Cloth for the Cradle at TFG
The Iona Community's poem to accompany the service can be heard here.
Waiting is something that comes hard to us in today’s society. We are
all so accustomed to the ‘instant fix’. Credit cards are the answer to our want /need it today philosophy, where
those of a previous generation were accustomed to saving for something until
they actually had the cash to purchase the item. Indeed some time ago the
slogan for a major bank’s credit card was it ‘takes the waiting out of
wanting’, and, on a much larger scale we have the cause of a lot of today’s
financial problems.
Which brings us to to-day, the day when the Church celebrates a new
year, and starts the run up to Christmas, yes the Church’s waiting time, and
like saving cash to prepare to buy something, the Church too is preparing.
Preparing to celebrate that great mystery of the incarnation.
Commercially, the shops have been preparing since the summer holidays,
forcing us to look actually towards Christmas and almost a pre emptive
celebration of the actual feast. However if we look forward too much to the
feast, we miss the joy of the present; we are constantly set on something in
the future which should indeed be wonderful, but ignore the joys of the
present. Let us enjoy the present and the preparation so that we may rightly
celebrate Christmas when it comes. Good, careful, preparation for things makes
them so much more appreciated.
The season of Advent is a double preparation, a preparation for the
birth of the messiah and a preparation for the second coming. This morning
though we thought more about how we prepare to welcome Jesus, thinking not just
about Christmas, but how we prepare to welcome Jesus into our lives. As our
hands prepared the cloth on the crib, we asked for our hearts to be made ready
to love and welcome the Christ child into our lives. We prayed that He be born
again, not in a manger but in us.
In the words of the hymn writer Emily Elliott ‘O come to my heart Lord
Jesus there is room in my heart for thee’.
Frances
