A number of festivals and events occur at the end of the church year. Remembrance Sunday on 9th. November is always a special occasion in our churches, when we are joined by representatives from local community groups in paying our respects to those who have died fighting for our freedom. With world affairs as they are, and war on a number of fronts, this occasion is also a reminder that we must earnestly work for peace to avoid an escalation into World War 3.
The season of Advent, starting on 30th. November, marks the beginning of a new church year (my church diary commences on that date, not 1st. January 2026), and anticipates the birth of Jesus. Church events throughout this season include a traditional Carols with Lessons service, a Café Church for children and their families, a Crib Service, and a traditional Christmas Eve Holy Communion. We also have a choral concert in St. Mary’s, given ironically by the Advent Singers, and a Shocklach Village Concert in St. Edith’s, on the first two Friday evenings in December.
Of course, all these events build up to the season of Christmas and the birth of Jesus, in a lowly Bethlehem stable, just over 2,000 years ago, which we celebrate on Christmas Day with Family Services in both our churches.
It would be easy to get carried away by all the busyness of Advent and Christmas and forget the significance and magnitude of Jesus’s birth. Perhaps the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah sums up the importance of Jesus’s birth, in words used by Handel in his great Christmas Oratorio the Messiah (see the Old Testament quotes from Isaiah). However, Jesus’s work wasn’t complete until his cruel death on the cross at Easter, which Isaiah also prophesised.
God bless,
Have a peaceful and joyous Christmas,
Tim and Norma