Thought For The Week

CREATING COMMUNITIES OF WHOLENESS WITH CHRIST AT THE CENTRE

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New Year

If you do nothing else as New Year approaches, take a moment and think back, remember the things that were great in 2007 and say thank you, remember the mistakes you made and say sorry. And then look ahead, forget any resolutions, but think about how you can build on the good things, and how you can heal the broken ones - and if you need help with the healing, or the building, please ask!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Christmas

It's so simple, so familiar, so comfortable, and so radical and profound and miraculous. Its so personal and so all-encompassing. From Bethlehem to Moscow, Cape Town, to Auckland, Paris to Lagos, to Basra to Swindon millions will be celebrating the birth of Christ, yet none of it will make sense if it doesn't touch our hearts, our souls, our very lives.

We know the story, sort of, and think that there's nothing new to learn, its safe and secure, and yet it's nothing of the sort. God chooses an ordinary girl to be the mother of his Son and a stable [or more likely a rough cave] as a birth place. Despised shepherds were the first to wonder and stare; and within days the holy family were running for their lives to escape genocide. You couldn't make up such a story and yet it's tragically familiar to millions around the world who face such situations day by day as a horrifically ordinary part of conflict.

Christmas is about God becoming human, suffering like us, loving like us, living like us. Christianity is the only major world faith that believes that God loves us so much that he chooses to be born as a human being. So with the shepherds and angels, with the wise and the powerful, the ordinary and the poor, take a moment this Christmas to wonder and stare at the Christ child, the miracle of God becoming human, just like us.

Advent - John the Baptist

Isaiah 11.1-10
Matthew 3.1-12

It can't have been easy being John, as a child he got the three Rs religion, religion, religion - all day every day from his parents! As an adult it was locusts and wild honey, deserts and animal skins. And he was the one who was sent ahead, to prepare the way. He was the advance team, laying out the turf, he was the one who would ultimately diminish so that Jesus could increase.

But what he was most fundamentally about was preparing a way for Jesus to walk into the world. And that's an ongoing task - so what can we now do to prepare a way over which Jesus can walk into the world? Perhaps inviting someone to church, or buying a cow for a community in the developing world for Christmas... see www.presentaid.org ...

Advent - Prophets of Jesus

Isaiah 11.1-10
Matthew 3.1-12

The people of Israel were waiting so long - Isaiah was one of the greatest but wasn't the first prophet to look ahead to the coming of Jesus. There were such expectations; so many centuries of waiting and hoping - for an end to tyranny and oppression, slavery and pain, for freedom, hope and peace.

If Isaiah was one of the first John the Baptist was one of the last [in many ways the very last before Jesus]. And like Isaiah, all the prophets who preceded and followed him and the one who they prophesied [Jesus]; listening to John wasn't always easy. Preparing the way, making straight the road over which Christ can walk into the world can sound great. The very fact that God wants to become human like us is astonishing, but it doesn't stop there.

Isaiah shares such an amazing vision. From the most barren of stumps new growth can come, and the new growth is completely different, its an end to conflict, an end to pain and suffering - and all of this comes through the stump of Jesse, that is through David and ultimately Jesus. Jesus can today bring new growth to our barren stumps.

But alongside the peace is righteousness and equity, justice for the poor and oppressed and judgement for the wicked. And the judgement is right up there in your face. John describes the oppressive hypocrites who come to him for Baptism as a 'brood of vipers' and asks them who warned them to escape from the wrath that is to come.

There are the endless shades of grey, but there are also times when things are very clearly black and white. And when faced with war, slavery [ancient and modern] global warming and global debt, HIV AIDS and too much more it is time for us to stand up and make our voices heard. If the fact of evil is black and white, when we look at how to respond we're back to the shades of grey. But respond we must. How are you responding, to what issues and in what ways...?

Advent

The waiting is nearly over [it’s nearly December] and the waiting is just about to begin [it's nearly Advent]. 'Watch and wait' could quite easily be the slogan for advent. Watch and wait for the coming of Jesus, and for his second coming, watch and wait for signs of his presence on earth. And as the angels swirl around us [in the bible stories of the season and in our present lives] as we struggle to keep the 'work, life, Christ balance' [its a great phrase and concept coined recently by a friend] in the run up to Christmas, we need to watch and wait, for God's signs around us, and for God's call in our lives and our world.

If you'd like to find out more about all of this email Mike Haslam.