Jeremiah 23.1-6; Colossians 1.11-20; Luke 23.33-43

If I asked you to describe the traditional picture of a king, I wonder what you would say.

In assemblies in the three schools in the benefice this week, I asked the children to do just that. They came up with some predictable answers - kings wear crowns, kings are rich, kings live in castles, kings have servants, guards, cooks, cleaners, kings wear cloaks, kings have queens and so on.

In two of the schools, children gave slightly less expected answers, which in both cases made me smile and remember the gifts that children give us when they use their imaginations.

One girl in Barkway came up with the idea that kings wear gold pyjamas. And on a rather wet day, when I went to Reed, a little boy suggested that a king might have a person who was employed as an umbrella-holder.

In all these cases, the things the children suggested were about wealth and power and status. For them, the things that marked out a king were things we could see - material riches, people whose lives were given to meeting the needs of the king, powerful people with authority over others.

The Jewish people were expecting their Messiah to be a king along these lines. Messiah means anointed, and those who were anointed were kings. It was a sign of God’s blessing and election. The Jewish expectation was of a powerful man, a rich man, a man who would bring them freedom from oppression through his strength, a man with status and worth.

Perhaps, then, we shouldn’t be too surprised that when God’s anointed, the Messiah, turned up many people missed who he was. He didn’t look like a king. He didn’t have great wealth. He didn’t have servants but acted himself as a servant. He didn’t lord it over others but mixed with outcasts and sinners. He wasn’t the son of a ruler, but of a poor young girl. He didn’t have courtiers but a band of twelve mismatched disciples, some of whom were hot-headed, some were outcasts, one even became his betrayer. His brothers and sisters weren’t princes and princesses.

Those who believed in Jesus had to adapt their view of what a king should be like. They needed to remember the prophecies, such as the one from Zechariah: “lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey,”
and from Micah:” You, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel.”

There were signs that Jesus was a king, for those who were able to read them. The wise travellers who visited Bethlehem asked for “the child who is born the king of the Jews”. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, people hailed him as their king. On the cross, he was given a crown of thorns and a purple robe, both signs of traditional kingship. And above his head was the plaque with the words Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews.

Even those who mocked him were somehow recognising the truth of his kingship: the soldiers saying “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

Today is known as Christ the King Sunday. It was introduced by Pope Pius XI in an encyclical in December 1925.

In the darkness of the period between the Wars, Pius regretted the rise of atheistic Communism and secularism, which he believed came about as a direct result of people turning away from Christ’s sovereignty, and denying the authority of Christ’s Church.

So he introduced this festival date as a way of drawing people back to acknowledge Christ as king. Originally celebrated on the last Sunday of October, it has now been moved to the last Sunday before Advent, the final Sunday of the Church’s year.

Many of those who recognised Jesus’s kingship were those who lived on the margins - the lepers, the tax-collectors and prostitutes, the sick and mentally disturbed, the thief on the cross.
They were the ones who didn’t get too tied in to the fact that Jesus wasn’t what they expected. They were, essentially, those who recognised that they needed the freedom that Jesus the king could bring them.

Freedom is often held in the hands of those who rule. It is usually those who feel their power is threatened who seek to restrict the freedom of others - we only have to think of situations like that of Aung San Su Ki in Burma to know that this is true.

Søren Kierkegaard, theologian and philosopher, tells a story about a king. Once upon a time, there was a King who fell in love with a milkmaid. He decided to give up his throne and renounce all his wealth and power, so that he could woo her just like any other farm labourer would have done. His closest advisors told him that he was mad. If there was no better-born girl to be his wife, why not just invite her to the palace and order to marry him.
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The king said that if he did that he would never know if his love was returned. She would probably be overawed by the magnificence of his court and would feel obliged to marry him without really loving him. This would not do.

He wanted to win her love and the only way of doing this was to become like her, to get on the same level and court her just as any of the village lads would have done.

Of course the king was taking a big risk, because the milkmaid might not love him, and might reject his advances. But the young King reckoned that it was worth risking everything in order to find a love that was returned freely rather than forced.

