Christingle Service 2017

(The following is a Christingle Service I gave to Oasis Christian Fellowship in 2017.)

Oasis Christian Fellowship Christmas Eve Carol & Christingle Service 2017

Introit: “Silent Night”

Introduction

Good evening!  My name is Nick, and I’m a part of the church family here at Oasis Christian Fellowship.  We’d like to offer you a warm welcome to this, our last carol service before Christmas and, as we start, I’d just like to pray for a special blessing on us all this Christmas Eve.

Our Father in Heaven, your loving kindness and goodness – your light, and life, and love - has been available to us since the world began.  I pray that you would work something miraculous in each of us this Christmas Eve, for the glory of your Son, Jesus Christ – Amen!

So, tonight, we’ve got loads of carols to sing over the next hour together, interspersed with a few short talks - a bit like the Nine Lessons And Carols service you might hear on the radio or TV … except we’ve got 10 carols (one of which you’ve just heard; the others we can all sing together) and only 5 talks … and each of those will get shorter as the evening goes on!

We’ll also have a little Christingle section fairly early on - where the younger ones create a symbolic, sweet-skewered surprise, just to ensure your children get a real sugar high just before Santa visits!

Now, if any of you have brought along any guests tonight, who have come from beyond our county’s borders, we are going to start, this evening, by enculturing them in song with our first carol!

Nicknamed “The Sussex Carol”, Vaughan Williams collected the lyrics and tune to “On Christmas night, all Christians sing” while visiting in 1904.

If you wouldn’t count yourself a Christian here tonight and you’ve only come along for the carol-singing, jingle-belling ride, don’t be put off by this first line: for the time you’re with us, you’re as part of the family.

So, let’s warm up our vocal chords now as we stand to sing “The Sussex Carol”!

Carol 1: The Sussex Carol

Christingle Invitation

“All out of darkness we have light, which made the angels sing this night” … Light in the darkness will be our first theme this evening, as we incorporate some elements of a Christingle service into our time together.

A Christingle is essentially an orange with a candle stuck in the top … and a ribbon around it and sweets stuck onto it - every aspect of it represents a different bit of Christmas, and those who know the song can sing about that to us a bit later.

For now, though, if you have any young ones who would like to make a Christingle, please do have them join our helpers at the back, and we’ll process them up the front in about 10 minutes or so.

In fact, why don’t we give everyone who wants to do that time to go get set up, while we sing our next carol: Ding Dong Merrily On High!

Carol 2: Ding Dong Merrily On High

Lesson 1, with Reading 1: John 8:12, 1:4, 9-13; 3:16-17, 19-21

“Evetime songs” were for the evenings, when darkness fell, while “matin chimes” were for the mornings, welcoming the light back again.

The Bible describes God, in the beginning, separating darkness from light, and calling the darkness “night” and the light “day”.

I doubt the symbolism of darkness and light is lost on anyone but, just to make the point, which of the following phrases do you recognise, and what kinds of feelings do they evoke?

·     “Like a thief in the night”? … or, “like a thief in the light”?

·     “Things that go bump in the night”? … or, “things that go bump in the day”?

·     “Nightmares”? … or, “daymares”?

·     “In the dead of the night”? … or, “in the dead of the light”?

The night and darkness tend to be associated with bad things.  In fact, one traditional Christmas reading goes as far as to say: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”

Here, darkness is linked to death, as if to give an indication of just how bad these bad things are to God.  … Conversely - and in Jesus - light is linked to life, as we’ll hear in our first reading: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” … In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind … Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light … it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

So, in Jesus is life, “that life was the light of all mankind”, and that “light has come into the world” … but “people loved darkness instead of light” – that sounds crazy, doesn’t it?!  If the darkness is as bad as death to God, how can we love it?

… Christmas, typically, is a time of overeating (bear with me!) - we all know that eating too much is not good for us: it can lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.  And yet we still serve up far too much food at Christmas anyway!  Why?  Because there is something very comforting about eating.

Similarly, there are things we do – with deeper effects than overeating – despite knowing they’re bad.  Some of these things are bad just for us, some are bad for those around us too - and yet we continue to entertain those things because in some way they comfort us.  We love (at least, our own) darkness.

Many of these things are so familiar or subtle, we don’t recognise them.  But our love of the darkness is not restricted to our own lives – it has pervaded our culture too.  For example, let me ask you this: what is “a day”?  How do we define this 24-hour period that we call “a day”?

