18th December Advent 4 The Angel tells Mary

We started by reminding ourselves of the various events through the Christmas story and which Gospel had recorded them.

We noticed that most of the story is recorded in the Gospel of Luke, a little in the Gospel of Matthew and none in either of the Gospels of Mark or John.
Today's story was that of the Angel Gabriel coming to visit Mary and telling her that she was going to have a baby and that she should call him Jesus (which means Saviour).
We thought that Mary would have been frightened because of her young age and because she was bethrothed to be married to Joseph.  The Angel told her that she was highly favoured by God. This role she was to have would be very important. We realised that this event, though impossible in human terms, was very possible for God.
Although she did not really understand all that was being asked of her, she agreed without hesitation.  Are we as obedient as that when God asks us to do something?

Advent 2 - The People Who Walked in Darkness Have Seen a Great Light

The Book of Isaiah is often referred to as the "fifth gospel" because of the many passages which many Christians see as representing Jesus Christ many centuries before his birth.   Today's service offered a collection of readings from Isaiah appropriate for Advent and helping to prepare us to celebrate the birth of Jesus.   You can look again at the readings here:

Isaiah 6: 1 - 8

Isaiah 43: 1 - 3a

Isaiah 11: 1 - 4a

Isaiah 9: 2 - 7

Our thanks to Eleanor for devising and leading the service; also to those who played, read, danced, sang and acted in order to bring Advent alive for us all.

Peter

Advent 1 - A Jesse Tree

It was our All Age Praise service today and so we built a Jesse Tree. I can hear you ask – “So what’s a Jesse Tree?”

It comes from Isaiah 11 “A shoot will come forth from the stump of Jesse and a branch out of his roots”. The Tree connects the Advent season with the love and faithfulness of God throughout 4000 years of history and of course it leads us to Jesus, the Messiah.

A full Jesse Tree depicts a different for each day of Advent, but we only chose 6 of them, given that we only had one service and we made it from tree branches painted green, to show the new life that Jesus brings. We dressed it with our own Christmas decorations telling of various times in History. So we had scenes from the Creation story (a globe and a whale) Noah and the flood (Ark and Rainbow), King David (a Crown and star) Mary (the Holy Family, Mary and lilies) and finally we thought about the coming of Jesus, being the Light of the World so we had cut-outs of a Sun, a Star and Candle-light.

While the children were busy beavering away, the adults discussed each of the readings in turn, and the whole service was broken up by some very lively songs and other more thoughtful ones. So we enjoyed ‘Colours of Day’ and the Arky Arky song; Mary’s song of Praise ‘Tell out my Soul’ was followed by the newest version of ‘The Lord’s my Shepherd, we then sang ‘Light of the World’ and closed with ‘Shine Jesus Shine’ – of course!

Thank you to all who worked so hard to make it happen. We had a great time and learned an enormous amount; the Tree now sits in the Church so why not go and have a look?

HAPPY ADVENT!                                                     

Deacon Olivia

Advent Sunday - Cloth for the Cradle

 

 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