Friends
Another Christmas and New Year has been and gone and I don’t know about you, but for me and my family, it all seems to be a long time ago already. The work of the Circuit continues apace, and as the senior circuit steward and I grapple with still more paperwork around stationing, and boilers stop working and roofs start leaking and things that have been planned are cancelled and future plans are made, the first few days of the year are flying by.
In the lectionary, everything has moved on apace also. The shepherds may still be wondering over the event they witnessed less than four weeks ago, the Wise Men are almost certainly still wending their way homeward, but the Gospel reading has moved us speedily to the early days of Christ’s ministry when, having already started to build his team of disciples, Jesus’ hand is tipped by his mother and he starts his ministry with the miracle of the water becoming wine.
We too, here at the start of the year wish to be filled with the transformative power of Jesus’ Spirit, do we not, to bring something special to the feast that is the life we have all been given. It’s not easy, especially at the moment, yet sometimes we see hope for the future in the very thing we thought was a worry. At Windsor, we have had to cancel the planned Burns’ Supper on the 22nd of January, but this has freed me up to attend the District Candidates Selection Committee where I have been asked to give due thought to becoming District Candidates Secretary. The hope for the future is surely strong when there is a need for someone to organise those who are exploring a call to ordained ministry.
We have very little information about Jesus between the birth and the reappearance on the world stage at around 30 years of age. We see him in the temple when he was a few days old, and then again at about 13, and then not again until he is ready to start his ministry. What was he doing? If he had not been working his family would not have survived. If he had not been praying, his relationship with God would not have seen him through all that was to come.
If he had not been studying the scripture, he would not have been able to understand and interpret all that was to come. As we too study, work and pray, may his example guide us in the coming days.
God bless,
Vicci