (Is 55:9) and whose foolishness is wiser than our wisdom (1 Cor 1:18-25).

Christmas is another paradox. It doesn’t make sense that Almighty God would condescend to come as a helpless baby. It doesn’t make sense that the King of all the universe would choose a stable for His birthplace. It doesn’t make sense that salvation comes through surrender and apparent defeat. Our logic, our intellect and our way of doing things just don’t fit into the Christmas story, or indeed into God’s way of doing things. We have to believe in order to understand; we have to humble ourselves before we can be lifted up.

It doesn’t make sense that moments of passion can result in a unique individual nine months later. Parents generally have that sense of awe at the birth of a child: ‘how can this be?’ We may not understand it all, but we can bow in awe and reverence, and if anything, the Christmas story teaches us about how to respond to the things we don’t understand about God. Be like the shepherds and the wise men. Bow down and worship.

If we truly believe in the sanctity of human life, then we have a moral duty to care for the disabled and helpless in our society. Henri Nouwen was a professor at universities who then left his academic life to live in a community of disabled people (L’Arche) where mentally handicapped persons and their assistants attempt to live together according to the gospel. Such organisations are testimony of how the love of Christ can be worked out in the difficult, messy business of life.

People who look at seemingly broken bodies in wheelchairs might, without thinking deeply about the matter, feel they would be “better off dead”, a view that is behind many of the arguments in favour of euthanasia or abortion. It is this response of sympathetic despair that L’Arche seeks to combat – by showing that however damaged a person’s mind or body may be, there is always the possibility of relationship with him or her: a relationship that in an extraordinary and inexplicable way, will change the “normal” person and bring them to a deeper understanding of what life is really about.[1]

Such views are challenging, time-consuming and extremely difficult to sustain, but there are many people who can testify that disability, helplessness and vulnerability do not have to mean uselessness and irrelevance. The parents I know who have children with Down’s Syndrome or Rett Syndrome affirm that their children teach them so much about unconditional love, joy and wellbeing. We are called to care for the helpless and vulnerable and to love with all our hearts, for in loving others, we demonstrate our love for Christ. (1 Jn 3:16-18)

[1] http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2014/05/05/the-witness-of-communities-like-larche-is-a-profound-and-necessary-one-for-our-world-today/