Christ came down to earth from heaven, born for us on Christmas Day.

On a side table in our sitting room is a small host of Angels. The Angels were presents given to me when I was ordained, first as a Deacon and then as a priest. These angels are beautiful, all different but each one a reminder of God’s messengers. Angels, heavenly beings created by God. Cherubim and Seraphim. The word “an.gel.os” (angel) comes from a basic word that means “message- bearer”.  An angel is a messenger from God.

In the Bible only two angels are specifically named: the archangel Michael who is mentioned in Jude 9, Revelation and Daniel, and the angel Gabriel whom we find mentioned in the book of Daniel and who comes from God to speak to Daniel. The angel Gabriel is God’s messenger in the incarnation story; it is Gabriel who tells Zechariah “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God and I have been sent to speak to you and bring you good news (Luke 1:19). Gabriel prepares Zechariah for the birth of his son, John, to his wife Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin.

It is Gabriel who was sent by God to Mary to tell her of God’s favour upon her. Mary received God’s message and reassurance, and accepted God’s message, ‘Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word’ (Luke 1.38). In Matthew 1 Joseph, described as a righteous man and unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, giving him God’s message: this baby will save God’s people from their sins. Joseph did as the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife.

And so God’s plan for the world was put into place, aided by his angels. Mary’s baby, the Christ child, was born in Bethlehem and was called Jesus, the name given by God, told by the angel.   It was an Angel (thought to be Gabriel) who visited the shepherds in a blaze of God’s glory, the light of God’s presence and power, accompanied by the Heavenly Host praising God and saying ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven’ (Luke 2. 14).  To the least of earth’s inhabitants, the shepherds, the poorest of God’s people, to them first came the sound of the Christmas angel, a song of Good News.

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

Because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor,

To bind up the broken hearted

To proclaim freedom for captives and release darkness for the prisoners

To comfort all who mourn

And provide for those who grieve in Zion

(from Isaiah 61:1-3. Luke 4. 16-21)

The sound of the Christmas Angel was a chorus of Good News, and what good advice for us all.

What is the meaning of the Good News of the Christmas Angel? Is there a difference this Good News will make in our lives?

The good news spoken by the Christmas angel means that God has heard the cries of the world.  God has heard, and He has given, and because of that we can find meaning and hope, and our lives can be filled with peace and assurance.  No matter what crisis we face, Jesus Christ born long ago, God who became man and lived and died among us, knows us and how to meet our needs.

Mary said yes to the Angel, Mary said yes to God.

May we all say yes to God and make space to stop, to pray and listen and hear the Angels sing this Christmas tide. The sound of the Christmas Angel was not just Good News; it was the very best of News this world has ever heard.  Out of love God came down to earth from heaven, born for us on Christmas Day.

May God bless you this Christmastide.

On the 27th October, the hour went back, and darkness closed in around us as the nights became longer. It is too easy to look on the end of October and beginning of November with a touch of despair; fallen leaves, dampness, fog, and rain. The church has traditionally associated the end of the year with the end of life.

At the beginning of November, we commemorate the faithful departed and also celebrate All Saints. All Saints’ Day (also known as All Hallows’ Day or Hallowmas) is the day after All Hallows’ Eve (Hallowe’en). It is a feast day celebrated by both Anglicans and Roman Catholics. It is an opportunity to remember all saints and martyrs, known and unknown, throughout Christian history.

Remembering saints and martyrs and dedicating a specific day to them each year has been a Christian tradition since the 4th century AD, but it wasn’t until 609AD that Pope Boniface IV decided to remember all martyrs. Originally 13th May was designated as the Feast of All Holy Martyrs. Later, in 837AD, Pope Gregory IV extended the festival to remember all the saints, changed its name to Feast of All Saints and changed the date to 1st November.

The festival of All Saints’ and the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed are meant to shed light at the beginning of these dark days. All Saints’ helps us to call to mind the ordinary people from ages past who lived a Godly life. Few of them held important positions in life and their names do not appear on any official role of honour. They are not canonised saints. Many lived in obscurity, died unknown, and all memory of them has faded. Their lives are not marked by any great occurrence. God alone remembers them and the good works they have performed. They are the ordinary people of life. People who in their daily lives have tried to live the Christian life to the full. Like each one of us, they experienced the trails of growing up, the tensions and frustrations of living with others, and the normal difficulties and uncertainties of life. They had to cope with their own personal problems and weaknesses. But, however great their difficulties and faults, they accepted that God loved them and they relied on the strength of that love more than anything else; the way they lived their lives was more important than the recognition they attained.

The Festival of All Saints’ and The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed should give us fresh inspiration to continue taking up our cross daily, and to follow Christ. We too can strive to live the Christian life to the full.  Heaven is within our reach.

