December 21st 

 

December 20th

True Biblical Joy  

When Christ came and dwelt among his people, he was their rabbi or teacher. He taught them about God’s love and urged them to remain in him, saying “I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!” (John 15:11).

Paul encouraged the Colossians saying, “May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light” (Colossians 1:12).

Today, our joy, fueled by the Holy Spirit, is what God uses to spread his joy throughout the world. Mother Teresa once said “Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love.”

For the faithful, their joy is grounded in thankfulness for the first Advent of Jesus Christ, whilst also looking forward toward his second coming. True biblical joy is what God calls us to; it is a deep joy that endures no matter what life may have in store for us!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N40D2pk-w0

December 19th

God takes so much joy in us that God became completely vulnerable, becoming a baby, in order to be part of our mess and our party, that we might experience God’s joy, completely and without inhibition.

And so, we light the candle of Joy this Advent, welcoming God’s joy into our hearts and our world.

 

 

December 18th

Gaudete! 

The word “gaudete” comes from the Latin words “gaudium,” joy, and “gaudeo,” to rejoice or be glad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSxg9Ij5r8

December 17th 

 

"An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified."

- Luke 2:9

Despite their obvious fear at the appearance of an angel, the shepherds still made haste to go and find the infant Jesus, impelled by holy curiosity and faith in something they couldn't possibly have understood.  In our case, we probably don't very often make haste for the things of God.  God does not feature among the things that require us to hurry. The things of God can wait, we think.  And yet he is the most important thing - ultimately the only thing of any importance at all! 

Like the shepherds, we also need to be moved by curiosity, to allow faith to bring us closer to God and to know what he has to say to us.

December 16th    

The Joy Candle 

 

December 15th

Third Sunday of Advent - Gaudete Sunday

Joy

This third week of Advent focuses our intention on joy.  Joy is a very real and deep happiness that is rooted in faith and trust. In this third week of Advent, we pause and reflect on the first half of the season, as well as look ahead to the last weeks.

There is so much comfort to be found in the practice of pausing to read, pray, and reflect, and it gives us the opportunity to prepare in our hearts a sense of holy anticipation for the celebration of the birth of our Lord.  We can study the Scriptures as a reminder of the ways God has been faithful to us through the fulfillment of prophecy—and find hope in the promises of God that are laid out in his Word.

Gaudete Sunday occurs eight to thirteen days before Christmas, with the nearness of the feast being reason for great joy.

On Gaudete Sunday, priests may wear rose vestments.  These are only worn twice in the liturgical year, on this third Sunday of Advent and on the fourth Sunday of Lent, in order to show the joy and love in Christ.
 

December 14th 

The Nativity by Gari Melchers (1860-1932)


Mike Frost describes this most unusual depiction of the holy family. 

"No angels or shepherds. No wise men or donkeys or camels or sheep. No snow-covered gables or partridges or pear trees.  Only an exhausted new mother and her pensive husband. And of course her extraordinary newborn child.

Melchers chose to paint the trio alone in a darkened room, either before the shepherds appeared or after they’d left. The tone is sombre, the colour palette monochrome. A faint light comes in from the open door, but Joseph and Mary are mainly lit by the glow of the Christ-child. There is a sense of respite, a calm before the impending storm – the arrival of the strange men from the east, and Herod’s vicious slaughter of the innocents.

Months before the moment depicted in this painting, Mary believed the child to whom she would give birth would be the fulfillment of all of Israel’s hopes for liberty and justice, peace and goodwill. And she yearned for such a world.  Now, she can barely lift her head to look upon her child. She appears hungry, humble, bone-tired.

It takes faith to believe that Christ will triumph over sin and death, injustice and poverty. It takes faith to believe in the prophetic vision of Mary’s song. Even Mary, it seems, in this shadowy moment of rest, is forced to muster all the faith she can find to believe it.

Let this prone, bare-footed figure inspire you. Like her, even when all the evidence appears to be to the contrary, still will we believe."

December 13th 

Faith and Wonder

My faith is held together by wonder—by every defiant commitment to presence and paying attention.
- Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh

Writer and liturgist Cole Arthur Riley describes awe and wonder as a spiritual practice:

"I think awe is an exercise, both a doing and a being. It is a spiritual muscle of our humanity that we can only keep from atrophying if we exercise it habitually. ..........When I speak of wonder, I mean the practice of beholding the beautiful. Beholding the majestic—the snow-capped Himalayas, the sun setting on the sea—but also the perfectly mundane—that soap bubble reflecting your kitchen, the oxidized underbelly of that stainless steel pan. More than the grand beauties of our lives, wonder is about having the presence to pay attention to the commonplace. It could be said that to find beauty in the ordinary is a deeper exercise than climbing to the mountaintop….

