When I was growing up, Sundays meant church, family, and food.
Our family would all go to church on Sunday morning, with the kids attending Sunday School, while the adults did something boring - then we’d buy crusty bread rolls on the way home before sitting down to a meal of roast lamb.
Sunday evenings meant the rest of the family would head off to evening church and youth group and it was my job to have the washing up done before they returned - which usually entailed a frantic, last-minute scramble from in front of the TV, when I heard their car in the driveway!
 
Perhaps your families had similar ways of spending Sundays, and they might have involved church, family, and food, too - that was more the norm back then.
Perhaps some of you came from households where frivolous activities were even prohibited on Sundays.
You might just have read the Bible on Sunday afternoons after church, maybe played quietly before it was time for the evening church service.
Many of us will remember when the stores were all closed on Sundays, salespeople having the day off and no business was transacted.
 
All of these customs originated from people's ideas about how to obey the Third Commandment:
"Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy."
From the time this commandment was given by God to Moses, there has been disagreement about why we should honour the Sabbath and how we should keep it holy.
The book of Exodus links Sabbath observance to creation: "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it."
In Deuteronomy a different reason is given: "Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day."
The Sabbath was meant to be a gift, a time of rest and restoration, a time to worship God.
 
But quickly, that gift turned into Law, and all sorts of rules grew up about what was work and what wasn't, what was permissible to do on the Sabbath and what was not.
Keeping the Sabbath holy also meant reserving that day for the worship of God, and, as you might guess, people had various ideas about what constituted worship and, therefore, exactly what kept the Sabbath holy.
 
Jesus and his disciples were constantly getting into trouble with the Jewish religious authorities for not properly observing the Sabbath.
The issue comes up four times in the Gospel of Luke, and three of these involve healing on the Sabbath.
In this week's reading, Jesus is teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath when he notices a woman who is so crippled, that she’s completely bent over.
She’s been suffering this way for 18 years.
The woman doesn’t approach Jesus, nor ask for anything - she doesn't have to.
The minute he sees her, he calls to her, lays his hands on her and says, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment."
 
What Jesus does for the woman is to set her free from the torture and imprisonment of her own body.
Jesus gives her a new life, free from pain, free from shame, free from isolation.
Jesus restores to the woman her dignity, her sense of self-worth, her place in the community, and her very identity. No longer simply a cripple, she is, as Jesus calls her, a proud daughter of Abraham, heir of God's promise, and a participant in God's covenant.
Jesus reaches out to this outcast, this woman whose everyday life is worse than death, touches her, and gives her the wholeness, health, and peace that God always intended people to have.
And she didn't have to do anything - what Jesus does for the woman is a gift; it is pure grace.
 
When Jesus touches the woman, she stands up straight and tall for the first time in 18 years and she begins to praise God, as she knows the source of her healing.
Even on the Sabbath day, she praises God for this unexpected, wonderful, unbelievable gift of life.
 
Not everyone, however, feels the same joy.
The Leader of the synagogue can’t rejoice in this mighty act, nor thank God for it.
He can only see that Jesus has worked on the Sabbath – something forbidden in the Jewish law.
Rather than confront Jesus directly, however, he criticizes the waiting crowd and tells them to go away: 'There are six days on which work ought to be done," he says; "come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day."
 
But Jesus isn’t willing to let this slip by without raising an issue.
He accuses the ruler of hypocrisy, because it was permissible for someone to untie an animal on the Sabbath to give it some water.
Relieving the thirst of an animal, so that it can continue to live, is not a violation of the Sabbath.
Why should relieving the suffering of a woman who has been tied up in knots for 18 years, so that she can live a full life, be any different?
Is she of less worth than an animal?
The Leader’s inconsistency, and his lack of understanding of God's will, are revealed to all.
Luke reports, "The entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that Jesus was doing”.
 
Jesus demonstrated to the crowd that keeping the Sabbath holy was not about observing rules and all the "thou shalt nots" that the religious leaders had created.
Keeping the Sabbath holy was all about worshiping God by releasing people from bondage and giving them new lives, so that they, too, could praise God.
That's what God had done for the Israelites when he led them out of Egypt, so, in a very clear way, by healing the crippled woman on the Sabbath, Jesus was keeping, not breaking, the third commandment.
 
