December 2017

Dear Friends,
It’s really exciting to find myself preparing for my first Advent,
Christmas and Epiphany here in Market Rasen and I write
this having already begun journeying towards Christmas
with our Four Candles Advent course participants. Over the
course of Advent we will reflect on what it means to journey
together in our Christian faith.
December 2017
We experience this in church on the Sundays of
Advent partly through the lighting of the candles of
the Advent wreath, the first candle on the first
Sunday of Advent and so on. Each candle
represents a different person or group of people
who, in some way, prepared the way for Jesus’ arrival on earth that first
Christmas. Now we can use the opportunity of Advent to consider how we might
prepare for and welcome Jesus into our lives.
Advent, then, is a time of expectation, and hope. We watch and wait while the
light from the candles becomes gradually brighter as we get nearer to
Christmas. In the opening verses of St John’s Gospel we read, ‘the light shines
in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.’ That light is the light of
Christ and the hope we share is that whatever darkness we find ourselves in,
Jesus will overcome it.
There are lots of opportunities to share the experience of Advent and Christmas
at St Thomas’ this year with the Deanery Advent Carol Service, Christingle
Service, Advent Course, Carol Service, Crib Service, Midnight Mass and
Christmas Family Service. All are welcome to all of these services. We know,
though, that Christmas is not an easy time for some people. If you are one of
those people, please know that the church is here for you, too.
And, of course, despite the fact that Easter Eggs will be available in the shops
by New Year, the church’s celebration of Christmas goes on through January,
too, as we remember the visit of the Wise Men to the infant Jesus. The gifts they
brought may seem rather odd to us, today, particularly as we are bombarded
with images of the latest gift ideas in elaborate Christmas adverts and piled up
on the shop shelves. Companies are hoping to profit from our hopes and
expectations for that ‘perfect’ Christmas.
I wonder, though, whether perhaps the thing we are looking for at Christmas is
something we can’t buy in the shops. Perhaps the clue is in the name..
With love and prayers,
Rev Claire
A Letter from the Curate
Page !4