It doesn’t take much to see the parallels with the story of Jesus. God sent Jesus to meet us on our level, to be one of us. But the kingship of Jesus only truly gains meaning if we reflect on how it affects us.
Jesus’s kingdom is not a land with fixed boundaries where every person knows who their king is. We are all given the choice as to whether we wish to view him as our king. The two thieves on the cross took different decision. One joined the mocking; the other recognised, when faced with Jesus, that the real power lay not with the authorities who had put them on the cross, but with the king of heaven and earth.

Jesus’s kingship is one that we choose to recognise or not. If we choose to recognise him as king, then our lives cannot remain the same. For the kingdom over which Jesus has rule is a kingdom of peace and gentleness, of compassion and healing, of recognising the worth of others. Jesus is not a king like the rulers about whom Jeremiah was complaining - who scatter their flocks and have driven them away and not cared for them. He is the one about whom God says he will deal wisely and execute justice and righteousness.

We cannot ignore these things, if we are willing to call Jesus our king. As members of his kingdom, we are called to work for justice and righteousness, to ensure that our lives follow that of our king in bringing freedom for people, not in seeking to bind them to our desires.

With Jesus as our king, we should speak out about oppression when we see it, not turn a blind eye to it as the rulers that Jeremiah spoke about did. With Jesus as our king, everything we do should be in tune with his values, his compassion and care.

And our starting-point, if we are to be effective in living out the kingdom values. is our relationship with God. People are usually ineffective when they berate themselves for being selfish or quick-tempered or greedy and vow not to be so again. But through the Holy Spirit, we can grow and develop and become more Christ-like. To do this, we need to take our faith seriously and give it some attention.
Next week is Advent Sunday, when our focus shifts towards watching and waiting for the coming of Christ, both at Christmas and at the end times. Jesus constantly called his followers to keep alert for the time when God’s kingdom would come. That is a call to us too, a call to keep watch for the return of our Saviour, to keep watch for the time when justice and righteousness will have their true place.

Being alert means being in tune with God, taking our faith and our growth in faith seriously. Faith is not a static thing, but something that grows and develops an deepens the more attention we give it. If we never pray or read our Bibles, we will struggle to deepen our faith. Watching and waiting means being aware of what it is we are awaiting and preparing ourselves for its coming.

For Advent reminds us of the past, of all that God has continued to do. Advent reminds us of the future, of the fulfilment of all that God has promised. And Advent, if we take it seriously as more than just a time to write Christmas cards and buy presents, gives us time and space to hear and respond to God’s invitation to live in the light of both. 

Malachi 4.1-2a; 2 Thessalonians 3.6-13; Luke 21.5-19

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace,
hail the sun of righteousness,
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.
Hark the herald angels sing,
glory to the new-born king.

Words I’m sure that you all recognise, and which in a few weeks’ time, we shall probably all be singing with gusto. It’s a carol written by Charles Wesley, although his own first line - Hark, how all the welkin rings - was altered by George Whitefield to the one with which we are familiar. In Wesley’s time, it was sung to an entirely different tune.
In fact, Wesley himself would probably not have been very pleased with the tune to which we now sing this carol, since he required his words to be sung to something slow and dignified.

And nor would Mendelssohn, composer of the tune that we know, have been very happy either, since his instructions were that the tune to which we sing this carol was to be kept for secular purposes. He wrote it to celebrate the achievements of the printer Gutenberg, 400 years earlier.

I wonder whether anyone knows what the word welkin means. It’s a word used for the heavens of the sky. And I wonder how often you have thought about the meaning of what you are singing when you sing this or any other hymn or carol. Especially with things we know as well as this carol, there is a temptation to sing our hearts out without engaging our brains - we are so familiar with the words. 

Have you ever wondered about the phrase “sun of righteousness”?  Did you know it went back to the prophet Malachi? How much do you know about Malachi? I hope by the end of today, you’ll know more than did before.