And that's the same thing that Jesus did for you and me when, out of love, he died on the cross and rose again, releasing all those who believe in him from the bondage of sin and giving them new lives.
Like the bent-over woman, we didn’t even have to ask for this gift - it is all God’s pure grace.
Having received the gift, we’re free to thank and praise God with so much enthusiasm, that crowds will join in.
 
So how do we keep the Sabbath holy today?
How do we worship God in the 21st century?
The old ways in which we used to keep the Sabbath are long gone.
On Sundays now, as well as attending church, we work, we shop, we play sports, or watch them on television, we do everything that we do on any other day.
With our busy schedules, our desire to spend time with the family, and our focus on having as much fun and free time as possible, we struggle with honouring the Sabbath and using the day to worship God.
 
Few of us would want to return to a world full of religious laws and strict rules about how to observe the Sabbath - even if we could.
And, yes, it’s often tempting to join the throngs of people for whom Sunday is no different from any day.
Yet, the very fact that we DO come to worship, says that we are looking for something more, that we are looking for ways to keep the Sabbath holy and to thank and praise God.
 
As we gather together to tell and to hear the story of God's love for us, we experience that love, given to us in the form of Holy Communion, with the bread and the wine, which links us to God and to each other.
Christians in every time and every place rejoice in the Lord's graciousness and meet to give thanks for the gifts provided to them by God.
 
My belief is that we should definitely worship God and keep the Sabbath holy on Sundays, but not to the exclusion of all the other days of the week.
 
God wants our attention and focus on the Kingdom at all times, not just on one special day of the week, so we need to also worship him in all we do, during the rest of our weekly activities.
 
You are blessed to be a blessing to others.

Pastor Rick

The “5 Whys” is an iterative question-asking technique, used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem.
The primary goal of the technique is to determine the root cause of a problem.
(The "5" comes from empirical observations on the number of iterations typically required to resolve the problem.)
 
For example, let’s look at why the car won’t start.
First Why (Why won’t the vehicle start)? - The battery is dead.
Second Why (Why is the battery dead)? - The alternator is not functioning.
Third Why (Why is the alternator not functioning)? - The alternator belt has broken.
Fourth Why? (Why has the alternator belt has broken)? It was beyond its service life and had not been replaced.
Fifth Why? (Why did that happen)? The vehicle was not maintained according to the recommended service schedule (the root cause).
 
In today’s message, we’re only going to need 3 “why’s” (modern ministers must just be getting more efficient, because they now always have 3 points in their sermons, not 5).
Looking at three of the readings set down in this week’s Revised Common Lectionary, we get a biblical perspective:
 
Reading #1.  Isaiah was a prophet living in the southern kingdom of Judah in the 8th century BC and the book of Isaiah is actually a collection of several prophecies from various sources, not just by Isaiah.
It shares its perspective on history with the book of Deuteronomy.
The catastrophes that befell Israel in 721BC (takeover by Assyrians) and Judah in 587BC (takeover by Babylonians), were caused by the faithlessness and ingratitude of the people toward God.
This had shaped a faithless form of politics and a self-indulgent upper class, whose worship was coupled with an indifference to injustice.
So, the people weakened their society and, consequently, brought on their defeat by foreign nations.
Isaiah 5:1-7 is often called the “Song of the Vineyard” and it depicts Israel as a vineyard, chosen by God, but which did not yield usable grapes.
The people were not suitable for their intended purpose, because God expected justice, but instead saw bloodshed.
 
Reading #2.  Psalm 80 is a community lament, which was often sung in the context of a military defeat.
Like Isaiah 5, it uses the metaphor of Israel as a vineyard.
The psalmist laments that God has broken down the wall protecting the nation from their enemies and prays for God to “turn again” and work through “the one at your right hand” (King David) to bring them victory.
 
