​This Sunday is the first Sunday after Epiphany, but, apart from remembering that this was the day to take down all your Christmas decorations,  some of you may be wondering what “epiphany” means?
In today’s language it means “an insight, realisation, or revelation.”
eg. I had an epiphany, and now it’s meaning is clearer to me.
 
Even in biblical terms, it has a similar meaning, as it was the time when the Messiah, Jesus, was revealed to the non-Jewish world, through the visit of some gentiles, often called the Three Kings, or Magi.
 
Through this visit, they came to understand what God was doing in the world and that God’s gift was to the whole world, not just the Jews.
What gifts can you think of that we could bring, that would add to the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, brought by the MagI?
Maybe we can’t always bring physical gifts to Jesus, but we can surely honour him with our gifts of service.
Gifts we give to those less fortunate than ourselves, would surely please our Lord.
 
In our reading from Acts this week, we hear the apostle Peter explain the importance of the birth of Jesus to the gentiles.
For Jesus did not come just to save just the Jewish people, but to erase the sins all of humanity who would put their belief in him.
 
The second instance regarding the “Epiphany of Jesus”, was where he was baptised in the River Jordan by his cousin, John the Baptist.
As he rose from the water, a voice form heaven was heard:
“This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
 
At the time, the onlookers may have been wondering why Jesus, if he really was the Son of God, would need to be baptised by John, before beginning his ministry in Galilee.
They would probably have thought: surely the son of the most-high God would not need to repent of his sins in a ceremony of Baptism.
 
However, Jesus explained it to them in Matthew 3, when he said to John: “it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”
By that he meant that he was validating John’s ministry of baptism, as a way for the people to come to a belief in God, and by being baptised, the people could follow him.


He was stating his humanness, as well as his divinity, in front of the people who gathered at the river.
It was also a way of showing that his ministry was for all people, not just those of the Jewish nation.
He was now “one of them”, baptised by John, and that would make it easier for the people to put their faith in him.
 
At that time, the right of baptism was used by the Jewish Rabbis to purify a gentile, when they wished to convert to Judaism.
Jesus was now opening the ritual to both Jew and non-Jew.
 
But the act of baptism, in itself, doesn’t really make you holy.
Baptism doesn’t save you or secure you a place in God’s Kingdom.
Baptism doesn’t provide some on‑going power that you can wield over those who aren’t baptised.


What baptism does, is demonstrate your obedience to God, giving you the joy and blessing of serving the Lord and brings you into the church family, where all family members will look out for your spiritual growth.
It can also lead to an understanding of the love that God has for all his children.
 
We were blessed by these acts of Jesus many years ago - and now he tells us to go out and be a blessing to others.
 
Another example of the epiphany that came from the ministry of Jesus occurred on the night before he was killed, some 3 years after his baptism.
 
Jesus and his disciples had journeyed to Jerusalem, taking what we now know was to be his final journey.
 
Like many Jewish families at that time, they observed the Passover Meal on the evening before the Sabbath.
To the Jews, it was a reminder of the time that the Angel of Death “passed over” the houses of the Jews, whilst killing all the firstborn in the families of their Egyptian masters.
This was a final act brought on by God, through Moses, to get the Pharoah to release the Jews and let them free from their slavery, allowing them to return to their “Promised Land”.
 
In the ensuing years after their occupation of Israel & Judah, it became the responsibility of every Jewish man to celebrate the Passover Meal in the holy city of Jerusalem, at least once in his life.
 
Therefore, in an upper room in Jerusalem, Jesus and his disciples celebrated the traditional Passover Meal.
On that particular night Jesus changed the meaning of the elements of the meal into those that we use today in the sacrament of Holy Communion.
 
The bread that they used and the wine that they drank were renamed as the “body” and “blood” of Christ, given to the people so that they would remember his body that was hung on a cross, and his blood that was shed in the forgiveness of their sins.
 
Again, the revelation, or epiphany, was that this sacrament was for all people, not just those who “belonged to the club”, not just for the Jews, and not just for the baptised ones.
 
Another example of the epiphany of Jesus was that he did not remain buried in the tomb, but rose again on the third day, just as it had been prophesied and promised by Jesus to his disciples.
Not only did he rise from the dead, but he appeared to them in person and let them see that it was his body and not just an apparition.
 