No one knows exactly when the prophet Malachi lived, though most commentators believe that the book originated some time during the Second Temple Period. The first Temple was destroyed in 587 BC, and a smaller version finished and rededicated in 516 BC.

The temple is functioning when Malachi is prophesying, so it must have a date later than 516. Most theologians hesitate to be any more precise than to say it was written during the period when the Persians ruled, so some time between 516BC and 333BC.

As for who Malachi was, again there is some debate. A few scholars see him as a real person; most of them think the book originates with an anonymous prophet - the word Malachi in Hebrew is translated as “my messenger”.

And certainly, it would make sense to see Malachi as God’s messenger since his prophecies are clear and direct. The prophet, whoever he was, carries a message from God. Indeed, that is what a prophet is - not necessarily someone who tells the future as is commonly thought, but someone who has a message from God.

The book of Malachi is laid out as a series of dialogues or debates between God, Yahweh, and his people. There are six of these exchanges; our reading today comes from the last of these.  The people have been complaining that worshipping God has brought them no benefits, and that those who prosper are the wicked rather than the righteous.
But there is a hopeful message from God for those who are righteous. The time will come when the wicked and the righteous will be judged; and the sun of righteousness will rise upon them, bringing healing.

The second half of verse 2 has a wonderful picture - I’m not sure quite why the lectionary compliers have omitted it. I’ll read the whole of that verse to you: “But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.” It’s a picture of people liberated from what binds them, leaping with joy at the freedom they have.

As I was preparing this sermon, I found a wonderful quotation talking about this verse. David Pawson, who writes on biblical themes, says this in one of his books: “I used to get up at four in the morning to milk 90 cows on a farm in Northumberland. During the winter we kept the cattle indoors and fed them on cake and hay for months.
“Then came the day when we let them out for the first time in the spring. If you know anything about country life, you know what happened next. Even the oldest cow would jump around the field for joy. Malachi says this is how it will be for the people of God. They too will leap for joy on the day when God comes to bring final salvation to his people.”

Malachi in his prophecy concentrates hard on the theme of God’s covenant with his people. His book ends with two images - that of Moses representing the Law, the Torah; and that of Elijah, representing the Prophets. These two pillars were at the heart of Judaism.

Malachi was the last Old Testament prophet; it is he that introduces the Jewish idea that Elijah must return before God’s day of judgement. Even today at Passover, Jewish families leave a spare seat at the table for Elijah, and the children often re-enact going out to look for him coming.
But for us Christians this idea has importance too, and provides a bridge between Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament ends with the image of Elijah coming again; at the beginning of the New Testament, we see in all four Gospels, John the Baptist as the new Elijah.

Elijah’s role is to forewarn people about the judgement which is to come, when, as the beginning of today’s reading puts it, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. But, in spite of this warning, the book of Malachi’s prophecies end with a message of hope.

The final verse, which comes very shortly after the bit we heard this morning, says this: “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day when the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.”

Wesley’s carol highlights the fact that it is through Jesus that this hope is brought to fruition. He clearly equates the sun of righteousness with the one who brings light and life, healing and resurrection. These are promises that hold for us through our faith in Jesus.

But throughout the Bible and in Jesus’s own teachings, there is the urgent cry for us to be on guard, to be aware and ready for the time of judgement. The idlers about which we heard in our epistle reading are those who are not ready for the coming again of Christ - they seem to be sitting back and doing nothing.

Getting a balance is not always an easy thing. The Protestant work-ethic can sometimes be taken to extremes - I’m sure we all know workaholics. We all need rest and refreshment and sabbath breaks, but that’s a very different thing to giving up completely.
I have to say I don’t know very many people, certainly not round here, whom I would call lazy. I can however think of many, many people who don’t take seriously the warnings of the prophets and of Jesus himself to be on guard, to be ready for when the sun of righteousness comes.

The great hope is that for those who are prepared an eternity of light and life and healing and joy awaits. That is the Christian hope. That is the hope expressed in those words of Charles Wesley

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace,
hail the sun of righteousness,
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.
Hark the herald angels sing,
glory to the new-born king.

