How do you feel about Christmas? Do you become a child again or are you more of an Ebenezer Scrooge. I confess I am an off the scale kid when it comes to Christmas. I love the food, the friendship and the Dr Who special. Christmas was always a great event in my household when I was growing up and many of the traditions I grew up with I have now passed on to my children, from stockings to the Queens speech.
But Christmas is not like that for everyone. For some it will be a time of sorrow as they cope with their first Christmas without a loved one. Others will be battling with unemployment or loneliness.
That is why it is so important that we don’t lose our focus on God over Christmas. Those first heralds of Christmas, the Angels, announced news of great Joy to shepherds who knew great hardship. God in his glory enters into the strains and stresses of life here on earth.
It is this connection of God with the realities of life that makes Christianity, and therefore Christmas, unique. God does not offer us some religious escapism, rather in and through his son he offers to walk our walk and in so doing catch us up in his purposes and passions.
We can celebrate at Christmas whatever our situation because we celebrate the fact that our Father in heaven so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but will know eternal life.
Here at Jubilee we will be focusing on Jesus and his mission by raising money for our Jubilee Initiatives through Christmas cards, Craft Fairs and our much loved Christmas Choirs event on Friday 19th December (7:30-9:00pm at JCC). On Sunday the 21st December (9:15am and 11:15am) we will be celebrating and connecting with our Christian heritage through traditional Carols, nativity sketches and the nine lessons from throughout God’s word. On Christmas day we will be celebrating our own Jubilee traditions as we gather as a church family to celebrate the birth of the KING OF KINGS.
Simon Elliott
Why not come and join us?