To encounter the holy in the ordinary is to find God in the liminal—in spaces where we might subconsciously exclude it, including the sensory moments that are often illegibly spiritual."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfFwL_Xa9F0

December 12th

Mary's Faith

“’I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’ Then the angel left her”
- Luke 1:38

When faced with the incredible pronouncement of the Angel Gabriel, Mary chose to believe. From the moment she heard about being the mother of the Messiah, her heart and mind were fixed on what God was doing, even when she didn’t understand, her faith enabled her to believe.

Knowing God through His Word
As Mary declares in Luke 1:54-55, she had read so much about God's promises:  “He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.”

Reading Scripture and learning more about what God has done and plans to do, increases trust and faith

Knowing God through His Works
Mary accepted everything that was done and said and thought deeply about them. Luke 2:19 says that she “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

Being alert to how God is working in and around us and meditating on what we witness leads to trust and faith in the living God who is constantly active in our lives. 

Magnificat - Oil on canvas 1716, Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet


 

December 11th

Prepare The Way for The Lord 

“A voice of one calling: 'In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.' ”
- Isaiah 40:3-5 

Hear these words come to life in music from Handel's Messiah:  “Ev'ry valley shall be exhalted” (Sir Colin Davis, Mark Padmore, LSO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NCO6UzZ2R8

December 10th 

An Advent Prayer 

   

 

December 9th

What is Faith? 

December 8th

Second Sunday of Advent
Faith

Today, the Second Sunday of Advent we light the second candle, which is the symbol of FAITH. The candle's name has its origins in the prophet Micah who prophesied Jesus would be born in Bethlehem.

It is referred to as the Bethlehem Candle.

 

December 7th

Veni, Veni Emmanuel

Hear 'Veni, Veni Emmanuel' (Trad. Arr. Philip Lawson) sung by the The Gesualdo Six.

O COME, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that morns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! O Israel,
to thee shall come Emmanuel!


https://www.youtube.com/embed/MSRocN1dTrM

 

 

December 6th

A Theory of The Star of Bethlehem

American Christian author, Stephen M. Miller puts forward a popular theory of the Star of Bethlehem.  It wasn't just one star, but many; a lining up of Jupiter (representing “kings,” since Jupiter, aka Zeus, was the king of gods) and Saturn (representing Jews who worship on Saturn’s day, Saturday), in the constellation of Pisces (meaning “fish” and representing the Mediterranean Sea area where Jews lived). The alignment reportedly happened three times in 7 BC, about the time scholars say Jesus was born.

Hear Stephen M. Miller narrate this theory.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgWqfMiykF8




 

 

December 5th  

The Light of the World

“Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the
master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn.”

- Mark 13:35

 

This famous painting by William Holman Hunt, painted in 1853, hangs in the Side Chapel of Keble College, University of Oxford.  The painting was given to the College by Mrs Martha Combe, who with her husband, was a great patron of the Oxford Movement and admirer of the Pre-Raphaelites. 

There are two lights shown in the picture. The lantern is the light of conscience and the light around the head is the light of salvation with the door representing the human soul, which cannot be opened from the outside. There is no handle on the door, and the rusty nails and hinges overgrown with ivy denote that the door has never been opened and that the figure of Christ is asking for permission to enter. The bright light over the figure is the morning star, the dawn of the new day, and the autumn weeds and fallen fruit represent the autumn of life. The writing under the picture, which is rather hard to read, is taken from Revelation 3 ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me.’

 

The Four Weeks of Advent 

 

December 3rd

Click this image....

......and listen to the first of the great 'O Antiphons' of Advent, Sung by the choir of Keble College.

These antiphons were traditionally used for Vespers during the octave before Christmas (Dec. 17-23). 

They are of ancient origin, and date back to at least the ninth century.

     

December 2nd 

Looking Forward with Hope

 

 

Advent is about looking forward with hope: looking forward in the short term to the day we remember and celebrate the birth of Christ – the day we welcome into our world, Emmanuel, God with us.
But it is also about looking forward to the second coming of Christ, when God’s kingdom will be established on earth, when death will be no more, where there will be no more pain or crying or mourning, when these things will have passed away.

The Advent God is the one who ‘came down to earth from heaven’. He is ‘God and Lord of all’. He came down to share our humanity; to share our pains, our trials, our joys. The Advent God knows each of us by name and longs to meet each one of us when he comes.

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.”

- Isaiah 55:6 

December 1st

Advent Sunday
Welcome to the Season of Advent! 

Almighty God,
as your kingdom dawns,
turn us from the darkness of sin to the
light of holiness,
that we may be ready to meet you
in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Amen