St Margaret's Church Prestwich

Rev Helen preached this sermon on Sunday 3 December – Advent Sunday and the day of our Christingle service. Here it is for you again:

Be still and be ready for the Good News, the Good News is coming and we need to be ready for it and in advent that is what we do. We are in a time of waiting for something to come. Of course we know what we are waiting for and that is the focus of advent, it really is a time to wait for something new and renewing to come in the future. We are waiting for the birth of the Christ Child, I little bit of light in a difficult world. We’re are putting a candle in an orange today to remember that.

We are preparing in ways that they probably never even imagined 2000+ years ago, the things we will all be doing over the next few weeks and I’m sure there will be some of you here who have already started, it usually starts after the last few fireworks on bonfire night the Christmas preparation starts with gusto:

• Starting to buy presents ready to send to Father Christmas, getting the reindeer food
• Writing piles and piles of cards
• Buying truck loads of food
• Getting the tree and the decorations out
• Covering the house in so many flashing lights you don’t know where to look.

All of this for celebrating the day of the Christ Child, a day which usually flies by after all that preparation and all that waiting.

The thing is though we have to wait, wait 12 months and we know that it will all happen again, then wait another 12 months before it all happens again and we remember the birth of that baby. There are people in the world though who had to wait for a lot longer than that, for that first Christmas, thousands and thousands of years on a promise. They were waiting for the person God promised would come and save them, the person who would put them on the right track and allow them to repair their relationship with God, the royal priest who comes from the line of David.

We hear in the first reading of how God created humans and cherishes them even though they have gotten it wrong so many times, God would send someone to save and rescue them. There were so many people who were put in the frame for this for many years, this person who would come and redeem them. King David, Elijah, Daniel even Jesus cousin John the Baptist. Isaiah said some amazing things about this person, all those names we know well that this child was named, ;’Wonderful Councillor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Eternal King’. Daniel saw him in a vision ‘The one like a Son of Man and his eternal kingdom, the one who would come on behalf of the ancient one to be with humans. The one who would bring light into the world, as we see when we light the candles of our Christingles, the orange being the world and the candle…the light.

Then just over 2,000 years ago a baby was born and he would go on to do some amazing things, he told people to love each others, to be kind to each other, to forgive those who wrong you, to treat everyone equally, to look out for those who society has shunned or abandoned, to give a voice to those who don’t have one. He believed in those things so strongly that he willingly died for it, for telling people to love each other. The red ribbon around the Christingle tells us this, red for his love but also his blood that was spilt during his torture and execution. The authorities at the time must have though, we’ll that problem is nipped in the bud we won’t be hearing from him again! Yet here we are over 2,000 years later remembering his birth, lighting Christingles remembering him and what he brought with him, and of course we are now waiting, after his resurrection Jesus promised that he would return and we are waiting patiently for that day, as it says in Marks gospel Stay awake and be ready for his return.

So what should we do while we wait for Jesus to return, just like our ancestors in the faith waited for the royal priest from the line of David. We do what Jesus asked of us love each others, to be kind to each other, to forgive those who wrong you, to treat everyone equally, to look out for those who society has shunned or abandoned, to give a voice to those who don’t have one and we wait patiently, as so many of our ancestors in the faith did, wait patiently for the day when he will return. Keep lighting the Christingles I quite like this bit, Amen