Daniel 7.1-3, 15-18; Ephesians 1.11-23; Luke 6.20-31

I wonder whether any of you have seen the car-window sticker that says: “Jesus loves you” in large letters, but then continues, “but everyone else thinks you’re an idiot.”

Not a very encouraging thing to be displaying perhaps, and certainly inconsistent with Jesus’s ways which insist that we view everyone as having worth and value, not as idiots.

But, there is also a deep truth ingrained in the words on that sticker. All of us are idiots at some point; all of us get things wrong; all of us say things we wish we hadn’t or react to situations in ways that make them worse not better. And yet Jesus continues to love us.

In fact, Jesus was the one who praised those who recognised that they weren’t right with God, that they did get things wrong, in his words “Only those who are sick need a doctor.”

It wasn’t those who believed that they had it right who were the ones that Jesus would be able to set free and lead forward, but those who knew they hadn’t.

All Saints’ Sunday is a good time to remind ourselves that religion is not enough. Religion - and here I’m meaning religion in the sense of outward practice - is not enough without a change of heart and mind, without a redirecting of our lives and priorities to those of Jesus.

The saints are exactly those people who have redirected their lives and centred them around Jesus. Saints are not born but made. We all have the potential to be a saint, and in one sense, we all are.
Paul used the word saint to refer to all Christians. So we are all saints. And the great thing about the Gospel is that Jesus accepts us as we are before any changes. He accepts us, forgives us and then longs for us to respond to that and to follow his ways. We don’t make ourselves holy, though, of course, that is the work of the Holy Spirit, once we have opened our hearts to its work within us.

But we also know that there are specific people, and have always been throughout history, who seem to live particularly saintly lives. Perhaps they have given their lives to teaching others about God’s love and what it means, and so spreading the good news. It’s worth remembering that Jesus after his resurrection gave the commandment to the apostles - go and make disciples of all nations. They were sent out - the word apostle means sent.

Perhaps they have given up security and wealth to live among the poor and to help them make lives for themselves. Or maybe they have spent their lives tending the sick and needy. At heart, in this sense, a saint is a Christian hero - a hero who may be known by others, but who may also be a totally unsung hero.

Jesus was clear that when we pray and do God’s work we should do it regardless of whether others know about it. For of course, God will always know.

The word saint comes from the Latin sanctus, which is the translation of the Greek word used in the Bible hagios - you may have come across that in the word “hagiography” - the writing of the lives of saints.

A saint is a holy one. Someone who allows the Holy Spirit to refine and change them, someone whose whole life is focused around God, someone who truly lives out the commandments to love God and to love one’s neighbour.

There are certain values that people who are saints recognise as being the ways of God. In our Gospel reading this morning we heard Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, not nearly so familiar as the Matthean one, which is what people immediately think of when they hear the phrase “The Beatitudes”.

In Matthew Jesus gives this sermon on a mountain - not so in Luke, the context here is a plain. Throughout Luke’s Gospel an underlying theme is that God’s life is for all people, that it’s not an exclusive thing, only for Jews, or men, or religious people, or good people, or those at the heart of society. Luke always has a heart for the poor, the outcast, the struggling, the sinner.
So there is in one sense a symbolism in his situating this sermon on a plain.

Matthew’s mountain recalls the mountain on which Moses received the Ten Commandment and portrays Jesus as the new Moses. And mountains had always been associated with God - people went up mountains to find God - perhaps a sense that the higher you went geographically, the nearer to heaven you were.

But Luke’s God, in Jesus, has come down to the plain. His presence isn’t unattainable nor confined to the mountain-top, he is here for everyone, stooping down to be on our level. We are probably all familiar with the words from Philippians which Paul wrote that describe this coming down to our level so well -”He,” that is, Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as something to be grasped at but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness.”

Jesus is a God who came down to our level so that we might be raised to his. That is what the saints recognise and hold before them.

So let’s look a little more closely at Luke’s Beatitudes. There are four sets - four blessings, which he pairs with four curses or woes.