Now they understood.
 
May your eyes also be opened and may you understand the love that God has for us all, and the majesty of God’s Kingdom, here on earth.
 
Blessings…….Pastor Ric

​At Christmas time, we have a major holiday event, complete with pretty decorations, traditional images of stables and a little baby, shepherds and wise men.
We have rituals of exchanging gifts, children’s performances, huge lunches/dinners with families and friends.
 
But as we leave the festive season behind us and look towards the New Year, I want us to make sure that we see, and take with us, just what it is that the event has been straining to point to in these past weeks and months. 
That is, who this person Jesus is, and just what his coming down to earth means.
Christmas is a signpost, drawing our attention - not to itself, but to what it is pointing?
 
We see signposts every day - whether we’re walking about in a lovely bush setting, or out on a major highway, the signposts are there, assisting us to find our way.
 
John's gospel begins where every good book should - in the beginning. 
It's a nativity story – just not with shepherds and angels, or a babe wrapped and lying in a manger. 
In this nativity story, this Christmas story, John takes us back to the beginning, echoing the words from Genesis:
In the beginning God created; God moved over the chaos and darkness and said, "Let there be light." 
 
In John's gospel, from the very beginning, was the Word. 
The God who moved over the face of the deep, over the darkness, who spoke and said "let there be light," this same God who was from the beginning and spoke that Word, this same God became flesh and blood and dwelt among us. 


John says, "What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."
This God takes on our flesh and does not ignore the darkness – instead, God shines in the very midst of it.
 
So, it isn't about the Christmas card depictions of the birth of Jesus at all.
It does, however, give us the full meaning of everything Jesus was, and is, and did.
The Gospel isn’t God's afterthought in response to a problem - it is, in fact, deeply rooted in God's nature to act on behalf of creation.
 
The unforgettable opening words: “In the beginning was the Word.”
Immediately, John wants us to see that this is about the creator acting in a new way within his much-loved creation. 
This book of has now reached the climax that the creator had always intended for his creation. 
And it all centres around and through “the Word”.
Now that’s a loaded term – “Word” or “logos” as it was originally written in Greek. 
 
We can think of this word as just an entry in a dictionary, but it has a number of meanings, one of which is a promise – as in “I give you my word.”
In the Old Testament, God regularly acts by means of his “word”.
God’s Word is the way God actually does stuff. 
When God says it will be - things occur - what he says, happens. 
In Genesis itself, God says “Let there be light” and there was light. 


Psalm 147 also speaks of God’s Word coming and acting on creation and being among the People of God.
That's part of what lies behind John's choice of the term “Word” here, as a way of telling us what this book is about. It’s about God’s climatic action in this world through this “Word” and describes the way God acts in the world.
 
But the idea of the term “Word”, or “logos”, would also make some of John’s readers think of ideas that Greek philosophers had discussed - a kind of principle of order and meaning, lying deep within the whole cosmos. 
Get in touch with this principle, they said, and your life will find its true meaning.


But John brings these two huge meanings of this term “Word” together, and staggeringly announces says that this Word isn't just some Divine force of hot air, isn’t some abstract principle that is impersonal and way out there in the cosmos, it has been revealed to us as a baby born in very humble circumstances, who grew into the man Jesus.
 
In Genesis 1, the climax of the whole chapter is the creation of humans, made in God's image.
In John 1, the climax of the whole chapter is verse 14 - the arrival of a human being, as in, “the Word become flesh”. 
 
The rest of the passage clusters around this central statement of verse 14.
The one we know as Jesus is identical, it seems, with the Word who was there from the very start, the Word through whom all things were made, the one who contained and contains meaning, life and light.
This book introduces us to him – what he is about, and what part we play in this story of God that climaxes in Jesus.
 
Verse 12 says:  “To anyone who did accept him” – and that means anyone at all, then and now.
We don't have to be born into a particular family, or part of the existing Christian world.
God wants people from everywhere to be born in a new way, born into the family, which he began through Jesus and which has since spread throughout the world. 
Something can happen to people in this life which causes them to become new people who ‘believe in his name’. 
The great drama of God and the world, of the Word who reveals the glory of the unseen God – is a play in search of actors, and there are parts for everyone - you and I included.
 