Reading #3.  Luke 12:49-56 records the words of Jesus to his disciples regarding the divisive nature of his teachings.
While the psalmist in Psalm 80 implores God to “turn again,” Jesus urges his listeners to “turn back to” God.
It's interesting that this text is sandwiched between the parable of the faithful and the unfaithful slave (12:41-48) and a command to the Galileans to repent or perish (13:1-5), followed by the parable of the barren fig tree (13:6-9).
This placement sharpens the point of this story and gives it added urgency.
The use of the word “division” may be seen as a sign of the presence of the Messiah in God’s kingdom.
For Luke, the teachings of Jesus, in the context of his coming death, call for a decision that will trouble the waters of a settled life and call for action, rather than helping listeners fit into a comfortable society and smoothing the way in all their relationships.
 
Now, to expand on the connecting thread that we notice when we study these readings.
Each of the three texts contains a “why” question.
In Isaiah 5:4, God asks the people a question, in which he challenges them to take responsibility for their situation.

“What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes,
 why did it yield rotten grapes?” (NRSV version), or
Why don’t you bear fruit when I’ve nurtured your growth for so long? (my version)
 
In Psalm 80:12, the people ask God a question, in which they blame him for their misfortune.
“Why then have you broken down its (ie. the vineyard’s) walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?” (NRSV version), or
Why do you allow us to suffer the consequences of our actions? (my version)


In Luke 12:56, Jesus asks his disciples a question in which he challenges them to stop blaming God and start turning to God and repenting.
“You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret this present time?” (NRSV version)
Jesus asks us why we don’t see that now is the time to stop blaming God, start turning to God and start taking his teachings seriously? (my version)


These three “why” questions are not just focused on us as individuals, but also on the communities in which we live and are actually quite theological in their nature.  
They have everything to do with sin, freewill and repentance, for individuals, as well as for communities.
 
Why aren’t we bearing fruit?
Why are we blaming God, or other people, for our situation instead?
Why don’t we see that now is the time to repent and change our lives?
 
Building a lesson around questions such as these, was something Jesus often did, as he liked to ask questions of his followers.
These weren’t just rhetorical questions, which don’t require an answer, but are meant to make us think more about the situation, like:
“How could I be so stupid?”
Or even questions that have obvious answers, like:
“Who is faithful to us in good times and bad?”  Answer: “God!”
 
Instead, Jesus often asked what scholars like to call “impossible questions.”
These are questions that challenge the listener and make them think, because there are no straightforward answers.
 
Questions like:
“Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to your life, or one cubit to your height?” or
“What does it profit a person to gain the world and lose his soul?”
 
We can see, however, from the chosen readings, that the kinds of questions being asked of us today are not ones that are impossible to answer.
But they certainly are ones that cause us to reflect on our present situation and think about the consequences of our actions, or inactions.
They challenge us to “pull our socks up” and kick off a process of change in our lives that will see us bearing good fruit, not bad.
 
I won’t try to fool you - this process is not easy.
It may even take a long time.
 
But my question to you, today is: “Are you willing to give it a go?” 
And I’ll follow that up with another question: “If not………… why, why, why?”     
Pastor Rick
 
“Let God kindle a fire within you for God’s radical and costly way of love.
Stay true to the path, love without ceasing, though it hurts, though it costs,
though it is hard.
Know that God is with you, our divine source of love.
Trust that God is with you always, our divine source of faith.     Amen.”

​On the wall at the “Stockmen’s Hall of Fame” in the outback Queensland town of Longreach, is a list of our early pioneers and settlers - and this list is dominated by the names of men.
In a similar vein, the 11th Chapter of the letter to the Hebrews reads like a roll-call of many of the memorable Old Testament people of faith.
It, too, is dominated by the names of men, although we know that many women were influential in both settings.
This list of people of faith is quite an impressive one and for any Jew, this chapter would make their adrenalin flow.
Even for Gentiles like us, it’s quite soul stirring stuff!
But then comes an unexpected phrase in verse 13, where it says:
“All of these persons died in faith, without having received the promises.”
What a way to ruin a good story! In spite of their mighty faith, they still perished like the rest of us.
Death, that indiscriminate leveller, got them all in the end.
 