Blessed are you who are poor, note the change from Matthew’s poor in spirit. Many of the saints have given up worldly riches to follow Jesus because they recognise that true wealth is not found in money and possessions. St Francis gave up all his riches to live in poverty with others and to help the poor, the outcast and the derelict.

But being poor is not just about giving things up. Recall the story Jesus told about the pearl of great price - how it was so precious that the finder gave up everything he had in order to possess it.

It goes hand-in-hand with a woe - woe to you who are rich - you’ve got all you need now. It recalls another parable - the man who pulled down his barns to build bigger ones to store all his grain but who then died that night and had to face the truth that he couldn’t take his wealth with him beyond the grave.

Blessed are you who are hungry now. Woe to you who are rich. Recall another parable - that of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had enjoyed blessings on earth; it was Lazarus who received them for eternity. God’s wealth is different in form and content from worldly wealth. God’s wealth is about the bread of life - that will satisfy our true hunger.

Blessed are you who weep, but woe to those who laugh. Our Bibles are full of images where in God’s kingdom those who suffer now will find liberation and healing and freedom.
Suffering is tough and no one denies that, but Jesus implies that those who suffer now will not do so in God’s kingdom.

It’s hard to accept that God’s view of history is different from ours. When we suffer, whether it’s from sickness, bereavement, relationship break-ups, problems at work or the misfortune of those we love, it’s hard to look up and see that our suffering lasts but a short time when compared with eternity, but that’s what Jesus asks us to do. Those who laughed at Jesus and mocked him will find the future less attractive.

Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you, revile you, defame you. Nobody wants to be unpopular, but there will be woe for those who are proud. That woe often comes about because what we praise in others is not what is of long-lasting value in God’s eyes.

Our celebrity culture beings this into view well - in a day and a time where people become celebrities just for being a celebrity. It’s a strange old world.

When we’re praised for the wrong things, we are tempted away from God. We trust in our own abilities or wealth or personality and not on God’s Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, the people who received praise were the false prophets because they had a message that people liked. The true prophets - Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel - whose task was to call people back to God had a hard time of it, but Jesus points out that in heaven they will find reward.

These values that Luke depicts Jesus talking about are all shown in Jesus’s own life. These are also the values of the saints. How do we live up to them?

Psalm 46; Matthew 5.1-12

I wonder how good you are at remembering?

Who can remember what the first word they said this morning was and to whom they spoke?

Who can remember what they had for lunch yesterday?

Who can remember what they had for lunch last Sunday?

Who can remember where they were on 11th November 2006?

What about 11th November 2003?

We’re not always very good at remembering things. And many of the things we forget don’t really matter very much.
It doesn’t matter very much if I can’t remember what I ate for dinner last Sunday or a year ago and so on.

But there are some things that are very important to remember which is why we are gathered today. One of the things that helps us to remember is a big red flower. Who can tell me what it is?

The poppy. Does anyone know why we use a poppy to help us remember on this day?

When soldiers were fighting in WW1, the fields in where they were fighting became so churned up that hundreds of poppies grew there naturally and covered the fields with red flowers. John McCrae wrote a poem about the poppy fields. He was a Canadian surgeon who wrote about the things he saw all around him.

In 1915, he wrote this poem but he wasn’t very happy with it, so he tore the poem from his notebook and returned to his duties. But a fellow officer discovered the poem in the mud and sent a copy to the press. It became known right across the world.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
between the crosses, row on row,
that mark our place; and in the sky
the larks, still bravely singing, fly
scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
loved and were loved, and now we lie
in Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
to you from failing hands we throw
the torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
we shall not sleep, though poppies grow
in Flanders fields.

The symbol of the poppy helps us to remember how terrible the First World War was, but also how terrible it is that today people are still being killed and injured in war.

War is never a good thing because it always beings death and destruction; people, members of the armed forces and civilians, always get injured and others die. Wars start in many ways and for many reasons. Some wars are certainly not just or good - one country or leader wants power over another nation or people unjustly. Or one person or government wants to get rid of everyone who is from a different culture or nationality and so on.

