Sharing some thoughts

Most people at some time hear some really astounding news – news that is absolutely life changing. On Friday morning as I was eating my breakfast and watching the episode of Neighbours that I’d recorded from the day before I received such news – up on the screen flashed the words, ‘Happy Christmas from everyone at Neighbours’ – very nice I thought, but then the really life changing news, the next caption read, ‘Neighbours will be back on 5th January’… This wasn’t supposed to happen with Channel 5 – there were to be no more Wimbledon interruptions, no more Royal Ascot interruptions, but now we have this ! Breakfast will not be the same ! Of course, life changing though this may be for me – it’s not quite as life changing as the news Mary received in the gospel reading today (Luke 1:26-38) – still really a young girl, not married, a virgin, but the angel had visited and told her she was to have a child. Mary’s acceptance was incredible – she could have panicked, she could have simply ref

The readings from Isaiah (40:1-11) and Mark (1:1-8) today are my favourite for the advent period. The prophet Isaiah writing, ‘In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill will be made low, the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain…’ And then John the Baptist, hundreds of years later echoes that cry as he prepares the way for Jesus. And those words must surely be our advent call as well. Today Churches, here and everywhere, are given some very simple commands by Jesus – love one another, love God, and share the good news of a salvation won for all by Jesus. They’re not complicated commands, and advent is a good time to reflect on how well we are achieving those things. This week a group of us from the Parish met the Archbishop in what was called an advent conversation – amongst the questions discussed were whether Wales today was actually looking fo

You probably all know what the Christingle means by now – the different things all represent something – the orange of course represents the world, the red ribbon reminds us of the blood of Jesus, who loves us enough that he was prepared to die for us, before rising to life again. The 4 sticks represent the 4 corners of the earth as well as the 4 seasons of the year – Spring, summer, autumn and winter, and the sweets or nuts on the ends of the sticks represent the fruits of the earth – all of the good things we have. And then there is of course the candle representing Jesus, who died for us, but who rose from the dead, and who is a light shining even into the darkest moments of our lives. But today I want to focus on the world (represented by ??? the orange). If we look around the world today, we see all kinds of different people, people of different personalities, different faiths, different colours of skin, different abilities, and so on. We live as a unique part of God’s creation –

Today in our Church calendar we move into the season of advent – The first Sunday in advent is traditionally new years’ day in the life of the Church. Our 3 year reading pattern moves today from Year A to year B, and we begin to look forward again to the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Like any new year, advent is a time of reflection – it’s a time of looking back, but advent is primarily about looking forward, perhaps to the nightmare of Christmas shopping, if you haven’t already done it, perhaps to the joys of spending time with family, the Christmas parties… perhaps even to new year, Christmas being over, and the chance to start again – to make and try and keep those resolutions once again ! But the looking forward in advent could be much longer term than any of those things, because in advent we look forward to the promised return of Jesus, and on this first Sunday in advent one of the themes of the day is ‘Hope’. In the current economic crisis many people are hoping that they’