The book of Revelation uses symbolic imagery to paint a picture of heaven which the saints enjoy, and the celebration of All Saints invites us, in a particular way, to turn our eyes toward heaven and to remember that we are all called to be saints. In doing this, we look at all the great saints of the Christian faith for inspiration and guidance. In the book of Revelation the saints are described as the ones “marked with the seal.” This language draws on an account found in the Old Testament in the book of Ezekiel where the holy ones were marked on their foreheads with the Hebrew letter taw. This letter is shaped like a cross (similar to the English “t”). Thus, the saints are the ones marked with the sign of the cross. We can easily make the connection with our Christian life including our baptism (where we are signed with the cross), and our confirmation (where we are sealed with the Holy Spirit through the cross being traced with holy oil on our foreheads), and the sign of the cross itself. The book of Revelation also describes “a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.” In other words, Heaven is not exclusive to one people group. Rather, there will be people “from every nation, race, people, and tongue”.

These festivals remind us that holiness of life is not for the privileged few but what God expects of all of us. Holiness is about bringing the Spirit of Christ into our lives; it is about doing ordinary things well. The command of Jesus, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” is addressed to everyone. We are called to reflect something of the holiness of God himself in the way we live our life.

Christopher Hardwick

“Lord, teach us to Pray”.

What a summer we have had, one of the hottest months on record and yet times of torrential rain; yes, but this is Tavistock! So as we move on and into Autumn, perhaps we could reflect upon that most significant of questions that the disciples posed to our Lord Jesus, “Lord, teach us to Pray” (Luke 11v1).

Jesus had been praying ‘in a certain place’ and his disciples must have observed that, and realised just how significant prayer was to their Rabbi, how it was an integral part of his life, and they were probably being convinced that they had better follow suit. The disciples would have been familiar with the regular Temple routine of prayer at the morning and evening sacrifice, but clearly could see that for Jesus prayer was a much more personal and intimate relationship shared with God, his Father.

I do not know about you, but giving prayer the proper place and time in my Christian pilgrimage has perhaps been the thing that I have struggled with most of all. So what may we learn from the prayer life of Jesus that may help and encourage us to pray? Why should we anyway?

The American attorney, Methodist minister and civil war chaplain E M Bounds considered “conversation with God as fundamentally vital to the Christian life as physical breath”. The Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard said, “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays”. I certainly recognise that there is still much that God needs to change in me as He fulfils his promise through the Holy Spirit that we are to be transformed into the likeness of our Lord Jesus (2Cor 3v18), and perhaps those early disciples could see that need as well.

We can see in the prayer life of our Lord Jesus a number of pointers from which we can take note. The American pastor Charles Stanley (www.intouch.org) draws our attention to at least seven of these.

Early on in his busy ministry schedule Mark tells us (1v35) that Jesus ‘got up early to pray’. Not easy for some of us who are not ‘early birds’, but to start the day with God through prayer, as Joy constantly reminds me, is to set all of its activities in their proper context. Maybe this is another call to our 8am service of Morning Prayer?

Mark then goes on to tell us that Jesus ‘went out to a lonely place to pray’. Distractions so easily take us away from our intimate time with God so maybe we need to find a place where we can pray and not be easily distracted.

Later Mark tells us (14v35) that during the final days of his earthly life in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus ‘fell on the ground to pray’. Perhaps we can take that to mean Jesus prayed on his knees or lay prostrate. We each need to find a posture best fitting to our prayers. But it maybe that when ‘we are on our knees’, and so humbling ourselves before our great and Holy God, we become open to God and can pray like our Lord “not my will but yours be done” (Mk14v36), surely one of the hardest prayers to make. But it is at such a time that we are more open to hearing God speak to us, and our intimate relationship as a ‘child of God’ can grow and be perfected.

Luke adds to our understanding of Jesus’s prayer life (6v12) by telling us that before choosing his twelve disciples Jesus spent ‘the whole night in prayer’. I wonder how many of us can make that claim? But prayer is a wise move before making life’s significant decisions.

John goes on to inform us that at the ‘last supper’ (17v15) Jesus prayed for his followers to be ‘delivered from the evil one’. Informed prayer for one another should be an essential part of each of our lives as members of ‘the body of Christ’.

We also learn from Matthew (14v23) that Jesus ‘went up into the hills by himself to pray’. I wonder how many of us take ourselves off into the beautiful Dartmoor countryside that surrounds us to do just that. Although it is good to have a ‘prayer partner’- someone else to pray and share with, there are times when we need to bring our innermost feelings before our heavenly Father God alone, and to leave them with him as we await his response to the promise that he will indeed hear and answer us (1John5v14-15).

I pray that these thoughts may spur us on and into a deeper prayer life as we journey along the path set out before us.

Every blessing,

Mike.

When I get in from a good walk on Dartmoor I am usually hot and sweaty whether it is winter or summer – whether the weather has been hot or cold. I am quite certain that I will be in need of a shower!

