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A Christingle thought !

I’m going to begin this address by asking some rather difficult questions –

Firstly what is this ?? Orange

Secondly what is this ?? Ribbon

Thirdly ?? Cocktail stick

Next ?? Some sweets

And finally ?? A Candle

You’re all doing so well that I think if I asked you who the best rugby team in the world are you would probably all give me the right answer and say Cardiff Blues !

Now, one more question : if you put all of these things together what would you make ?? A Christingle

As you will probably know the various things that make up the Christingle all represent something :

The orange represents the world in which we live.

The four sticks remind us of the four seasons of the year.

The red ribbon reminds us of the blood of Jesus and the fact that he died on the cross for us.

The sweets (??) remind us that God gives us a lot of great gifts in our lives, and of course the candle on the top reminds us of Jesus himself – the light of the world.

And when all those things are put together we have the story of Jesus and his love for us. But individually those things are nothing more than what they’re intended to be – the orange is an orange, the stick is a stick, the candle is a candle and so on…

And the same is true for all of us – as we approach Christmas we can all have a good time hopefully, we can enjoy giving and receiving cards and presents, but if we leave Jesus out of Christmas then we are missing out on the person that can make us really complete.

There’s a story about Mary the mother of Jesus – and she has a dream one night – she sees signs lit up saying Happy Christmas, she sees houses decorated, and people rushing around the shops buying lots of presents and food and drinks.

She hears of parties being arranged, and thinks how wonderful it is to see people enjoying her son Jesus’ birthday.

But then Christmas comes and she realises that people aren’t giving their presents to Jesus, and in fact, they’re not even mentioning him – She is filled with sadness as she realises that people have forgotten to thank Jesus for all he’s done for them, even on his birthday.

We must remember in the middle of all of the celebrations that we’re going to have, that Christmas is about celebrating the birthday of Jesus – and it would be wrong to leave him out of his own celebrations, and actually he doesn’t want to be involved with us just at Christmas time, he is there for us wanting to be involved in our lives with us all of the time. AMEN

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