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The Light Came Down
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There is a light
Bright star shining
In the dark night
Old tales come true
All of our fears
Hopes and prayers
He has heard
And answered us
The light came down
Cast the darkness away
He appeared
A helpless child
The light of god came down
There is a light
A new day dawning
Old things pass
All things made new
Prophets have spoken
All He would accomplish
When the light of God
Would dwell with men
The light came down
Cast the darkness away
He appeared
A helpless child
The light of god came to save us
To the world that He made us
O' Lord and savior
Alleluia
Music and Words by Josh Garrels
Santa vs. Jesus
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/media.2960.churchinsight.com/522a9b03-8f52-4368-9742-45b3f3751cf9.mp4
Christ in the Rubble
by Kelly Latimore (Kelly Latimore Icons)
If Jesus were born today........??
Never the Same
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Wait for the Lord....
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/media.2960.churchinsight.com/34db892e-8619-4929-8ef3-40c0b709ab4e.mp4
Christmas
by Jan Griffin
Dark and dusty, a long way to go for a name on a list
an uncomfortable ride
to find no welcome, no roof
thankful for the smallest kindness
the animal’s shelter
gave a small, stable place
in a moment of seismic shift
where amongst the steaming breath of beasts
and the smell of hay and dung
labour brought the Saviour
delivery brought forth deliverance
the girl with certainty beyond her years
blinking back relief-filled tears
to gaze.
Far in the hills the sound of singing
beating wings and bright, bright light
foretelling something
of the glory yet to come
to the poorest shepherd folk,
dirty, stained, to hurry: see.
Whilst further still
led by the brightest star of all
magi with their wealth and wisdom
camel-rocked across the distance
bringing gifts of no use to an infant
in homage of what already was
and was yet to be.
Star and angels, candlelight
pierce the darkness of the night
shout ‘Glory’ angels,
shine bright star
journey weary travellers
to the alpha and the omega
A Christmas Poem
by John Bell (1745-1831)
Light looked down and saw the darkness.
I will go there’, said light.
Peace looked down and saw war.
‘I will go there’, said peace.
Love looked down and saw hatred.
‘I will go there’, said love.
So he,
the Lord of Light,
the Prince of Peace
the King of Love
came down and crept in beside us.
The Christmas C(h)ord
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Kenosis
by Luci Shaw
In sleep his infant mouth works in and out.
He is so new, his silk skin has not yet
been roughed by plane and wooden beam
nor, so far, has he had to deal with human doubt.
He is in a dream of nipple found,
of blue-white milk, of curving skin
and, pulsing in his ear, the inner throb
of a warm heart’s repeated sound.
His only memories float from fluid space.
So new he has not pounded nails, hung a door
broken bread, felt rebuff, bent to the lash,
wept for the sad heart of the human race.
Come My Way
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Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
such a way as gives us breath,
such a truth as ends all strife,
such a life as killeth death.
Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
such a light as shows a feast,
such a feast as mends in length,
such a strength as makes his guest.
Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
such a joy as none can move,
such a love as none can part,
such a heart as joys in love.
Performed by Fr. Austin Dominic Litke
The Angels
by Fanny Howe
(painting Henry Ossawa Tanner - Angels Appearing Before the Shepherds)
The lassitude of angels
is one thing
but how the gold got under
their skin I don't know
I met them
in the Fields of Mourning
where there is no morning
only the end of night
the dull gold of
transforming suffering;
what is passed on-
as milk is pain-
passed on to those
we love, becoming
nourishment, good luck
for them
Some colors
imply an ease
with indirect experience:
the point of each hour
is the dream it inspires
and there
the angels hang out
limp and gold
but suddenly anxious
if told
what trembling joy
their suffering has brought.
Christmas in Dark Places
by Glen Scrivener
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/media.2960.churchinsight.com/69350c1a-3989-48ec-a3f5-564f0634a850.mp4
Joy of the Shepherds
Seeing Shepherds by Daniel Bonnell
I’m pretty sure Daniel Bonnell wants your eye to be drawn to the astonishing sweep of the angelic host, but I love looking at those two shepherds.
Their arms are outstretched, their heads have lolled back, they are lost in exultation and joy.