We get so used to the “event” of Christmas, that it’s easy to become so used to it that we forget to see what, through it, God is longing to point to – that wrapped up in this baby Jesus.
 
The readings point to the certainty of God and this New Year is a great time to affirm that certainty.
We look to see where God is, in the events of our lives and the world.
Our faith journey causes us to live in the conflicts of certainty, uncertainty and mystery.
And as we get further into the New Year, I pray that we’ll have faith and move forward in the certainty that God has a plan for each of us. Our task is to talk to him regularly and try to determine just what our role in his kingdom is.
If we don’t ask him, it’ll be hard for him to get us moving in the right direction.
 
If all that sounds a bit complicated, it really isn’t.
Just spend regular quiet times in prayer and ask God what role he has in mind for you.
The answer might surprise you, but I encourage you, whatever stage of life you find yourself in, to embrace the task wholeheartedly and serve him with joy.
 
God the Creator, who created the earth and the universe - saw that it was good and continues to create. 
Creation continues and God remains active, always seeking the best for all people, desiring that we may truly live. 
We continue to celebrate that creative, living Word, who took on our form and substance, and became human.
 
Sometimes it can be hard for us to see the good in things like disasters, drought, savage bushfires and acts of terrorism, but the earth and God’s people usually manage to bounce back from these sorts of trials. 
Human spirit, community bonding and the care of others less fortunate than ourselves, shines through in testing times like these, helping to bring us closer together, in ways that we hadn’t imagined.
No one wants them to occur, but maybe we need a shock occasionally, to remind us to look after the planet.
 
In this season of gift giving and receiving, may we remember the good gifts that the Creator has given us, the sun and the moon, this good earth with all its blessings of sky and water, plants and animals, this incredible gift of life, of flesh and blood, of breath and memory.
We live in the day, at this moment, with all the people our lives, in both joy and sorrow, and all that it means for us to be fully human, fully alive. 
And, above all, may we remember the gift of the Word made flesh sent to save us, to heal us, to bring us joy, to bring us back to God's own self. 
 
New Year’s blessings on you all………….Pastor Rick

I’m not sure about you, but I sometimes feel a little flat in the days immediately after Christmas.
 
On Christmas Day, we tend to focus on the good in people, the good in the presents we received, the good in the food and drink we enjoy, and the good times we have with our family and friends.
 
On Christmas Day we tend to be a little more patient with people, a little more careful with things that need cleaning and a little more thoughtful with what needs to be done during the festivities.
 
Christmas Day is a day of happiness, joy and celebration, and if there’s anything that threatens to upset this day, we often try to ignore it, or deal with it the days to come.
 
Well, for me, these last few days have sort of been like Christmas Day’s hangover.
I felt a little more tired, a little more worn out, and a little more drained.
The good I focussed on at Christmas time has become a little harder to see.
What I had left undone, now needs to be tackled.
 
Christmas Day is often a day where we try to escape from reality, all our problems, our work, and our petty arguments.
We focus on the good instead of the bad.
 
Of course, this isn’t the same for all people.
Some people’s Christmas Day is also tinged with sadness and grief, especially if loved ones are missing, either through distance, or death.
And if one’s health has deteriorated during the year, some may find that their Christmas celebrations are not the same as they used to be.
 
But following Christmas Day there are times when we all need to come back down to earth. Reality hits again.
Work beckons, gifts break, or don’t fit as planned, the bank balance has shrunk considerably, and the bills soon start rolling in.
 
 
I don’t know, maybe I’m the only one who feels a little flat after Christmas, but maybe others of you will also feel the same.
 
Last Thursday, in the Christmas Day service, we heard again about the good news of Jesus’ birth.
Angels and shepherds sang praise to God because he came to be with his people.
Truly cause for celebration, hope and joy. But what do we hear in the reading today? 
He’s already being chased by death!     As I said - reality bites!
 
From the very beginning, death chased Jesus.
He and his family needed to flee out of their own land, so that Jesus could survive infancy.
He had to escape to Egypt, the place from which God had already saved his people so many years earlier.
 
