I wonder how your preparations for Christmas are going? The vicarage report card is, I think, pretty good. The decorations are up, thanks to Liz and the kids. I have bought the presents I\u2019m in charge of. There have been a lot of deliveries, so I\u2019m fairly sure that Liz has bought the presents she is in charge of. We have a plan for who\u2019s coming for Christmas Day, and for visits to family afterwards. It feels like most of it is together. Apart from the menu for Christmas lunch. That isn\u2019t sorted yet, but we\u2019ve got a week yet. It\u2019ll be fine. <\/p>\n
Of course, on the church front we\u2019ve been preparing for Christmas for quite a while. The first bit of preparation started in November 2022, when we agreed the Civic Carol Service date with the team from the council. Then in the spring of this year, we started the planning for the Community Christmas choir. They\u2019ve had their rehearsals over the last month or so and are all ready for this evening\u2019s carol by candlelight service. Lots of preparation, to help things go smoothly.<\/p>\n
Why am I going on about preparation, do you think? Yes, that\u2019s right, it\u2019s Advent. The season of preparation. It\u2019s the time of year when most of our preparations for our Christmas celebrations go on, but it\u2019s also the season in which we have the opportunity to prepare ourselves spiritually for remembering the impact of Christmas. To make space to reflect on what it really means that God became human, came to live among us, as one of us. To realise afresh how amazing it is that Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. Advent is a season of preparation for Christmas. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s more than that, though, it is also a season of preparation for Jesus\u2019 return as King, to bring in the fulness of his kingdom, that he announced all those years ago. Ellie talked about this on the first Sunday of advent, reminding us that Jesus could return tomorrow, or even this afternoon, and asking if we are living our lives ready for that, prepared for that, as if we believed that it\u2019s true. <\/p>\n
This week and last week, the gospel readings have focussed on the ministry of John the Baptiser. This week, we\u2019ve lit an advent candle in memory of John. When I was first thinking about this, I was going to say that John\u2019s story isn\u2019t really to do with Christmas, because John wasn\u2019t announcing Jesus\u2019 birth, but preparing people for the beginning of his ministry. But then I remembered something that happened before Jesus was born. In Luke\u2019s historical account of Jesus\u2019 life, we read that while John\u2019s mother, Elizabeth, was pregnant with John, her cousin Mary came to visit. At this point Mary was also pregnant with Jesus. When Mary arrived at Elizabeth\u2019s home, this happened, \u201cWhen Elizabeth heard Mary\u2019s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.\u201d Even before John was born, he was preparing the way for Jesus, preparation that was empowered by the Holy Spirit. <\/p>\n
So, Advent is always a season of preparation for Christmas, and a season of preparation for Jesus\u2019 return. This year, in addition to this, it seems like God has been preparing us as a church for a greater openness to the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit in us and in our community. A couple of weeks ago, Ellie shared a picture she had of the Holy Spirit flowing like a river from the front of church, out through the central aisle and into the surrounding area. Last week we thought about baptism, and how in Christian baptism each of us are baptised in the Holy Spirit. If you missed either of those, then I encourage you to go and catch up with them, either the videos on Youtube or Facebook, or listen to the podcasts on our website. <\/p>\n
Since we\u2019ve started exploring these things, a number of people have emailed, phoned, spoken to us, sharing words and pictures that have confirmed this sense of God doing something important among us. <\/p>\n
Many of you will know that we generally plan our sermon series well in advance here at All Saints, we choose the readings months in advance, and they are usually focussed on a particular teaching theme. This is not the case in the same way at the moment. At the moment we are using the standard readings, set by the Church of England for this year for the season of Advent. We did not pick these readings, or set this theme because we had an agenda, or had a sense in advance that this was what God was wanting to say to us in Advent. It has flowed directly out of the Bible readings, and an openness to what we believe God is saying to us through the word. <\/p>\n
Today\u2019s readings a good example of this. When I was preparing for this morning I looked at the gospel reading and, to be honest, thought. Great. It\u2019s John the Baptiser again. I preached on baptism last week. How am I going to come up with something new to say about him this week? <\/p>\n