We have inherited our “day” from the Romans.  In the century before Jesus was born, the Romans decreed that “a day” starts and ends at midnight.

Prior to this, “a day” started as the sun began to descend from its highest point at noon.  Daylight faded into the darkness of night, which was then flooded out again by the light of dawn, and, finally, the “day” ended with the sun at its peak again.

But the Romans changed all that … and in a very revealing way: they believed that history started and ended in chaos and darkness.  So, both their decree and their belief revealed a worldview based on a darkness-to-darkness story, with no hope of light finally winning over the darkness.

And, actually, they got that right!  From their point of view: without God, it is darkness to darkness.

So, what’s the alternative?  What did the original idea of “a day” represent?

· In the beginning, there was light - when God walked the Earth with mankind.

· This turned into darkness - as we (as all mankind) chose to distrust and reject God.

· God, in unimaginable humility, accepted this rejection and left the Earth to us … but the absence of God - the light of life - brought in darkness and death.

· Thankfully, that is not the end: one day, God will return, and His light and life will drive out all darkness and death forevermore.

The original definition of a “day” proclaimed the hope of light’s ultimate victory over darkness.

We are, now, in the darkness between the original light and the light to come.  But, as the moon provides light in our earthly darkness, God also provided light in our spiritual darkness – and that is what we celebrate at Christmas: Jesus’ birth - the light of the world coming into our darkness.

Why don’t we get our Christingle-lings up the front as we sing the Christingle Carol (do help them out if you know the song)!  When you guys reach the front, just line up to show everyone your Christingles, so we can all share in their light until we finish singing, and then you can take them back to your seats (they’re electronic candles, so the risk of burning the hair of the lady in the seat in front is quite low!)  After that, Jade and Naomi, two members of the church family here, will read a poem Jade wrote for this occasion.

Song: Hope Of Heaven (Christingle Song)

Poem: “Hope, Light and Peace”, by Jade

Link

It was important, symbolically, that Jesus - the Light of the World - came at our darkest, coldest time: not only in the middle of the night, but in the middle of winter too.

He came when we needed Him most.  Our next carol is about Jesus’ coming in the middle of a cold, dark night, in the middle of a cold, dark winter.  Let’s stand now to sing “In The Bleak Mid-Winter”!

Carol 3: In The Bleak Mid-Winter

Lesson 2, with Reading 2: Luke 2:1-7:  In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree … she wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

So, we’ve had a look at Jesus as the light coming into our darkness, but why did He have to come as a baby human being?  Why couldn’t He have just shone out as a great light from the heavens … perhaps with a big booming voice for a bit more effect?!

I’m going to suggest that there are three big reasons why He did it the way He did.  I want to suggest that Jesus became a human being:

1. to meet us where we’re at;

2. to tell us and show us what God is like; and

3. to suffer and die, as a human being, and for our sake.

So, first, Jesus came to meet us where we’re at.  He removed the distance between God and mankind, and got first-hand experience of what it’s like to actually be a human being – a created being.

So, He tasted food like you and I do; He smelled fragrances as you and I do; He felt with the same fingers you and I feel with; He looked through the same eyes and listened through the same ears as we do.

He experienced the stress of being born, the joys and challenges of learning as He grew up, and He suffered frustrations, disappointments, tears, laughter, delight, and joy, as we do.

As light, He came into our darkness, and yet there was no darkness in Him.  That is something that can be said about no-one else in all history.

There is a story that, as a prank, the Sherlock Holmes author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, sent an anonymous telegram to each of about a dozen of his friends, all of whom numbered amongst “the great and the good” of late 19th century Britain – a time when, arguably, moral and ethical living reached something of a peak.

The telegram simply read: “FLEE!  ALL IS REVEALED!” - it wasn’t signed.

By the following morning, all twelve of his friends had left the country!

There are dark secrets hidden deep within each of us that, at best, threaten our honour and dignity – at worst, a lot more than that.

But, despite this darkness in us, and our rejection of Him, the Son of God came down into our dark, self-absorbed world, and He didn’t just visit, He became like us.: born of Mary, He became the Son of Man – “God made Him who had no sin … in the likeness of sinful flesh”, as the Bible puts it.

I mentioned, before, that we rejected the God of light and life, so were left with darkness and death, but God is also love.