Isn’t it strange that here is God himself, the King of all creation, who is all-powerful, but now needs to run from Herod’s butcher’s knife.
 
Of course, with hindsight and the help of the bible, we know how the story then develops.
The whole life of Jesus is one of obedience to his Father in heaven as he endures suffering, criticism, beatings, and even death.
 
I know that death is a bit of a morbid subject to talk about so soon after Christmas Day, but this is reality, and we all have to die eventually!
 
Jesus, the one through whom all things came into being, came to us in human flesh, in order to establish our salvation through his suffering.
This means that as he entered our world, he also lived in our bittersweet reality, felt our excitement and fears, and would even experience the loneliness of death.
 
The King of creation, who has no peer on earth, now calls us his brothers and sisters because he’s like one of us – one of us in flesh, but also one of us who has experienced suffering and temptations - although with one exception – he remains without sin.
 
Therefore, because of this, we can rightly call ourselves children of God.
 
Despite the fact that Jesus actually has no beginning or end, he also experienced the isolation and finality of death in his earthly life, just as all of us eventually will.
 
Jesus knows that the concept of death surrounds us and sometimes stands at the very edges of our celebrations.
Death, the fear of death, or the death of others, can spoil our joys and can also bring us down into a helpless state of despair or depression. Jesus knows this, because he experienced it too.
 
In this way, just as a good lawyer needs to get to know his client and a good doctor needs to get to know his patient, so, too, Jesus identifies with us – with all our frustrations, temptations, sufferings and flat days, but he’s also familiar with our eventual victory – over the darkness of death itself.
 
Jesus came to suffer and die in order that he could identify with our suffering, but also so that we won’t despair, or lose hope, because of our suffering.
 
He frees us from our slavery to death and the fear of death itself.
Yes, they’re still there, staring and threatening us even on our days of celebration, our days of regret, and on our depressing days, but that’s all they can do – glare and threaten us.
They no longer have any teeth.
 
Jesus brought light into the world and, through his death, has therefore destroyed the power of death.
The devil, the Prince of Darkness, is defeated.
 
Jesus, through his suffering and death, is now able to identify with us, in both our Christmas celebrations and our post-Christmas blues.
 
Herod wasn’t victorious over Jesus and Jesus and his family survived.
Suffering and temptations weren’t victorious over Jesus.
Jesus endured and remained faithful and obedient.
 
Death wasn’t victorious over Jesus, because Jesus still lives and still stands before God the Father, feeling our pains, our sorrows, our depression, our suffering and our fears.
He stands there, whispering in his Father’s ear, asking for mercy, claiming that we are his brother, his sister.
We are one with him through faith.
He won’t be unfaithful to us or ever abandon us.
 
So, even if we feel a little flat in the days after Christmas, we can take comfort in the fact that Jesus, the Light of the World, remains triumphant and will be faithful to all of us, no matter how we feel today, or tomorrow, or the next.
 
Because the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in and through Christ Jesus.
​
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

​Each of the Gospel writers begins the story of the birth of Jesus in a slightly different way, and Matthew does it with this remarkable story about the birth of the baby and the message that comes in a dream to Joseph, from the lips of an angel.
 
If you want to read the earlier verses of Matthew 1, you’ll find a long genealogy of 17 begats about father to son, son to son to son, all the way back to Father Abraham.
The genealogy goes up till Joseph, except that Matthew plays a trick on us, because he traces this royal pedigree to show that Jesus is descended from King David, but then, at the very last minute, he tells us that Joseph isn’t really the father of this new baby, the special one we celebrate at Christmas.
 
There are also some important things to notice about this narrative at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel.
The first thing to notice is that the whole message to Joseph happens at night - when he was relaxed, with his guard down.
We’re told that the angel comes and says to him, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit."
That’s a big message for a poor, simple, young carpenter to take in.
An angel, a messenger of God, given from outside, not in human terms, not in earthly terms and definitely not according to Joseph's normal assumptions.
 
The first thing to notice, as we move in these last days to Christmas is that the expectation of the coming of Jesus, according to Matthew, is outside all of our normal understanding.
Our business is not to try to explain this text, rather to be dazzled at Christmastime and realise that something is happening beyond all of our reckonings.
This is a baby, and a wonder, and a gift that is designed to move us beyond all our understanding.
 
