Church News
December's Letter From Vanessa:
‘From Darkness to Light’….
We are now in the season of Advent, with Christmas knocking at the door!
Unlike our secular calendar, where 2024 comes to a close on 31st December and a New Year commences on 1st January, the church year ends on the 30th November, and the New Year begins on 1st December with the start of Advent.
Advent is not only the first season of the church year, with four important Sundays leading up to Christmas, but is also a season of hope, for setting time aside to prepare spiritually, mentally and emotionally for the birth of Jesus, who is sent by God to bring light and hope into the world. You may have noticed that it’s celebrated when the northern hemisphere becomes darker and colder, and moves from the death and dormancy of winter towards the new light that comes with Christ’s birth, celebrated on Christmas Day.
I always choose some supplemental reading during Advent to keep me focused on the light ahead. This year I have chosen to read a book by Andrew Nunn called Bethlehem Bound – journeying with the characters of Christmas. It’s a beautiful book which helps us to enter into the nativity with its rich tapestry of characters, including the Angel Gabriel, Mary and Joseph, the star, the donkey, the Christ child and the Magi from the East.
The Magi, or three wise men, travelled some distance to search out the baby Jesus, even taking wrong turns along the way, and I imagine this might be the case for many of us as we make our journey to find a flicker of light in our own darkness.
That flicker of light gives us so much to hope for at this time of year. Not just Advent and the hope that Christmas brings, but the promise of a new year unblemished as we come to find Christ as a vulnerable baby lying in a manger. Through him the new year can be pristine, where anything is possible. Even the concept of a “clean heart”, a heart which is stripped down, simple, uncluttered, able to be filled with hope and joy for the world, as we move from darkness to light.
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