No carol service would be complete, it seems, without the children singing ‘Away in a manger’:

The children and Mark (as teacher) were given Christmas presents as well to help them learn more about the meaning of Christmas.

Because we will be only having morning services on 24th & 31st December, we had 3 birthdays to celebrate tonight:

A girl who doesn’t like hats…

And a boy whose birthday is on New Year’s Eve:

One of the activities at our carol service involved ‘pass the cracker’…

When the music stopped, the cracker was pulled, and then people had to come out to read the jokes from the cracker:

Dan’s was the winning joke: ‘Why did the mechanic work underneath the car? So he could get up oily in the morning.’

The many names of Jesus reflect His many different roles. He is both the sacrificial lamb of God and the Good Shepherd who leads us. He is both Son of God, God with us, God in all His fulness (‘I am’ reflects the name of God given to Moses at the burning bush) and Son of Man, fully man. His names reflect His ability to feed us: He is the bread of life, for example:

The many prophecies about Jesus’s birth (Is 7:14, Is 9:6, for example) indicate something of the varied nature of His role, being the prince of peace, wonderful counsellor, a man born of a virgin and so on. The New Testament expands on our understanding of His role as Great High Priest (Heb 4:14) and proclaims Jesus to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the author and finisher of our faith. All of these names help us to see Jesus in different lights and highlight different aspects of His unique identity.

Ultimately, we celebrate Christmas because ‘today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.’ (Luke 2:11) Jesus, whose very name means ‘the Lord is salvation’, came to bridge the gap between humanity and God caused by sin, and by His sacrificial death brought reconciliation (peace) to us. We celebrate with joy and thanksgiving primarily because of who Jesus is and what He has done for us, knowing that ‘at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ (Phil 2:10-11) 

Tonight’s carol service looked at the names of Jesus. Naming a child is often one of the first things would-be parents do, being careful not to choose names whose initials spell out embarrassing words or to avoid names that have unpleasant connotations (naming a bobsleigh in the film ‘Cool Runnings’ had similar problems…!) Mary and Joseph did not have these problems to face, however, since they were told what to name their first-born!

Quite often, when we research our family names, we look at family trees, so we had our very own tree tonight to look at the names of Jesus, which included:

1. Word (John 1:1)
2. Son of God (2 Cor 1:19, Col 1:15)
3. Son of Man (Mark 10:45)
4. Second Adam (Rom 5:12-21)
5. Bread of Life (Jn 6:35)
6. Living Water (John 7:38)
7. Light of the World (John 8:12)
8. True Vine (John 15:1)
9. Gate (John 10:9)
10. Good Shepherd (John 10:11)
11. The Way, The Truth and the Life (John 14:6)
12. Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25
13. I Am (John 8:58)
14. Lamb of God (John 1:29)
15. Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5)
16. King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Revelation 19:16)
17. Alpha & Omega (Revelation 1:8)
18. Faithful & True (Revelation 19:11)
19. Messiah/ Christ (Jn 1:41)
20. Great High Priest (Heb 4:14)
21. Prince of Peace (Is 9:6)
22. Wonderful Counsellor (Is 9:6)
23. Chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20)
24. Saviour (Acts 13:23)
25. Lord (Phil 2:11)
26. Immanuel (Matt 1:23)
27. God’s indescribable gift (2 Cor 9:15)
28. Jesus (Matt 1:21) – Yahweh is salvation

A close-up of the leaves on the tree, made from real leaves!

Sticking the names on the tree:

On two occasions in Luke 2, we read of Mary treasuring the things she had learned (Luke 2:19, 51) and pondering them. There could be no doubt that the angelic visitation announcing that she would become the mother of Jesus must have been an extraordinary experience. Hers was a pregnancy like no other, and although she had the confirmation of Elizabeth’s unusual pregnancy and her own experience, she must have pondered all that was happening to her over those months of gestation. It was not an ‘ideal’ situation for a teenage girl to find herself in, nor was it ‘ideal’ to have to travel to Bethlehem so close to giving birth and then having to give birth in a stable full of animals. There was much to ponder about during this period in her life.

There was very little that was ‘ideal’ or ‘normal’ about this experience. Dirty, dishevelled shepherds were the first visitors to the Messiah, and perhaps not exactly welcome ones initially, but as Mary listened to their stories of angels, she must have reflected that God was definitely doing something special. Later, as Jesus was circumcised and dedicated to the Lord, Mary encountered another miracle to ponder, the proclamation and prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:22-35).

Simeon had to wait many years for the fulfilment of God’s promise to him that he would see the Messiah, In that respect, Mary’s promise was fulfilled relatively quickly, but Simeon had eyes to see beyond the infant child and talked of a sword piercing Mary’s soul. It probably made little sense to Mary at the time, but as she treasured these words and pondered them, she realised that God was in control of all things and was working out a greater plan than she could at that time see.

We must be like Simeon, alert to God’s ‘nudges’ and willing to wait patiently for what God has promised. He will complete all that He has started and will answer us in ways that perhaps astound and confuse us. Our job is to welcome those He sends into our midst with love and care, even if they are not the ‘ideal’ people and don’t fit into our preconceived ideas and expectations. The call is for us to be alert and aware of what God is doing so that we recognise HIs workings. We don’t want to miss out on anything that God is doing, however unexpected this may be, and in order to perceive God’s action, we need to treasure and ponder all that He does.