“ALL ARE WELCOME AT THE STABLE”
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A
Christmas Address delivered at the
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This year’s cracker jokes are on the theme of
health:
What do you get when you cross a vampire and a
snowman?
FROST BITE
What do you get if you eat Christmas decorations?
TINSELLITIS
Who looks after Father Christmas when he's ill?
THE NATIONAL ELF SERVICE
Then a short poem:
“For Christmas I
bought my auntie
A brand new wooden leg
I didn't have it specially made
I bought it off the peg
You may say it's not a nice gift
You might think that it's a killer
It wasn't her main present though
It was just a stocking filler”
(Happy Christmas Auntie Peggy ©
Paul Curtis)
Are you healthy or sick? Are you able-bodied or disabled?
Whichever you are, Christ comes to you this Christmas.
Did you see the news the other day about the beluga
caviar?
Apparently Italian customs officers seized about 40kg
of caviar
in November after two couriers travelling from Poland
were stopped with the hidden cargo.
The caviar had an estimated value
of $550,000 (£370,000).
Tests showed the caviar to be
edible,
so instead being thrown away, it is to be given
to canteens, and shelters for the poor.
So if you want a real Christmas
feast this year,
try the soup kitchens of Milan.
Are you rich or poor? At Christmas we celebrate the birth of
Christ -
a Christ who welcomed all to the feast.
So often
our contemporary society
seems to think that you can only do Christmas with money.
The
latest Mastercard advert has the punch-line:
“There are some things money can't buy.
For Christmas there's MasterCard.”
Which,
when you think about it, is pretty awful -
it seems to imply that at the heart of Christmas is not love and peace
but money and credit cards.
This
week’s annual bonanza lottery in Spain
was apparently the biggest ever.
And I was watching a BBC news item on the draw.
The reporter finished the piece by saying that, win or lose,
the event had “brought a little sunshine
to an otherwise gloomy Christmas”
Maybe someone needs to remind the
media and ad people
that the world is about more than money and gambling,
that Jesus didn’t have a credit card or a lottery ticket,
ands he seemed to do Christmas OK!
Have you been following
the BBC guy
re-tracing the journey of Mary and Joseph
from Nazareth to Bethlehem?
He’s been riding a donkey -
or to be more precise half a dozen donkeys -
it turns out you can’t get the donkeys these days.
One donkey was un-rideable.
Another was 25 yrs old and so ancient it would hardly move at all.
And then when he got a good beast,
it got stopped at an Israeli checkpoint -
the rider was allowed through,
but the donkey didn’t have the right papers and was turned back.
Every donkey, every
human, every nationality,
was welcome at the stable -
no one was turned back -
that was the whole point of it being a stable not a palace.
A woman goes
into a post office
to buy some stamps for her Christmas cards.
What denomination do you want? asks the man at the
counter.
'Goodness me!' she replies, ‘Has it come to this?
I suppose you'd better give me twenty Catholic and twenty Methodist.’
Every race, every creed -
Christ came to offer God’s love to all
And given that, maybe
today is not the day
to start arguments with those of other parts of the Christian faith.
So let’s not talk about the Pope’s Christmas address.
Let me just make a simple statement -
Whatever your race, whatever your creed,
whatever your sexual orientation,
you are loved and welcomed for and as yourself
at the stable of the Christchild.
So, the Christmas No 1
and No 2 in the Charts this year
are both versions of “Hallelujah”.
Apparently Leonard Cohen wrote 70 verses for the song,
which explains why nearly every recording
has slightly different sets of lyrics -
though normally featuring a Biblical cast
of David, Samson and Delilah among others.
Anyway, whether by X
Factor’s Alexandra Burke
or by Jeff Buckley, the words tell of a singer
whose efforts to love are flawed.
As one verse says, they
sing only “broken hallelujahs”.
And some versions end with
this verse -
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch……
….And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Are you whole or broken?
Are you a saint or a
sinner?
Fear not you are as
welcome as the angels choirs at Bethlehem
for Christ came to same sinners -
So never mind about
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Your wealth or your health
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Your nationality or your sexuality,
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Your creed or your colour.
Broken or whole,
Saint or Sinner,
Christ has come for you
Let us welcome him into
our hearts this Christmas time!
Order of Service
Christmas Morning All Age
Worship led by Andrew Sails
Organ: “Prelude
and Fugue in C Major - BWV 531” – JS
Bach
“Noel (Grand Jeu
et Duo)” – Louis-Claude Daquin
“Noel Etranger”
- Louis-Claude Daquin
“Noel - Où s'en vont ces
gais bergers” - Claude Balbastre
“Pastorale -
Gesci Bambino” - Pietro Yon
Hymn 106 “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”
(During this carol, the five Advent candles will be lit)
Prayers
Talking about presents
Collection for the work
of the Action for Children, formerly NCH.
(Organ: Chorale Prelude on “Quem Pastores” - Helmut Walcha)
Hymn 107 “In the bleak midwinter"
Reading: Luke 2:1-7 (p.1027)
Address
Hymn 108 “It came upon
a midnight clear”
Prayers
and Lord’s Prayer
Hymn
110 “O come all ye
faithful”
Blessing
Organ:
“Toccata” – Theodore Dubois