Advent Update - God rest ye merry Advent wreath

I've just been updating this.  I've tweaked it so it's more obvious how it scans to the tune (God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen). I've also updated the Christmas Day bit to reflect a little something of what the Christ-light might mean. It works if you're doing patriarchs/prophets/John/Mary in your themes. I even popped in a little peace/joy/hope/love in the final verse if those are going to be your themes.  I'll try something jolly for death/judgement/heaven/hell another year.

As always if this would help your church please use it, but please do credit where it comes from.

Advent 1:

We light an Advent candle now to show us all the way

to find the Christ child waiting in a manger on the hay.

The mothers and the fathers of our faith all point the way.

          Refrain:   O glory to God in heav’n and peace,

                             peace on earth, O glory to God in heav’n.

 

Advent 2:

We light an Advent candle now to show us all the way

to find the Christ child waiting in a manger on the hay.

The prophets foretold long ago that bright and glorious day

          Refrain:   O glory to God in heav’n and peace,

                             peace on earth, O glory to God in heav’n.

 

Advent 3:

We light an Advent candle now to show us all the way

to find the Christ child waiting in a manger on the hay.

“The Kingdom now is close” said John, “Believe, repent today!”

          Refrain:   O glory to God in heav’n and peace,

                             peace on earth, O glory to God in heav’n.

 

Advent 4:

We light an Advent candle now to show us all the way

to find the Christ child waiting in a manger on the hay;

For Mary mother of our Lord her “yes” to God did say

          Refrain:   O glory to God in heav’n and peace,

                             peace on earth, O glory to God in heav’n.

 

 

Christmas Day:

 

We light our Christ-light candle now

to show us all the way

And we have found the Christ child

in a manger on the hay;

And now we raise our voices

with the angel host to say

O glory to God in heav’n and peace, peace on earth

O glory to God in heav’n.

 

We carry now the Christ light

for this day and every day.

In homes and hearts we celebrate

the Christ who is our Way.

In peace, in joy, in hope, in love

Christ help us always stay

O glory to God in heav’n and peace, peace on earth

O glory to God in heav’n.

"That sounds like a you problem"

I am at present a mother of teens. I am also a lover of language - and the kind of person who picks up words, phrases and accents like a magpie picks up shiney things. (Fortunately the accent thing usually wears off with the end of the phone call to the call centre in South Wales or Newcastle). Being a middle aged woman using teen slang can only be out-cringed by being a middle aged vicar doing it.  But a couple of key and oft repeated phrases in our household are buzzing in my head at the moment and I wanted to take time to relfect on them. These thoughts will undoubtedly in some format be appearing in a sermon near you in the near future.  My parish pubishes the text of all our sermons at www.huddersfieldparishchurch.org and you can find the spoken versions by fast forwarding through our services which are livestreamed on YouTube. Just search for Huddersfield Parish Church, like and subscibe, as the kids say.

Family Language - it's not just bro - it's cuz aand cuzzy too. After the billionth time of saying "I'm not your XXX I'm your mother" - I thought of the brother and sisterhood of humanity - and how good it is to say often, and even perhaps to take for granted, the family-ness of everyone we encounter.

"That sounds like a you thing".  In a world where it feels sometimes like everyone wants to blame eveything and anything that goes wrong on someone else (one of the side effects of communal trauma as it may be) the need to leave things where they belong is important.  We need to not allow others to project problems onto us that are not ours, we need not to project onto others that which is our own to deal with. I find this really helpful in parish life where as clergy we are at the centre of community - often the only paid person working for the church amongst volunteers - and juggling our freedom to manage our own time as office holders with a job that has changed immesurably in my lifetime. We have a tendency to take onto our own shoulders problems that are not ours, and to ignore at great personal cost the things that are ours. Asking myself if something is a 'me' thing or a 'you' thing can only be a healthy question. The flip side of course is that we might be encouraged to think that the only things that matter are the things that directly impact us - our bubble - and that way lies catastrophe. That's definitley a good conversation for another day. 

"Word".  I have never been a person who could say "Word" without sounding daft. Apart from in John 1 obvs.  But when I say something that is true, and good and right, and my teen agrees with me, responding "Word" I feel amazing. Because Jesus Christ is the Word who became flesh - embodied like you and me and all that is true and good and right. It's often simple things that I've said - and when they say "word" they do sound cool (must be their dad's genes). The truth who is God is affirmed in the everyday, as presence, as ground of beging, as foundation. It reminds me that simple and profound are powerful companions in the lives of those who follow Christ's Way.