But because we’re living in New Testament times, we’re dealing with a different way of seeing life and death.
A different view of time and eternity.
From the Christian perspective, faith is NOT shattered by death. In truth, death is shattered by hope and faith.
To live by hope and faith, and to die in hope and faith, is actually a grand thing!
 
So, what’s this “hope” thing that’s mentioned here?
What’s this hope which, when taken up by faith, reshapes people, as well as shattering the gloom of death?
 
According to the letter to the Hebrews, faith is closely allied to hope.
“Faith gives substance to our hopes, and makes us sure of those realities that we cannot see.”
 
Christian hope isn’t a vague, wistful longing, nor a pathetic wish-list for the improbable, or the impossible.
Hope is not building imaginary castles in the air, and it’s certainly not trite, sentimental optimism. 
Instead, it’s a sharing in God’s vision and plan, affirming the glorious future which God has for humanity.
Hope is us turning to the promises of God and saying: “Yes please!”
 
For that childless couple, Abram and Sarai (who were renamed Abraham and Sarah because of their faith) hope was daring to envision the divine promise - that through their descendants “all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
 
Hope, for Moses, was daring to picture and commit to, the liberty of the promised land, “flowing with milk and honey”, at the time when his people were in miserable slavery in Egypt.
 
Hope, for Isaiah, was a commitment to the vision.
It was daring for him to see and preach about the new world, that would one day surely come to be.
“Then shall blind eyes be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing. Men shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning blades. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor ever again be trained for war. For the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea beds.”
 
For Christian people, hope takes on a special shape.
It dares to look at a new world order, shaped in the likeness of Jesus of Nazareth.
He is the first born of the future race, the shape of the new humanity.
He is the new creation, the future surging into the present moment.
By hope, we commit ourselves to doing things his way.
 
Hope is daring to look at this future and seeing it not as a mirage, but as a certainty.
By hope, an irrepressible longing and a joyful commitment enters into the human soul.
 
Unless we dare to hope, we’re most likely to become mesmerised by the greed and violence and chaos of humanity, slowly surrendering our ideals, sliding into pessimism and joining the so called “rat race.”
 
And what about faith - this “faith”, that the writer to the Hebrews extols?
This faith is always active, never passive, not something to calm people down and make them docile.
It is a trust in God, which thrusts people into the thick of life.
Faith is not an escape, but a new, profound, re-creative involvement.
It’s like us launching out into the world, putting into action what God has done for us, in and through Christ Jesus.
 
Abraham and Sarah are worthy models of faith.
To them, faith meant leaving the comfortable existence of their home, family and country, and setting out on a journey - where the destination was somewhat cloudy. “He went out, not knowing where he was to end up.” 
It meant a long, and at times risky, adventure, where there were to be joys and hardships, nasty twists in events, frustration and danger, on their journey of faith.
 
Faith is actively implementing as much of our hope as is possible in our time and circumstance.
It is giving substance to our hope and it’s an active way of life.
 
Our status in the Uniting Church is that of pilgrims. Andrew Dutney, past President of the Uniting Church, liked to remind us that in item 3 of the Basis of Union, “we are called to be a pilgrim people, always on the way”.
 
We should also notice that living by faith in the God of hope, makes us people who don’t totally belong in any one town, city, or rural region. 
These faith heroes and heroines lived in many places, among many nations, settled amid many cultures, but they didn’t belong - they weren’t at home.
 
So, we have no final home here on earth.
“Home” is the vision we have of the better future, the promise from God.
Here we’re only sojourners, passing through and it can’t be otherwise, for people like us, who’ve been given the gift of hope.
 
Look around us at the culture in which we’re living.
Is this really our ideal home?
Don’t get me wrong, I love my world and I dearly love my country.
 
If we look at this myopic, selfish and often desperate world, our self-indulgent and anxious society, all the foppery of fashion and the silly pomposity of our politics and look at the injustices and grave abuses which occur from Darwin to Devonport and Broome to Burleigh Heads, are any of us content to call this our real home, our true soul-place?
 
