What's on? Next Messy Church:  Sunday 12th January 2025 

Services    Toddler group

Christmas Day is a very special day. Amongst all the excitement and things being done, we are invited to pause for a moment and remember that we are celebrating Jesus' birth. In the stillness,  we can reconnect with God's wonderful gift of love and peace of which the angels joyously sang  ‘upon that (first)  midnight clear’. Hear the angels sing of God’s peace – peace for ALL people everywhere. 

In the words of Edmund Sears' carol, it was on the midnight clear that the angels first sang it more than 2,000 years ago.

Yet with woes of sin and strife, the world has suffered long;
beneath the angel-strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong;
and man, at war with man, hears not the love-song which they bring.
O hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angel sing!

So, within the moments of 'hush', take time to notice and to challenge some of the injustices seen locally and in Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Palestine, Haiti, Sudan and in so many places around the world.
Consider how to use the gifts of hospitality (love, peace and joy) to pass on the good news of Christmas - in sharing prayers? In sharing food or a kind word of solidarity? In being present to listen to someone? In sharing hospitality, we welcome God into the lives of others and into our own lives each day.

Having heard the songs, we can go with renewed hope and joy to tell out the good news of Christ’s birth and what it means. 

May we shine through the darkness of the world, and let justice flow, like a river.
Let us work to flood the world with God's love, joy, peace and hope this Christmas and each day we live. 
Together we can be the change we long for; together we can bring God’s ways of justice to all, in all we say, in all we do and in all we are. AMEN