Vicar's Letter - December
Dear friends,
As I sat down to write the letter for this month, the words of the last verse of the Christmas Carol, ‘O little town of Bethlehem’, came to mind!
‘O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray;
cast out our sin and enter in: be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell:
‘O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel’.
And what wonderful words they are for us. The Lord coming to be with us and to change us too!
I don’t know about you, maybe it’s a vicar thing, but for me the month of December passes by very quickly. With the Christmas preparations, services, carols, plans, presents, decorations, get-togethers, socials, and whatever else comes along, the month is really full and can easily carry us along without our feet touching the ground! And then it’s January. New year. New start. New plans. New year’s resolutions… perhaps?
Advent – Christmas – Epiphany. The three church seasons we’ll journey through in December and January, bring with them opportunities to pause, to reflect, and to renew our thinking. But you know, we are so busy and sometimes miss the opportunity to take that time out to really reflect on what these seasons are all about.
Advent – the season of expectant waiting.
Christmas – the season to celebrate God’s saving work in the world, in the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Epiphany – the season of newness, of encounter.
