CHRISTMAS PAST!

I HAD HOPED TO POST ANOTHER EPISODE ON CHRISTMAS DAY! But it was not to be. My day became much busier than expected!.... and my Modem went on the blink, and so I just gave up. Tried again on Sunday but no better, and so here I am LATE. LATE but Blessed and Glad of Heart, since it has been a Wonderful week-end for us all. I have just put up 23 photos on Face Book describing some of the events that have taken place, including a visit from the staff of our Bankers, our Christmas Concert, and a special event arranged for Christmas Eve. TODAY the sun is blazed in a clear blue sky once again, and the children all packed off to a Swimming Pool in the nearby Catholic University! This is an annual event usually reserved for Boxing Day, but since that was on a Sunday this year we have meandered today instead. Esther and I joined them all there with the rest of our staff and a few old boys and girls who like to link up with us as well. A good conclusion; a family day, and what has always been a truly 'family' occasion.

THIS YEAR we focused on Luke 2, and the proclamation of the GOOD NEWS by the Angelic Host to the Shepherds abiding in the fields near to Bethlehem. This began the Sunday before Christmas and carried on through Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. So many find it hard to understand why Christ came as a child - even why He had to come at all! We find so many gaps in what is taught within the Church today, and a lot of things are either glossed over or just not referred to. Why did the Right Arm of God bring Salvation to us all - by becoming a child?

GOD had at one time regretted making mankind - and in fact He destroyed them all with the exception of Noah and his immediate family. It had all begun in the Garden with Adam and Eve as they together stopped listening to GOD, stopped regarding HIS words, and listened to another - even Satan, who appealed to their human nature. They SINNED. and brought upon themselves the Sentence of DEATH. God had thereupon covered their shame by killing innocent animals, shedding their blood and clothing Adam and Eve with their skins, And the killing and the covering went on year after year - did God hope they might improve...? He was disappointed and by Noah's day with a population that may have been well over three million souls, God found the imagination of everyone's heart to be only evil continually - Genesis 6.

BUT NOAH - Noah walked - lived along - with God - and God noticed him and provided for his salvation together with his immediate family. (connect with Acts 16v31) THEY were saved from the ensuring flood which took the lives of every other man,woman and child.

Did God hope that in Noah and through his family the tide of iniquity could be turned and mankind saved from the influence of his sinful human nature genetically modified at the fall to lean always towards having its own way against God?

In ISAIAH 59v16, thousands of years later, we find that God had LOOKED, searched, for a MAN to stand up for righteousness and to be able to pray against the evil.......but he found NONE.

Yes, even as it is written in Isaiah 53v6...ALL we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way...... AND THEN the final despair in the words spoken is Isaiah 64v6....But we are ALL as an unclean thing, and ALL our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we ALL do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. AND THERE IS NONE that calleth (sincerely) upon your name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee..'

What then was God to do? The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the New tenth chapter and verse one -

'....(The Law) can never, by offering the same sacrifices

continually year after year, make perfect those

who approach its altars.

For if it were otherwise,

would these sacrifices not have stopped being offered?

Sine the worshipers had once for all been cleansed

they would no longer have any guilt or

consciousness of sin
But (as it was) these sacrifices annually bring a fresh

remembrance of sins to be atoned for.

Because the blood of bulls and goats is powerless

to take sins away.

HENCE, when He (Christ) entered into the world,

He said,

Sacrifices and offerings You have not desired,

but instead You have made ready a body for Me to offer

In burnt offerings and sin offerings You have taken no delight.

THEN I said

BEHOLD, here I am

coming to do Your will, O God -

to fulfill what is written of Me in the volume of the Book

GOD prepared a body for Christ to be BORN into. A body that would grow to manhood in perfection, and thus able to stand in Righteousness on sinful man's behalf, taking ALL his sinfulness upon Himself and removing the condemnation and guilt from man so that he might be saved from that sin, forgiven his trespasses against God, and restored to fellowship with God.

When God cried out ' WHO will GO for me?'

His Right ARM, replied and said 'MAKE me a body and I will go and do what is needed.'

God's Holy Spirit chose a young virgin called Mary and, overshadowing her, began to create within her a body that would share it's humanity with the very WORD of God.

And when He was born He was called JESUS.

On THAT DAY when He was born, the means of our Salvation and Deliverance from SIN was initiated on earth, culminating on a day 33 years later when that same Jesus was crucified on a Cross in Jerusalem for the sins of us ALL. Truly VERY GOOD NEWS INDEED

'Christmas Day' may not be the right day to celebrate this momentous Act of God in providing means of delivering us out of the hand of Satan; it is of no importance one way or the other. BUT it IS important to consider such a Day, and to devote some effort to Praise God for it, and to Rejoice in what it Advented. Oh Yes! Come! Let us Rejoice and stirr ourselves up to remember the Child born to be our Saviour AND our coming King. Have we RECEIVED Him? Is He already Lord of our Lives?

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ON CHRISTMAS EVE from 7 - 9 p.m. we arranged a outside meeting in front of Green Cottage for all our Children and Homes staff. Almost 160 souls. It was a clear and starlit night, and quite cold like that 'night of old.' We gathered to keep a 'watch' together, to sing carols, to pray and praise a little, and to share the memories of that Night when Jesus was born. We had a little outside lighting, and at the end we shared hot tea, samosas, cake and ice cream. The children really enjoyed it. We had never done anything quite like it before, and we felt the Presence of God very real to us. All part of a renewed effort to bring life and meaning to the Nativity Story in a way relevant to the full story of our Redemption. Esther and I made history by singing a duet together - 'Away in a Manger' - and brought the whole area to a standstill with surprised passers by peering through our garden railings to see what was going on.

On the 17th the children had put on a Christmas Concert with Carols, Praise and Worship and a Nativity Play. It is an Annual Event and open to the public and many from around attended and enjoyed the evening. The children encouraged and produced themselves wonderfully well with help from just one member of our staff. Everyone very excited and happy to be taking part and in 'doing something for Jesus'. No refreshments were provided and the event commenced at 7p.m. and ended at 9.30.

I spoke at the Christmas Morning Service on Luke 13v3 - Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish!~ BAD NEWS! I emphasised the universal inevitability of physical death, and the sudden proximity of finding ourselves defenceless before God to be Judged. BUT THEN the GOOD NEWS of the Child born to rescue us all and to give us LIFE.

Thereafter a light lunch in each house, and then some went on a family walk, played board games together and then at 3p.m. came together to chat and talk about Birth of Jesus.

4p.m. a cup of tea, and later - about 7.30p.m. each home had its own Christmas Supper followed by a Sing Song of Hymns and Carols and prayer before retiring to bed.

SUNDAY was a quiet day. Sunday Service taken by one of our Old Boys now working in South Africa for Jesus, but home for a short visit.

AND TODAY EVERYONE was packed off to the Annual Pic-nic and Swimming event, held at a local Catholic University Swimming Pool which is ours for the whole day. ALL the children and staff were there and great fun and happiness all round. A fitting conclusion to what was an exceptional 'family' week-end for all of us. We thank the Lord Jesus, the Centre of it all, and we thank all of you for your prayer and support. Sorry for this delay and will hope to be back on track again this coming Saturday.

Love to you all

John and Esther