This isn’t the world as it should be, our true home!
This isn’t the completed world which God has promised.
  
It’s inevitable that we’ll all live and die in the faith - with many of our God-given hopes not fully realised.
But it’s far, far better to die with the restlessness of hope still upon us, than to die as those who are content with the world as it now is.
 
For a Christian, the fact of dying doesn’t really matter that much, for in Christ, death is no calamity.
What’s important is how we live whilst we are alive in this world, moment by moment.
The important thing is whether we reach for the hope with all our faith and apply it with all the love we can muster.
For this task, we have the Spirit of God with us, aiding and abetting every step we take towards the promised land, every act of love we show our neighbour, every tilt we make against injustice, every prayer we offer with thankful and compassionate hearts.
By our active faith, we give solid content to our hopes.
 
I encourage you to take that hope and faith with you out into the world and become mighty warriors for God.
Pastor Rick

​If you’ve ever seen the musical “The Fiddler on the Roof”, you may remember the main character, Tevye, singing a song entitled “If I Were a Rich Man.”
In that song he prays, “Dear God, you made many, many poor people. I realize, of course, that it’s no shame to be poor. But it’s no great honour either! So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?”
When his friend Perchik reminds him that “Money is the world’s curse,” Tevye responds, “May the Lord smite me with it. And may I never recover.”
 
This sounds like a good illustration of the way in which even a poor man may be seduced by the desire for wealth.
Deep down, you and I are probably not very different from Tevye and by this, I mean that we need the warning of this week’s parable from Luke, every bit as much as those whom we consider to be rich.
 
When we read the parable of the rich fool, we can’t help but think of famous rich people like Howard Hughes or Elon Musk in the US, or our own Gina Reinhardt.  I don’t know whether they’re fools, but I do know that they’re rich.
I also know, from some of the reports that went out at the time of the death of Howard Hughes, that while he had accumulated a great deal of wealth, he didn’t enjoy any of it in his last days, perhaps his last years.
In this sense, he’s a present-day example of what Jesus was warning us about in our text.
 
The danger of us idolising people like these, is that it implies the parable applies only to the rich.
To put the matter more pointedly, thinking of the rich fool in this text as one of those people, enables us to not think of ourselves as “rich fools.”
This highlights a problem for all of us, as we probably think of this parable as pertaining to someone else – like someone really, really, wealthy, rather than someone like us!
But we need to remember that it applies to us, as well as to those whom we might regard as wealthy.
By the standards of first century Palestine, most of us – if not all of us – would be regarded as very wealthy.
 
Let’s examine this parable of Jesus under three headings:  Context, Communication and Consequences.
 
Context of the Parable: 
As with a number of the parables, a request is made of Jesus, or a question posed to him, providing the context. 
It’s not necessary to get into the Old Testament laws regarding inheritance, since Jesus doesn’t bother to do so.
The point is that there’s an inheritance to be divided and that the man wants Jesus to take his side in the matter. Apparently, he sees Jesus as an authority whose word his brother would accept.
 
The man doesn’t seem to be truly interested in justice, though, since he doesn’t ask Jesus to listen to both sides of the argument before rendering a verdict.
The answer to the question Jesus poses: “Who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” is obviously a reference to the passage in John 5:22-27, where it states that God the Father has made Jesus the Judge of all!
But I doubt that this man actually realizes this.
 
The man has approached Jesus as though he’s a judge, and he should have stopped to think about the implications of this, especially since Jesus is going to address the real issue that needs to be judged – which is the man’s true motive in seeking help.
The real issue with which the man needs help – is his own covetousness, which, as Paul clearly teaches in Colossians 3:5, is idolatry.
In our story, Jesus is unconcerned about justice; but he’s all too aware that this man’s covetousness will do him more harm than him not having his share of the inheritance.
 
Communication of the Parable:
Just like a song, it’s been suggested that this parable can be divided into four movements.
 