Then I turned to the Thessalonians passage and read this.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo not put out the Holy Spirit\u2019s fire.\u201d <\/p>\n
Or, as I learnt it, \u201cDo not quench the Spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, I don\u2019t want to get too distracted by the mixed metaphors for the Holy Spirit in Scripture. Sometimes he\u2019s a river that\u2019s flowing freely and sometimes he\u2019s a fire that we\u2019re not to quench. I know those things don\u2019t really make sense together, but we are trying to describe God, so it\u2019s not surprising that language breaks. If we want to stick to the river picture, then perhaps we can recast this as, \u201cDo not block the Holy Spirit\u2019s flow.\u201d <\/p>\n
This is what Ellie was talking about at the beginning of Advent when she encouraged us to let God out of the box, and which I reinforced by ripping up the box. Again, if you weren\u2019t there, go back and watch it. <\/p>\n
But what does it mean to block the Holy Spirit\u2019s flow? I wonder if there are some clues in the other instructions that Paul gives to the Christians at Thessalonica as he brings his letter to a close. Just before this instruction about the Spirit, he has said, \u201crejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances.\u201d These are positive commands, things that allow the Holy Spirit to flow freely. It seems to me that their opposites are things that might block the flow of the Holy Spirit \u2013 ingratitude, not talking with God, worrying about everything. <\/p>\n
The great thing is, that we don\u2019t have to do these things on our own. The Spirit wants to flow, that is God\u2019s intention, and so as we move just a little way towards him in these things, so he will move those blockages out of the way, and we get a virtuous spiral, in which the fruit of the Spirit flourish in our lives.<\/p>\n
In the next few verses Paul goes on. \u201cDo not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject whatever is harmful.\u201d<\/p>\n
I find this really interesting. Paul doesn\u2019t say \u201cdo not treat prophecies with contempt, but accept them without question.\u201d He tells his readers to take them seriously, and that means testing them. We test them against God\u2019s word \u2013 are they consistent with what God says in Scripture? We test them against Christian experience through the centuries \u2013 are they consistent with what God has said before? We test them against their impact on people \u2013 are they harmful or life giving? <\/p>\n
When Ellie first sensed God was speaking to her about this, she emailed me and asked me what I thought. I prayed on it, and tested it against Scripture, against my understanding of what God has said to the church over the years about the Holy Spirit, and I asked her to preach it. Since then, we have continued to test it. I\u2019ve emailed some of the senior lay leaders in the church to see if this might be a time that God is changing some of our vision as a church. At the moment we think it probably is, and I\u2019ll be saying more about that at the beginning of next year. We\u2019re being careful to listen to what kind of impact this is having on people. We have received some positive testimonies. We know that there are also those who might be a bit anxious. Personally, I\u2019m particularly sensitive to any suggestion that if you don\u2019t \u201cfeel\u201d the Holy Spirit moving you\u2019re doing something wrong or God doesn\u2019t love you. I want to say very clearly that I don\u2019t believe that this is the case. I stood in too many tent meetings and church services over the years, with all kinds of stuff going on for people, and nothing going on for me, to be unaware of the dangers of that kind of teaching. We are all individuals, and experience the Holy Spirit in different ways, and that is fine. What we do believe is that we are being called to allowing more space and openness for the Holy Spirit to minister to and through us \u2013 whatever that might look like for us as individuals.<\/p>\n
So, this Advent, as part of our spiritual preparations for Christmas, and to equip us more fully to be prepared for Jesus\u2019 return, we are choosing to open up to the Holy Spirit, to allow him to flow freely, and are preparing for what that free flow might bring to our lives and the lives of this church and this community. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I wonder how your preparations for Christmas are going? The vicarage report card is, I think, pretty good. The decorations are up, thanks to Liz and the kids. I have bought the presents I\u2019m in charge of. There have been a lot of deliveries, so I\u2019m fairly sure that Liz has bought the presents she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[431],"tags":[174,1319],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wellington","tag-1-thessalonians-516-24","tag-john-16-28"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":997,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions\/997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}