Skip to main content

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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Characters around the cross reflection

Today I want to think about some of the characters involved around the cross. Some played important and good roles, others were those who turned on Jesus, and sought to hurt him. I want to begin with a short reflection about Jesus written by Gregory of Nazianzus, A.D. 381 “Who was Jesus? He began His ministry by being hungry, yet He is the Bread of Life. Jesus ended His earthly ministry by being thirsty, yet He is the Living Water. Jesus was weary, yet He is our rest. Jesus paid tribute, yet He is the King. Jesus was accused of having a demon, yet He cast out demons. Jesus wept, yet He wipes away our tears. Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver, yet He redeemed the world. Jesus was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, yet He is the Good Shepherd. Jesus died, yet by His death He destroyed the power of death.” The Power of Numbers...The Crowd Mark 11:1-10 : When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent tw...
Post a Comment
Read more

Marriage thanksgiving

Today we have dedicated this service to giving thanks for the gift of marriage… All of us I’m sure will join with me in offering prayers to ask God to continue to bless married couples everywhere, but marriage itself can never be taken in a vacuum. The Bible tells us and human nature dictates that actually we are all part of a much bigger family, married, unmarried, old or young, and as such each of us have commitments to each other. And that commitment must surely be to love… If you have a sense of humour, and I’m sure you all do (!) you may like to hear some of the things the Bible says about love in marriage. In the book of Genesis (29:20) we read that Jacob worked for seven years for Laban to earn the right to marry Laban’s daughter, Rachel. We’re told that the 7 years of work seemed to him just like a few days because he loved her so much! He worked seven years for her father so that he could marry her. I am tempted to say he had it bad! Moving on a little, The Song of Songs in ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rooted in love, growing in hope

  Families can be special in all kinds of different ways. Sometimes it is in the simple things - the clatter of plates at a shared meal, the familiar voices drifting through a house, the quiet reassurance of knowing you belong somewhere. And sometimes it is in the harder things - the disagreements, the disappointments, the times when relationships seem stretched. It can be in the sharing of celebrations and joys, or in the times when we’re bound together by sadness…  Families can be places of deep love, but they can also be places of challenge, because families are made of people, and people are gloriously imperfect.   One thing is common though, whether we have families with who we want to spend lots of time or not, and that is that most of us carry a longing to belong, to be accepted, to be held securely within a circle that says, “You are ours.” It is into that longing that Paul speaks in Romans (8:12-25). He doesn’t begin with rules or expectations, he begins with ide...
Post a Comment
Read more