Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was given at our midnight mass service on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day 2021. Merry Christmas to you! Can you feel it? Have you got that Christmassy feeling yet? However old we get, there’s still something magical about Christmas isn’t there? And tonight, when Christmas Eve turns into Christmas morning is – for me – the most magical time of the whole season. Maybe it’s all that mulled wine I drank earlier? Or maybe, it’s the fact that it is night time – the witching hour, if you like, and just being here with you all, with the flickering candles and the beautiful, stirring Christmas music evoking that sense of magic for me. Perhaps that’s why you’re here too? To seek a small glimpse of that Christmas magic? Even as we grow out of childhood and into adults, I think we still, deep down, hold out hope that the magic of Christmas still exists. We cling to the possibility of all that Christmas promises; reconciliation with alienated family-members, children playing happily – and

This sermon was given at our Sunday morning service on 5th December 2021, the third Sunday of Advent. The service was also our annual toy service, in which we donate new toys to charity for Christmas presents. The Gospel was  Luke 3:1-6 . What do you think of when you picture a prophet? Maybe your mind is turned to the ancient Greeks and of  Cassandra  – the doomed prophet cursed to always predict the future, but never be believed until she uttered her last, tragic prediction of her own death. Maybe you picture something like The Seer from the History Channel’s ‘ Vikings ’ series; a cowled, disfigured old blind man, who talks in riddles, stating that the nature of prophecy is “only to be understood when it has happened, and it is too late to change it”. Or, perhaps you think of a man like John the Baptist in our Gospel reading from Luke today; a wild man, wearing camel hides who eats locusts and wild honey, crying out in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord. Throughout Advent,