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Lincoln Advent: 13 December

16 December, 2012 wonderfulexchangeLeave a comment

Advent Prayers, 13 December
Mission work in Newtoft

God has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
(from 2 Corinthians 4.6)

Today is St Lucia’s day: a feast day in the Nordic Churches and in churches dedicated to Lucia around the world (not least in Dembleby). The celebrations for St Lucia’s day are varied, but the central focus is always the procession of light. Young girls in white dresses carry candles through the dark, following Lucia (Saint Lucy) who wears a wreath of candles on her head. The procession is quite beautiful, and it is easy to be sentimental about candle-lit children. But Lucy herself was more stubborn than sweet. It is worth remembering her story.

Lucy lived at the turn of the fourth century – a time when Christians were persecuted for their faith. She came from a non-Christian family, and was assumed to be pagan – which meant she could move freely to care for the Christians in hiding. She would walk each day through the long dark catacombs wearing candles on her head, both hands filled with food.

Her mother wanted her to marry – a nice pagan boy from a suitable family. Lucy wanted none of it. She renounced marriage and wealth so she could continue her candle-lit walks. Her mother eventually gave in to her wishes (a miraculous healing may have helped), but the young man was furious and he exposed Lucy’s faith.

The governor’s humour was cruel. He sentenced young Lucy to a brothel, where her dreams and her vows would lie dead. Lucy refused to go and was so stubborn about it that neither the Roman Legion nor a team of oxen could get her to budge. So they built a fire around her and sentenced her to death. Lucy refused to burn. They poked her eyes out – yet Lucy was said to see. Finally, they pierced her throat, and Lucy did give way. But her story lived on, to be ornamented down through the centuries.

Lucy is a pleasing sort of saint: a saint for food-givers and head-torch wearers, stubborn types, and those who dare suffer for their faith. But her story began simply enough. People were hungry and she brought them food. People were fearful and she brought them light.

Today we pray for outreach work that is taking place in Newtoft. Pray that all those involved will be light-bearers in the dark places of this world, so that through their work and through their relationships God’s glory will be revealed.

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Lincoln Advent: 12 December

16 December, 2012 wonderfulexchangeLeave a comment

Advent Prayer, 12 December
Evergreen Care Trust

Lord Jesus, you are the one who is to come,
the one whom we await with longing hearts.
(Common Worship, Evening Prayer in Advent)

Every December, when I was growing up, there would come a moment when my father called, and opened the seldom-used door to the attic. We’d climb the dusty stairs, step over the big black heating pipes, and duck under the eaves to find the Christmas ornaments. Every step of this journey was precious. But what I really wanted was to be back downstairs, sitting on the floor beneath the tree, unwrapping ornament after ornament till I found The One.

The ornaments were old and fragile: glass balls with spun silver, soft feathered birds, foil baubles. The one that I wanted was different, though. It was the last ornament from my Grandmother’s childhood: a large twisting tear-drop painted pink and gold. I was never sure that she liked it as much as I did. Perhaps the memories it stirred were complex. But for me, it was the object of desire, a thing of great beauty: the moment when Christmas became real and hope stretched in all directions.

There is something deeply satisfying in preparing the house for Christmas — and something very sad when the thought of doing so becomes too much, too hard, or simply unrealistic amid the challenges of life. We never stop needing beauty and wonder. Our longing for it is like – is part of – our desire for God, and the scale of it is infinite. Most of the time, we dare not name this – dare not admit what we long for. And then, we climb into the attic, take down the Christmas ornaments, and find a way to express something that has no words, no limit, but is the very stuff of God.

Today we pray for Evergreen Care Trust. Evergreen helps older and more vulnerable members of the community by providing meals, companionship, advocacy and support. We pray for the work of Evergreen, and for all who enter the homes of the elderly and the vulnerable to help bring order and beauty and love when the normal tasks of life become difficult.

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Lincoln Advent: 11 December

16 December, 2012 wonderfulexchangeLeave a comment

Advent Prayers, 11 December
Community Chaplaincy, Spalding

A voice cries out in the wilderness:
‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’
(John 1.23)

Advent begins with the baptist: John, crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord.” John is not the most appealing of our biblical characters. He invades our candle-lit sanctuaries and tree-filled homes smelling of camels and crunched-locusts, calling us to repent.