The second thing to notice is that the baby has no earthly father; and in Joseph’s family, like in every family in those times, it was a scandal when a baby had no father.
So, Joseph was potentially going to be embroiled in a scandal, but that’s not the point.
He could have just walked away from the problem.
The most important thing is that he believed that the baby was being given to him and Mary as a gift from God.
 
We should set aside all of the silly speculation that’s gone on about the biological inconsistencies of a virgin conceiving and, instead, concentrate on the truth that this event comes about because God's Spirit stirs.
The Bible is largely a reflection on how God's Spirit makes things new.
- It’s God's Spirit in Genesis 1 that creates a new world, a new heaven and a new earth.
- It’s God's Spirit, God's wind that blows the waters back in Egypt and lets our ancestors depart from slavery.
- It’s God's Spirit that calls prophets and apostles and martyrs to do dangerous acts of obedience.
- It’s God's Spirit that came upon the disciples in the Book of Acts and created a community of obedience and mission.
- And now, it’s God's Spirit that begins something new when the world is exhausted, when our imagination fails and when our lives are shut down in despair.
 
And that’s what Matthew is telling us, that God's Spirit has stirred and caused something utterly new in the world. God has caused this new baby who will change everything among us.
 
The third thing to notice is that the angel gives Joseph two names for the baby.
Names are very important in that ancient world.
 
First, the angel says, "You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people."
The Hebrew name Yeshua, which we translate as Jesus, is the verb “to save, or deliver, or rescue”.
Imagine that, at Christmas, we have a baby named Save.
 
Many babies in the Old Testament are named Save.
It’s the same word that gives us the names Joshua, Isaiah, and Hosea.
Each of them saved Israel, and now Jesus will save us all.
- Jesus will save us from sin and guilt
- Jesus will save us from death and destruction
- Jesus will save us from despair and hopelessness    
- Jesus will save us from poverty, sickness and hunger. And in all the stories of Jesus that the church remembers, it is Jesus who saves.
 
The season of the church that we’re now celebrating, Advent, is a time of being ready for the saving one who will come when we can’t save ourselves.
 
The second name that the angel gives for the baby is Emmanuel, meaning “God with us”.
It’s the faith of the church that, in Jesus, God is decisively present in the world – and that fact made everything new.
 
And in the New Testament we have evidence that wherever Jesus came, he showed up where people were in need - and he saved them – the lepers, the deaf, the blind, the lame, the hungry, the unclean, even the dead.
His very presence makes new life possible, and the church consists of all the people who have been dazzled by the reality of a God who has come to be with us in this season of hope and of joy. All through this miraculous baby.
 
So Matthew prepares us right at the edge of Christmas.
He gives us an angel's message in a dream - one that is beyond human expectations.
He tells us that it’s God's Spirit who makes all things new through this baby, and the baby is named twice.
The baby is named “Save”, and “God with us”. Jesus saves from all that separates us from our God and we’re all assured that we are not alone.
 
Did you notice that this story doesn’t ask us to do anything.
But I actually believe that it invites us to be dazzled.
It invites us to ponder that, while our world feels un-saveable, here is the baby named Save.
 
Our world and our lives often feel abandoned, and here is the baby named God with Us.
So we’ve got to be ready to have our lives and our world turned upside down by this gift from God.
 
We can rest our lives upon the new promise from the angel and we can be safe and we can be whole because of Christmas, and all that it means to us, and it’s coming soon.
After all, that message is good news, isn’t it?
 
What Jesus did in the time that he was on earth was good, too.
We know that Jesus is with us forever - we sometimes say the phrase – “for good”
 
And that’s why I’ve entitled this message “He comes….for good”.
 
So let’s pray – for good.
 
Coming Son of God, blowing Spirit of God, hovering Father God, we’re very sure in these hope-filled days that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depths, nor anything at all in creation, can separate us from you and from your love for us.
For this we are grateful and we see that it is good. At this time of year, we give you thanks for your special gift to us.
In the saving name of Jesus, we pray.              Amen
 
Blessings of the season be upon you………….Pastor Rick