The First Movement – the Plentiful Yield of a Rich Man’s Field.
Notice the way Jesus emphasizes the fact that the field itself produced a great yield.
But he doesn’t credit the rich man with having accomplished anything great himself.
And as we move on, we see that the man’s response to the abundant yield of his field is not to thank God for being the giver of such a bounty, but rather the man focuses on what he can do with it – ie. for his own satisfaction.
Thus, the man is falling prey to the very issue about which God had warned the Israelites, when he brought them into this land in the first place.
 
The Second Movement – the Problem Presented by the Unexpected Yield.
The man had clearly not expected, nor planned, for such a great harvest, so he has no room to store it.
But this would also mean that he has ended up with more than he actually needs, doesn’t it? 
So, what will he do?  What should he do?   We find out in the next part of the parable.
 
The Third Movement – the Solution to the Problem.
Here, there is no expression of thankfulness of God, or desire to use his unexpected gains for God’s purposes.
Why, for example, doesn’t he think of giving a greater “thank offering” at the temple, or of giving some of it to the poor?
What we see here is a selfish desire in the rich man to use everything for his own satisfaction and comfort.
In the process, he’s looking many years down the road, but he fails to realize that there may be other unexpected events that could take place - like what happens in the final part of the parable.
 
The Fourth Movement – the Unexpected Judgment of God.
In this section, we find that even the man’s life and soul don’t really belong to him!
This is why God calls him a fool, because he’s thought and acted as though all he has, is his own - including his soul.
In reality, everything we have is a gift from God and now God is demanding back the life that he‘s given to this man.
 
What Jesus is doing in this parable is driving home a point that he’s made before, when he taught, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, will save it.
For what profit is it to a man, if he gains the whole world and is himself destroyed or lost?” Luke 9:24-25
 
And so - now - after having looked at the context of the parable and the communication of the parable - we’re lead, finally, to think about its consequences.
 
Consequences of the Parable:
One whose life is consumed with covetousness and earthly treasures, rather than seeing that all he has is a gift from God and therefore belongs to God, will end up like this rich fool – with absolutely nothing!
Indeed, they’ll have forfeited their own soul!
 
Being “rich toward God” means rightly acknowledging God as the source of anything good that we have, including our very lives, and we need to thank him for these things and set about using them to his glory, rather than for our own selfish and sinful desires.
 
In conclusion, we have a reminder from the Apostle Paul, who followed Jesus in teaching about the dangers of storing up earthly riches and about the need to be rich toward God.
When we look at a significant portion of his teaching in 1 Timothy 6,  there’s no doubt that Paul had learned the lessons of this parable and was duly inspired to teach the same principles to us.
 
I pray that we will also rely upon the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to heed this teaching and keep God and his glory as the central focus of our lives!
 
May we each come away from this teaching with a deeper reliance upon the Holy Spirit to enable us to “seek the things above, where Christ is,” as Paul said to the Colossian believers, and “to set our minds on things above, not on things on the earth.”
 
After all, what God provides, is more than enough for us.                   
 
Richest blessings on you all……………….Pastor Rick

​I wonder how many times you’ve heard the story of the birth of Jesus, as told by Luke in his gospel?
It’s a story about simple shepherds, in a field, watching over their flocks at night, when suddenly, in a starlit sky, there comes a bright light – which turns out to be an angel and all the heavenly host – proclaiming good news to all of humanity.


The shepherds leave their flocks (which is something they wouldn’t normally do) to go and follow the directions given to them by the angel – towards another bright light – the star which is hovering over Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, who is lying in the straw, surrounded by the silent, innocent animals in the stable.
 
How many times have you heard this story, seen it portrayed on greeting cards around the Christmas season and in the pictures we see on the television - every Christmas - this wonderful, warm, loving image?
 
Christmas is like that for many of us.


It’s like streams of warm and wonderful family memories, of images that we treasure and hold dear, that we wrap around ourselves every Christmas.
It makes us feel comforted and hopeful and brings us back to our childhood - every Christmas, year after year.
 
You know, the truth is, it probably didn’t happen in that way, or even on that day.
Jesus almost certainly wasn’t born on December 25th (winter in the Middle East).
That idea came in about the 4th century.
Prior to that, Christians, in different places, celebrated the anniversary of the birth of our Lord on different days.
 