True love always puts others first.  So, our rejection of God has left us with a compromised, self-serving version of love, and we often find ourselves doing, saying, and feeling things that we want to keep in the darkness.

That is why we hate the light.

But in our self-absorbing darkness, we can’t know God – and this brings me to my second reason why Jesus became a human being: to show us who God is … what He’s like.

You’ve heard the expression “it takes one to know one”?  Well, God figures you also need to know one to take one!  In other words, we need to know Him before we are persuaded to take Him as our Father.  So, Jesus came to teach us about His Father, in words and actions.

Jesus, as The Son of God, is a ‘chip off the old block’ - like Him in every way, the Bible describes Him as “the image of the invisible God”: if we look at Him, we see His Father.  So, what are He and His Father like?

Well, this brings me to my third reason why Jesus became a human being: Jesus became a human being to die that we might have life.

Does it surprise you to think of Jesus’ suffering and death at Easter as something His Father did too?

It did me, but Jesus Himself said: “the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing”.  On the cross at Easter, Jesus and His Father, God, were separated through death for the first and last time in all eternity.  It was the most terrible and dark time ever … and yet, it bought us forgiveness for our rejection of God.

Another member of the church here, Helen, will now read a poem she wrote about Jesus’ birth and what it brought about, inspired by her own grandson, lying cradled in his father’s hands.

Poem: “A Child Is Born”, by Helen

Link

Let’s stand to sing of the babe in the stall in our next carol: “Once In Royal David’s City”.

Carol 4: Once In Royal David’s City

Lesson 3, with Reading 3: Philippians 2:5-11

Who is God?  What do you think?  … “His shelter was a stable, and His cradle was a stall; with the poor, and mean, and lowly, lived on earth our Saviour holy”.  Our next reading this evening sheds some more light on what God is like:            Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped … and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

When you think of “God”, does this sort of abject humility come to mind?

Jesus, as Son of God, was equal with God His Father, but He did not grasp at that.  Instead, He came down, down, down:

-      from holy heaven to dusty Earth;

-      and not only to Earth, but smelly, grubby, sinful humanity;

-      and not only to humanity, but to be born as a helpless, writhing, incontinent baby, completely dependent on a couple of scandal-scarred, first century teenagers in an insignificant corner of the occupying Roman administration.

This, surely, is an upside-down God, no?  I mean, it’s starting to become hard to think of Him as the Son of God, isn’t it?  But, I assure you, the irony doesn’t end there:

·        He came down, that we might go up;

·        He was born into our darkness, that we might be born again, into His light;

·        He suffered ultimate humiliation, that we might ultimately have dignity;

·        He submitted to Man’s perverted judgement, that we might go free under God’s perfect judgement;

·        He suffered separation from His Father, that we might be united with His Father;

·        He died, that we might live.

His loss has always only ever been for our gain.  In fact, He became our servant to such a great degree, that it would be hard to believe He is the Son of God, had He not then risen from the dead too.

Only God has power over death.  Only God could never be in the shadow of death.  And only God can raise us from the dead to give us a second birth, and this one to eternal life.

This is what the final verse of our next classic carol speaks of:

-     “Light and life to all He brings, risen with healing in His Wings”;

-     “Mild, He lays his glory by, born that man no more may die”;

-     “Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth”.

Let’s stand to sing “Hark!  The Herald Angels Sing”.

Carol 5: Hark!  The Herald Angels Sing

Lesson 4, with Reading 4: 1 John 4:7-19

“Christ, by highest heaven adored, Christ, the everlasting lord”.

What is your reaction to the phrase, “Jesus Is Lord”?

I’ve been a Christian for almost 20 years, and yet I still find that that phrase bristles – I don’t want a Lord over me!  And yet, I’ve also been around long enough to know that William Ernest Henley is not right either, when he wrote his poem, “Invictus”: I am not the master of my fate; I am not even the captain of my soul.

So, I’m stuck between two worlds.  Before I became a Christian, I chose to not know or trust God at all.  At some point, I got to know Him just enough to put my trust in Him and, at that very point, I became a child of His, which means that, one day, I will know and trust Him completely.

But, right now, I’m just “growing up”.  Like a child growing up in his parents’ home, there are times I push boundaries, argue, and rebel.  But, as a good father, God doesn’t leave me or kick me out, and I can trust Him to finish the long work of pulling me out of the darkness and into the light, that He has begun in me (Philippians 1:6).