What do others smell when you are around? No – I am not being impertinent and enquiring about your breath or body-odour! Even if we have never used perfume or after-shave in our lives, we Christians are called to imitate Jesus – to be a fragrant offering.

Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  Ephesians 5:1,2

The older I get as a Christian the more I realise that knowing what the Bible says is of no avail unless I live it in my life as well. Faith in the Risen Christ is inadequate unless accompanied by a Risen Life.

Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. James 2:17

Each morning in my prayers, along with the person leading Morning Prayer in St Eustachius’ Church at 8am, I say these words: As we rejoice in the gift of this new day, so may the light of your presence, O God, set our hearts on fire with love for you. When I repeat those words I often add a few more words: set our hearts on fire like the burning bush with love for you. I think of the story of Moses when he saw a bush burning, but not being consumed. It was such an arresting sight that he had to step aside to examine it and there he met with God (see Exodus 3:1-6). We are not just called to be a fragrant offering but also an attractive sight!

I write this in August when the church calendar remembers the Transfiguration – when Jesus’s appearance was transformed for a while in front of three of his disciples: the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white (see Luke 9:28-36). The entry in the Diocesan prayer diary said this: On the feast of the Transfiguration we pray that we would be transfigured to be your presence in the world. Help us to live in ways which show by our deeds the words of Jesus … And just a few days before I had seen one Church member doing just that. Having taken someone to the doctors’ surgery, she was now taking them around town where they struggle to get to from their rural abode.

It should be important to us what “smell” accompanies us; what “whiff” others get when they encounter us; what sight they see when they look upon us, whether they be family, friends, neighbours, colleagues or strangers. Let us pray that by God’s grace it may be fragrant and attractive!

Thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. 2 Corinthians 2:14

 Yours sincerely,

Tony

Religion places time and timelessness together, places them in parallel. Not that they can stay together for very long. Our time runs out, our timelessness runs nowhere, for that is its property. It just is. When God became man to enter what he had created, being now human he experienced time. The incarnation was God’s experience of being born, growing up, becoming a citizen of a certain country, being loved by his particular family, becoming a teacher, a spiritual healer who challenged local laws and customs, and having to experience local justice. All this within the bounds of time.

The gospels are most careful to state when and where Jesus was in time; the historical Jesus, as the biographers call him, is set fairly and clearly within his times, just as each one of us is, as our birth certificates, bank accounts, national health cards and passports show, not to mention the Baptismal register. So here we are on the earth, that tiny speck in the great universe of God’s creation, fully documented and date stamped all over.

Whilst here on earth Jesus showed scant respect for time. He criticised those who allowed it to dominate their lives in such a way that they hadn’t the time to take their time, not having a spare minute, let alone a spare hour. We are guilty of this too.  ‘Congratulate me,’ the busy person says when they tell us, ‘I never have a minute to myself, I don’t have time to turn around, I just managed to get everything done in time.’

Time is at its grandest and most awe inspiring in the Bible. First, from the letter to the Hebrews, consider that glorious opening chapter which begins ‘God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son’. And then the even more stupendous opening of St John’s Gospel, ‘In the beginning was the Word’. Both writers run time and timeless, mortality and immortality, the temporal and the eternal, side by side, like twin tracks on a railway line, one going as far as the terminus, the other out of sight. The incarnate one arrived at a moment when it became agonizingly plain to him that his earthly existence was over, that he had completed the task that his Father had set for him, his work was finished and also his life in time. The redemption we call it, this divine work. To redeem means to buy back, usually at a high price; we have been repossessed by God and now we can take our place at the table of his family, the church, where although the old church clock clunks and chimes its way through the service, there is no set time. We have stepped into the immeasurable, into that time for everything the bible calls rest.

We have nailed mortal time down to the split second, to the carbon-tested age of a tree stump, put down as what is a marker in what is now Norwich, which was growing when Abraham pitched his tent at Bethel, and to an exactitude which previous generations would have found a burden. For them it was daybreak or noon or evening or night. It was spring or it was summer, autumn, winter, and so life went on, sans minutes and hours for the most part. The sun came up, the sun went down. The tides went out and the times came in. The birds flew away and only God knew where. Then a great gold clock was fixed on the Parish Church and its hands told everyone when to start and when to stop, and Time ruled the roost.

The preacher of Ecclesiastes offers philosophy of Time – the best there is. He is, among other things, the master of weariness, of disillusionment. He has done it all, seen it all, had it all. The preacher allows time for everything, but it is in an allowance. There follows logically a time to cease doing this, or being that, sad though it is, and reading his beautiful statement we have to agree. There Is a time to weep and to laugh, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to be born and a time to die. There is in a lifetime a time for everything once we have learned to find the time, and that is the secret.

Wishing you all a happy summer time.