To be sure, the appearance of a sky-full of celestial beings would have been terrifying. And the first thing the angel has to say is, “Do not be afraid.”
But shepherds were tough guys. They slept rough, needing to stay beside their flocks on the hills well outside human society. They had to contend with thieves and wolves, wind and cold and baking heat. They were wild men, hardened, practical, not easily ruffled.
As a result, they were not usually trusted by the general population. In fact, their reputations as raconteurs and charlatans meant their testimony was often considered inadmissible in a court of law. How strange that God should choose so unworthy an audience to announce the birth of the Messiah.
But having allayed their fears, the angel continues, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.”
Wily shepherds, ready for anything, have never seen anything like this. Who would believe that they should receive so wonderful a message, so lavishly presented! Great joy? Of course, a message of great joy would be received gleefully by outliers like shepherds. They have nothing, they are outcasts, despised and rejected by society. When they hear, “Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord,” they know they too are included in his kingdom.
Yesterday in our Churches, the third Sunday in Advent, we lit a rose-colored candle rather than the usual purple one. The intention is to depict the delight, the sheer wonder of this moment.
Look again at those blissed out shepherds in Bonnell’s painting.
Can you sense their joy?
Can we fully appreciate the excitement experienced by the excluded when a genuine offer of inclusion is presented to them?
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning
“Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks."
Luke 12:35-36
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God With Us....
We wait for you, Lord Jesus.
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/media.2960.churchinsight.com/4350aeb6-9b35-4217-a8ab-8ece1e2a1fc1.mp4
Wayfarers All
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O God, we wait on you
O God, we wait on you
Show us the way home
Wayfarers all, Lord
Hold us in mercy
Through this dark night
O God, we wait on you
O God, we wait on you
Gather us in
Mender of everything
Bright mourning dove
Rise over all of us
Painting for My Dad, 2011. © The Estate of Noah Davis.
Music "Wayfarers All" by Tom Wuest
Mary
Today in the church we honour the conception of the mother of our Lord, a celebration that takes place on this day in both the eastern and Western Church. The feast, which dates from the 7th century, acknowledges the preparation by God of his people to receive their Saviour and Lord, putting 'heaven in ordinary' and showing that mortal flesh can indeed bring Christ to the world.
Almighty and everlasting God,
who stooped to raise fallen humanity
through the child-bearing of blessed Mary:
grant that we, who have seen your glory
revealed in our human nature
and your love made perfect in our weakness,
may daily be renewed in your image
and conformed to the pattern of your Son
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Hush:
in the waiting
in expectation,
in the preparation,
in the rush,
for a moment,
Hush, be still.
by Jan Griffin
Saint Nicholas
The true story of Santa Claus begins with Nicholas, who was born during the third century in the village of Patara in Asia Minor.
He was a fourth-century bishop who went on to live in the ancient Roman town of Myra, now Demre in Turkey, and was reputed to be neither plump nor jolly, but did earn a longstanding reputation for charity and gift-giving.
His reputation as a worker of wonders was enhanced by a ninth-century author of his hagiography and he is now best known through these stories. Many of them concern his love and care for children, how he fed the hungry, healed the sick and cared for the oppressed. He saved three girls from a life of prostitution by providing them with dowries and so developed the tradition of bearing gifts to children on his feast day, a practice appropriated for the Christmas celebrations. Nicholas is also one of the patron saints of Russia.
Nicholas it seems was also an ardent defender of the faith, and legend has it he lost his cool at the Council of Nicea in AD325, and slapped Arius across the face in a theological disagreement about the nature of the Trinity!
Almighty Father, lover of souls,
who chose your servant Nicholas
to be a bishop in the Church,
that he might give freely out of the treasures of your grace:
make us mindful of the needs of others
and, as we have received, so teach us also to give;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Open Doors of Hope
"It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope."
Pope Benedict XVI
Light of the World by William Holman Hunt
Haiku for an Advent Calendar
Day 4 - Numbers
Dawn in my distance,
the wise watchers will see him,
star of their searching.
by Richard Bauckham
Advent Calendar
by Rowan Williams
He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.
He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.
He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.
He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.
The Annunciation
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favour with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Advent Calendar December 2023
With blessings at Christmas from Bewsborough Parish
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