So, the phrase “Jesus Is Lord” bristles a bit with me now, but I find myself accepting it more and more as the years go by and I get to know that His being Lord is nothing like any human I’ve known lording it over me.  He is The Servant King.  He is the Lord, who is also my Father.  He is the Lord who loves me this much:

There is a radical verse in the Bible that says: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.  We’ll now hear more of this love in our penultimate reading this evening: Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God ... We love because he first loved us.

I can submit to this Lord.  This Lord gives me rest, and has me rest in His merry, smiling embrace.

Let’s stand to sing of that comfort and joy in our next carol: God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen.

Carol 6: God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen

Reading 5: Luke 2:8-12

Now, I’d like to set up our next carol with our final reading for this evening – another traditional Christmas passage that leads on from our second reading this evening:

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby … So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.

Let’s stand to sing our next carol: While Shepherds Watched

Carol 7: While Shepherds Watched

Lesson 5

“When the angels had left them, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing!’” … What would you have done if you were in their sandals?

You’ve just been invited by an army of angels to go to visit the Saviour, Messiah, and Lord on His very first day on the planet – chances are you’re not going to say “no”!

So, you ought to take a gift, right?

But you’re a shepherd - socio-economically, one of the lowest of the low.  And it’s the middle of the night: even if you had money to spend, there’s nowhere open to buy anything.  Some of your fellow shepherds have thought to grab a lamb but, in the rush to be on your way, you weren’t able to catch one.  You are woefully unprepared – this could be embarrassing.

As you enter Bethlehem, you are grateful that it is the middle of the night – usually you are not well treated by city-dwellers.  You scurry through the shadows and when you arrive at the stable, Mary and Joseph are a little surprised to see you.  But one of the other shepherds with you tells them everything that happened with the angels, and the message, and the singing, and – remarkably – they just accept all they hear and beckon you in.

Suddenly, the kings arrive!  The sheer brilliance of their clothing, their entourage, and their gifts forces you into the shadows of the stable, behind Mary.

You couldn’t feel more out of place.

And then everyone wants to present their gifts all at once, and Mary looks around for someone to hold the baby so that she can accept the gifts and thank people properly.  But everyone has their hands full, holding their gifts.  Everyone, that is, except you.  You arrived empty-handed.  You – unwashed, unkempt, and unready you – are … ironically, the only visitor who is actually ready and able to receive Jesus … and Mary calls you out of the shadows and into the light, to take Jesus in your arms.

This is all of us tonight.

Wherever you are, with respect to Jesus – be it that you feel unready, unworthy, some combination of the two, or even if you accept completely where you are right now – Jesus has been offered to you, by God, as a gift of light, life, and love.

If you can relate to anything I’ve spoken about concerning our darkness, or our not having life in all its fullness, or the self-serving compromise in our love for others – know that you have been offered the free gift of light, life, and love.  And, as with all true gifts, you do not have to pay for it, and you do not have to give anything in return - you just have to reach out, and accept it.

Jesus said: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God; believe also in me … Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves … Anyone who loves me will obey this teaching.  My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

If you want to take any practical steps towards knowing God more, either before you accept Him or as a result of accepting Him, can I point out 3 opportunities you have right now:

One would be to join us, Sundays – you’d be most welcome!  We’ll meet again 4:30pm next Sunday, and then 10:30am each Sunday after that.

Another would be mid-week: Bob and Rosemary, from the church family here, are giving up an evening a week, starting in February, to chat with you more personally – catch them at the back by the door after this (they’re also great people to ask to pray for you, or with you, if you’d like).

Lastly, if you’d rather start off with something just on your own, please take one of the “Four Kinds Of Christmas” books as a free gift from us to you – they’re at the back of the church and in the lobby - just help yourself!

Let’s finish, now, with a final carol, calling all “the faithful” – all who trust in Jesus, the light and life of the world - to come and enjoy His love, singing in exultation.  Let’s stand to sing “O Come All Ye Faithful”.

Carol 8: O Come All Ye Faithful

Blessing  Father, please give us, this Christmas, a deep and certain knowledge and assurance of your love – in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Well, folks, we’ve certainly sung for our supper tonight so please do enjoy some minced pies and mulled wine (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) before you leave, and take with you our best wishes for a happy Christmas.