A jam jar nativity?  No, it's one of forty jam jar lanterns made for our families and children's watchnight service, waiting to be painted with glass paints.  I had an amusing morning transferring peel off stickers onto jam jars - stars, bells, natiivty scenes, snowmen, Christmas trees... you name it, we had it!

This year the level of coughs and colds and other lurgies is high, so I was very happy when we had half a dozen children and roughly double that number of adults.  Ably assisted by our knitted sheep and some sound effects we shared a retelling of the nativity story from a sheep's eye view!

Later I will going a midnight service, and hope to find something special there too.

Tomorrow is the 'big day' worship and then community lunch for whoever arrives... then that's it for another year!  Or is it?

What was the first Christmas Eve like, Lord God?

A heavily pregant girl going into labour in an overcrowded house in an overflowing town

A man watching, helpless, as his young wife moaned and pushed, assisted undoubtedly by the local stool-woman

And all around them life (and death) carrying on just the same as ever

Beggars begging

Soldiers soldiering

Bullies bullying...

And beyond neat alliteration people starving, weeping, cheating,

Hoping, waiting, cooking, drinking, cleaning...

Unseen

Almost unheard

A tiny waif slipped into the experienced hands of the midwife

Opened his tiny mouth

Filled his infant lungs

And let out a mighty yell...

And the man wiped sweat form the young girls brow

And the girl drew the infant to her heavy breast

And you, God, you nestled safe and content in her arms...

Emmanuel, God with us.

So we arrive all too soon at the final Sunday of Advent  - a season which, this year, is almost as short as possible, lasting just over three weeks.  Today we traditionally recall Mary's "yes" to Gods' preposterous... question?  request?  demand?

Who in their right mind would put their life at risk in such a way?  At best she would be cast out to live a hand-to-mouth existence as she struggled to raise this illegitimate child; at worst as soon as her pregnancy could no longer be hidden, she would slowly, painfully and publicly executed by stoning, her unborn child dying with her.  Now, we can leap in and say, 'ah but God would never allow that'... no?  Then it wasn't much of a risk for God then, was it?

Fifteen years ago, give or take, I offered my own 'yes' to God's call on my life.  A call that is as nothing compared to that issued to Mary.  No one was going to execute me for claiming a call to ordained ministry (though they could, and sometimes did, make life unpleasant).  No one was going to cast me aside saying "well, you've made your bed, now you must lie in it" if it all went horribly long, and in any case I had plenty of transferable - an eminently commercial - skills. 

In theory I oculd have said 'no'.  And, for that matter, so could Mary.  No thanks God, the price is too high, the risk too great, my plans and dreams too important to me...

For me the call was unequivocal - there was no optoin but to say 'yes'.  I venture to suggest the same may have been the case for Mary.

Often I think it is as well I had no idea what the outworking of God's call on my life would look like (will still turn out to look like).  I also think how essential it is that the conviction was utter - that there was no other answer possible.  I suspect these were so for Mary too, only probably much, much more so.

I remember the day you called my name -

So clear, so urgent, so undeniably real.

I remember the bewilderment and delight,

The anxiety and the certainty

I couldn't know then what I know now -

Could only dream of what the future might bring,

And fear how it could all go horribly wrong.

But I offered you my unhesitating, trusting 'yes'.

I walk in the shadow of your mother -

A woman who risked everything for you,

A woman to whom you entrusted everything...

A woman who said 'here I am, at your service.'

Jesus, Son of God,

Jesus, Son of Mary,

Help me serve you too

Amen

50th Birthday party at the Gathering Place... massive thanks to everyone for making it such a wonderful and memorable day for all the very best reasons

Coming from a long line of preaching people (a rabbi, a Methodist local preacher and a Christian Scientist reader to name the three I know of for certain!) it is perhaps not such a surprise that both my sister and I ended up preaching.  Our theological views differ quite a lot, but there is a strong, shared sense of what creating an act of worship is about, and I have a sneaky suspicion she's the better preacher of the two.

Anyway, last night there was a slightly weird conversation about worship we were each planning, her for Sunday and I for Christmas Day.  I'm using two secular pieces, she said, this and that.  That's odd, I said, so am I, well three actually, those two and another one.  And three carols she said, this, this and that... Well that's spooky, I said, I'm using two of those too...

So, I have to assume that we are on the same wavelength here, whether as she says, because we both have good taste, or as I dare to suggest, the Holy Spirit gave us both the same nudge.

If you want to know what the songs are... well you'll have to come along to the Gathering Place at 11 a.m. on Christmas Day or to some unspecified URC in Cambridgeshire this Sunday!

Yesterday I heard something on the news that really disturbed me: a seemingly sane, rational and no doubt caring man said that the only way to stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun.  Oh dear.  An eye for ann eye and we all end up blind.  When did an ancient law of proportionality become a mandate for violence?

Yesterday I also had a conversation that equally disturbed me: someone called at church to see if they had left something behind after a meeting they had attended (not one of those I lead) and saw fit to pass comment on the character of my church.  He went on to tell me that, if certain legislative changes go ahead, God will punish this nation. Splutter, cough, what the *good-job-I'm-a-minister-and-the-only-word-I-know-to-complete-that-sentence-is-'heck'*?  Since when was any of us God's perfect spokesperson able to announce what God would do.  In any case, that kind of theology would equally indicate divine displeasure over all manner of things the person saying this would support.

The season of goodwill to all people - so let's arm ourselves to the teeth and shoot to kill!

The season of goodwill to all people - so let's ask God to smite those who fail to meet our standards!

And immediately, after these things, it came to pass that the WORD became flesh:

Flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone,

Creator became creature

And lived among us, as one of us, with us - Emmanuel

And shared our nakedness and vulnerability

And shared our sorrow and pain

And shared our laughter and love

But never

Never

NEVER

Our self-righteous, priggish, legalistic, judgemental, sinfulness

No

God loved the whole cosmos with such unquenchable love that,

Iin order to rescue it all from the grip of self-inflicted and selfish evil,

God entered it

And today it is Christ who takes the bullet

Christ who takes the insults of bigoted people

Christ who weeps with the Rachels in a hundred thousand Ramahs

Christ who starves to death in poverty

Christ who is marginalised and victimised and ostracised..

Christ who continues to say,

Slowly,

Gently,

Purposefully

"Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do"

Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.  Amen