Category: Sunday Sermons

This evening we have gathered with a purpose. We have gathered to remember the true meaning of the Christmas message. We have gathered around a tableau, a crib scene, which is a reminder that others gathered when the message of God coming amongst us was first announced. Mary, Joseph, shepherds, wise men angels and animals all gathered to welcome Jesus into the world. A child who would live and die with a message of light and hope! The gathering welcomed him into the world and our gathering welcomes him once again tonight into our world this Christmas.

This morning we recall once again that Advent is a season of expectation and preparation .. perhaps we experience this more than we know in the secular rush to prepare for Christmas. Perhaps you feel you are well into the season of getting ready in a practical sense. But let me ask you where you are in a spiritual sense of preparation. How much time have you taken to pray and reflect in comparison to time spent in shops or putting up decorations?

Malachi 3 v 1-4 and Luke 1 v 68-79

Last week we started our Advent season reflecting on the theme of expectation. We mentioned that whilst we associate this expectation with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem at Christmas , Advent also calls us to look ahead to a final advent at the end of time. A second coming of Christ.  And in this sense we are still called to prepare!

1 Thessalonians 3 v 9-13 and Luke 21 v 25-36

Advent is a season of expectation as the Church awaits the coming (adventus) of Christ in his incarnation. Perhaps you associate this in your minds with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. The theme of preparing to receive the Christchild once again into the world through the retelling of the Nativity and the events of the Holy Family.

Last week at Chebsey we started our journey through Harvest with a reminder of how connected we are, as humans, to the Land. We reflected on how this connection is not only a physical but also a spiritual connection. So we acknowledge we are of course dependent upon the Land for our physical needs .. without care and attention to the 6 inches of soil into which we plant our seeds we will not survive as humans. We suggested we have perhaps lost this connection in the western world where delivery drivers and shelf stackers seem more important than fine weather and farm workers. But the problem is far more than physical for us humans .. we have both a physical and spiritual need for connection to the land and the provision of food. There is something in the link between us and nature which reveals our createdness and our Creator and nourishes our souls.