Sutton Methodist Church

Dear Friends,

Firstly may I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year on behalf of myself, Joanne, Rebekah, Liam and Joshua.

Sitting here on a warm sunny November day makes it feel like Christmas is ages off – maybe that’s why I’m not really prepared for the things I know I have to do in this special season within the life of the Church, the community and the family.

Some of the signs that Christmas is coming are around, months of adverts on TV, Christmas lights in the City Centre, Trees in peoples houses – 1st one spotted on November 1st  - cards & tinsel & decorations all round the shopping centres and of course Santa. You know Christmas is due when you hear parents and grandparents using Santa as a threat to ‘behave or else’ when out shopping. Poor Santa must wonder whether he is a figure of love or a strict disciplinarian during the pre advent months.

So have you sent Santa a list of your needs? Have you bought and wrote all your cards – hoping that Mrs’s so and so doesn’t bother this year but having a blank card ready just in case? Have you finished the shopping and told the family where to meet on the 25th?

Do you think God is happy that we humans have reduced the birth of his Son to such trivial questions and make little attempt to celebrate an event that changed History? Or that we give more prominence to an old man with a white beard than we do to the Saviour of the World {maybe that’s why God is often depicted as an old man with a white beard!}.

I am sure God IS disappointed but not surprised. Throughout the Old Testament he provided evidence that the Messiah would come, he sent people to prepare the way, the signs were all around and yet still people were too busy with their own lives to even notice. They couldn’t find room for Jesus then in their hectic lives and so it was that many missed out.

Of course we don’t have to excuse that those Bethlehem people had, they only knew that ‘one day’ the Messiah would come, we know the day he CAME and still we make ourselves too busy to celebrate. Well maybe we still have time to jump off the rat race long enough to reflect in WHAT JESUS MEANS TO YOU (not to me but to you).

Was he a nice fairy story?         Oh No He Wasn’t!...
Was he the first Santa?              Certainly Not!...
Anyway my question didn’t ask “who he was” but “who is IS”..in 2007 for YOU.

Maybe you can allow Jesus to be Born Again in your heart and lives this Christmas time and begin a new journey of life with him into 2008. Please stop, reflect and decide whether the child of the manger and the man of the cross is alive in you NOW.
If he is already or if he has become so during this year of Growing Together then I know you will have a Spirit filled New Year. If not then the January nights will soon surround you with darkness and you may have again missed The Light of the World…but its NOT too late…Christmas is still coming, be prepared, lets make JESUS a priority.  

Rev Keith