In fact, a lot of ugliness hides behind these Advent stories. We may tell of a world redeemed as we prepare for Christ to come – but these stories are told into the depths of human suffering. We tell them to remind ourselves that one day, one day, God will wipe away every tear. But for now, suffering is still the seedbed for hidden glory.

So, what are we doing with all this tinsel everywhere? Is it right – when so much is wrong in the world – to spend a month wrapping gifts and decorating trees and filling the streets with starry-light?

Behind every Christmas tree, every wrapped gift, every display of lights (yes, even that one: flashing into your bedroom from across the street) – behind every one of our attempts to enchant our world for Christmas, there is a deep and honest longing for beauty.

Beauty is not often addressed as a theological value. We prize compassion and kindness, generosity and forgiveness. Beauty seems too dressy: not for the likes of us. But there is an old old tradition in the church that speaks of the Beauty of God. God’s very essence is beautiful – beauty, truth and goodness go hand in hand. We respond to that beauty in adoration – and in trying to create something of beauty in return.

Alejandro Garcia-Rivira writes: “Human life has a worth and dignity which only Beauty can reveal through the beautiful.” (A. Garcia-Rivira, The Community of the Beautiful, p. 11) We trim our trees and fill our sanctuary with candles to point to this beauty and to claim it as our own. We decorate Christmas cakes and carefully rehearse carols to join in the work of creation. If Beauty is of God’s very nature, then we affirm God’s presence each time we see the beauty in a gnarled hand delicately tying a ribbon, or the flashing eyes of a child let loose with glitter-glue.

Today we pray for Community Chaplaincy in the parish of St John the Baptist. John the Baptist’s beauty was hidden behind odd clothes and strange behaviour. It lies hidden still in the call to repent. Let us pray that through these chaplaincies, the beauty of each person will be revealed.

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Lincoln Advent: 10 December

16 December, 201216 December, 2012 wonderfulexchangeLeave a comment

Advent Prayers, 10 December
Centrepoint Outreach, Boston

Say to those who are of a fearful heart:
‘Be strong, do not fear. Here is your God.
He will come and save you.’
(from Isaiah 35.4)

Where is the boundary line between hopeful visions, and fanciful dreams?

Our Advent stories are full of wonders. Jeremiah plants trees of righteousness in our imaginations, where all God’s people can shelter and Jerusalem can find peace.

Baruch dresses us with the garments of salvation, and lets us swirl in the glory of God. Isaiah offers abundant vines and sweet-tempered lions; healing, streams and straight roads. These are stories of a world yet unborn — stories that seemed no more likely to their first hearers than to us, with our rational, skeptical minds.

God will not be held by our predictions. We cannot say when God will come, or how God will come, or what our lives will look like when he does. The prophets knew this. And yet, they sought to fill our imaginations with wild dreams and bright visions of peace. ‘Will it be like this?’ the young man asked the ragged prophet. ‘Oh yes, it will be like this. You should imagine all this and more.’

That is the point of the prophet’s wild visions: they teach us to trust God to do more than we can ever imagine. With faith in a God who moves mountains, creates dragonflies, sends the stars dancing and dwells within us, we can perhaps have faith in our own beautiful visions: a sorrow healed, a relationship restored, a pain eased, a dream fulfilled.

Trevor Hart and Richard Baulkham say this:

Christian hope… neither attempts what can only come from God nor neglects what is humanly possible. Sustained by the hope of everything from God, it attempts what is possible within the limits of each present… It does what it can for its own sake, here and now, confident that every present will find itself, redeemed and fulfilled, in the new creation.

(T. Hart & R. Baulkham, Hope Against Hope, p. 43)

We dream our best dreams and act on our best possibilities, trusting God to create something new.

Today, we pray for Centrepoint Outreach in Boston. We pray that through their work, lives will change and dreams will be fulfilled as God’s presence is embodied and made known.the orginal post is here.