Message from our Locum – Joan Kilpatrick – Nov 2015
Dear Friends
Some bright spark reminded me recently that we’re heading rapidly towards Christmas!! The truth is Christmas cards have been in the shops for a couple of months at least, gifts are appearing, schools are working towards their Nativity Plays and we’re beginning to plan for the Church Services, but before all that takes place there are various other things happening.
By the time you read this letter Boys’ Brigade will have had their Dedication Service, something which I omitted to do last year, so it’s great the boys and officers will be with us to celebrate and dedicate themselves once again to their ongoing work and activities. A week later will be our Remembrance Service when we will take time to be remember and be thankful to all those men and women who have given their lives, and continue to do so, for our freedom. I sometimes think we take our freedom for granted simply because we live in ways which allow us to speak freely, live our faith without fear of being attacked or worse.
How fortunate and blessed by God that through His Son, Jesus, we have also been set free from our sins, that we can live in freedom from our past mistakes, in the knowledge that we are loved beyond measure. Very recently we sang these words from the song Here is love vast as the ocean:
Grace and love, like mighty rivers
Poured incessant from above;
And heaven’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.
That last line creates a very powerful image of God bending down to reach us, to show His unending love for each and every one of us, to enable us to be renewed and restored to a full relationship with Him.
Christmas is rapidly approaching, and with those words in mind, maybe we can image God ‘bending’ down to us through Jesus being born – God gave us Jesus as a gift who continues to live among us today through the power of the Holy Spirit.
On the evening of Sunday, 29th November, the first Sunday in Advent, we invite you to join us for an Alternativity Meal as a way of beginning to prepare ourselves for Christmas. We will share a simple meal along with readings and reflections to help us focus on this incredible time when our Saviour came as a baby, with all that that entails. If you would like to join us, please let me know so we can organise the meal.
In the meantime, I hope and pray you will know the presence of our Living Lord Jesus as we journey through November and into Advent together.
Love and Blessings
Joan