I wonder - is the actual date really that important, in our celebration of the arrival of God’s son to earth?
 
In our family, we don’t get too fussed if we can’t celebrate an important event, like a birthday, on the actual day.
To us, it’s the fact that the family is all celebrating together, not what day of the week it is.
 
And, I also wonder, is it all that important for Christians to know whether Mary & Joseph were housed in an inn, or in the spare room of a relative’s house, or in a cavern attached to the house?
We know that animals often slept inside on cold winter’s nights, but there is some thought that the animals only began to appear in nativity art in about the fourth century, possibly because the biblical commentators at the time used Isaiah 3 as part of their anti-Jewish argument, to claim that animals understood the significance of Jesus, in a way that the Jews did not.
 
When Christians today gather around a crib, or set up a nativity scene in their homes, they continue a tradition that began in the 12th century with Francis of Assisi.
He brought a crib and animals into his church, so that everyone who was worshipping could feel part of the story.
Thus, the popular nativity tradition was born.
 
Another perplexing question.
Have you ever wondered how many wise men/astrologers/magi came to see the infant Messiah?
Most people will say 3, because 3 gifts were given to Jesus, but there could have been any number of them.
As Sir David Attenborough famously says of many vexing questions:  “We just don’t know.”
 
And the date of their visit is also in doubt, because we read in Matthew’s Gospel that King Herod ordered all boys under 2 to be killed.
Therefore, the magi might have visited any time in the first couple of years after Jesus was born.
 
How relevant, or important, is it to our Christian faith, that we have all the facts in the right chronological order?
It certainly isn’t to me.
The most relevant fact is that we are celebrating the moment when God enters into history in human form - and nothing has ever been the same since that time.
 
Celebrating the time when the light of Jesus came into the world.
 
The embodiment of the spiritual into flesh, called the “incarnation” in biblical circles, is, of necessity, a reason for us to change.
It means God coming into our time and into our space and into our lives and into our comfort zones, shaking things up and re-creating them in a new way.
It challenges us to confront change and to be active in doing something about it.


We’re called to be co-workers with God in the world around us – in the Kingdom of God.
 
Christmas is usually a constant, predictable celebration and year after year, we tend to follow the traditions.
But, in reality, no two years are ever the same and our lives will never the same.
Every year we are, in fact, older and, hopefully, wiser.
 
Lynne & I moved house a few years ago and, even though all our children and grandchildren will still be celebrating Christmas with us over lunch, after the Christmas Day service, it will feel different this year, in the new house.
 
At this time of the year, most of us are really busy, running around, seemingly chasing our tails, buying presents for our loved ones and even people that we don’t really see for the rest of the year.
But is all this “busyness” really helpful?
 
Have you ever thought how you’d feel if you gave a child a beautiful present, only to find that either: 
(a) they don’t open it, or
(b) they’ve opened it, but ignored it, or
(c) they’ve played with it for a short time, but then forgotten about it      or finally
(d) they’ve broken it. 
 
If you can identify with this feeling, you might start to understand how God feels.
 
God gave the world the best gift, ever, at Christmas about 2,000 years ago - in the shape of his son, Jesus, but the world wasn’t too appreciative.
 
Some people refused to believe that he really was God’s son, whilst others followed him for a while, before going back to their old ways.
And the worst part was when the religious leaders managed to convince the Romans to crucify him.
 
Maybe we should be giving more thought to how WE can be a “gift” to other people. 
Perhaps we could visit a lonely neighbour, volunteer at an aged care centre, or invite someone to join us for Christmas lunch, etc.
These are just some of the ideas that may make someone else’s Christmas a bit more memorable.
 
Fortunately, many people HAVE accepted God’s gift – wholeheartedly - and are still following him today.
 
I pray that we may all remember to thank God, every day, for his fantastic present.
Change is the name of the game in today’s world, and, on this Christmas Day, it comes through the birth of the Christ, Jesus.
 
I encourage you to rejoice, for the light has come into the world and YOU should take that light out into the darkness to be a beacon for God’s love of humanity. 
 
May light come in your world this day………….Pastor Rick