But often people are drawn into wars for much nobler reasons. Sometimes it seems that for the greater good, others need to fight against injustice, and sadly that fight often means armed conflict.

Certainly those who fought from this country in both World Wars thought that to do so was necessary, if an evil greater than war was to be averted. Those who made the decision to send members of our armed forces into Afghanistan and Iraq believed that they were doing so for the greater good.

We live in an imperfect world, where people struggle to live together side-by-side in peace. Christian and Jewish people have always looked forward to the time when God’s new kingdom will come about when wars will cease, when suffering and pain will come to an end, when lion and lamb will lie down together in peace.

Not since the Second World War has this country become a true battlefield. It is true there have been terrorist attacks, and that the war on terror has in some ways eclipsed other types of conflict, but for most of us born since the 1950s, the battleground has not been on our doorstep.
It’s easy to forget how much devastation war brings when we don’t have it right in front of us.

Of course, our television screens and computers bring us face-to-face with other places where people do face war daily, but it is a different experience for us than if Barley were to be threatened by gunfire or bombs. When it’s far away, it’s easy to forget that each person losing their life or being maimed and wounded is someone’s brother or father or daughter or mother. That’s one of the reasons why at many Remembrance Day services, the rolls of honour are read, to ensure that individuals and their sacrifices are not forgotten.

It’s important to hold in mind that hope of God’s future when wars will cease, but it’s important to remember also those who have lost their lives because of the mess we humans get ourselves into.

Two things have stuck out for me in this connection in the past few months. In September, I visited Auschwitz, the former concentration camp in Poland. Horrifying as it is, it has been kept as a museum rather than being razed to the ground.

Keeping Auschwitz open allows visitors to pay their respects to those who suffered and died so cruelly, and to the people who liberated them and those of other camps, and who helped to wipe out Nazi oppression. It helps to educate those who visit about what happened, and it allows us to remember. These three things paying respects, educating and remembering are what can lead to people working together to ensure that such oppression and horror does not happen again.

Sadly, today, oppression is still in evidence. Our armed forces are stationed across the world, keeping peace not starting wars.

On the whole, it is governments that start wars, and the soldiers, sailors, and airmen and women who have to fight them because they have committed themselves to duty to their countries. Peace-keeping is something that we all need to work at, but peace-making is just as important.

We heard those words of Jesus in our second Bible reading earlier - blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

We won’t all end up as peace-makers on the worldwide stage, but we can all act as peacemakers in the communities and world sin which we live - our homes, schools, villages, work-places, churches and so on.

The second thing that has stood out for me in recent months was the opening of the new Armed Forces Memorial in the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

It remembers all those in the forces who have been killed in action or by terrorism since the end of World War II. There are already 15,540 names inscribed on it. That was the list at the end of 2006. Since then the names of a further 92 have been approved to be added to the memorial. And what struck me most of all is that there is space on there for another 15,000 names. Clearly no-one thinks war and terrorism are things that will go away in the near future.

Jesus’s values are of love and peace not war and hatred. We can all work for love and peace to be the values by which we live. I am going to end this address with the words of the prayer written by St Francis of Assisi, for he sums up so well, that there are two ways to live - one of hatred, discord, and injury; the other of love, pardon and peace.

On this Remembrance Day, let us pledge ourselves to working for those positive values to shine in our lives and pray that God will help us to live them out and touch the lives of others with our compassion, our care and our love.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Sunday 9th December - Advent 2
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
5.00 p.m. Discover Sunday - Christingle, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Monday 10th December
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
2.00 p.m. Ready and Waiting: Advent study course, The Rectory, Barkway

Tuesday 11th December
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Wednesday 12th December
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
2.00 p.m. Funeral of Sidney Bond, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Thursday 13th December
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
9.30 a.m. (-11.30 a.m.) Barkway VA First School Open Morning
6.00 p.m. Barley VC First School Christmas Concert, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Friday 14th December

Saturday 15th December
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 16th December - Advent 3
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion,St Mary’s, Reed
4.00 p.m. Carol Service, St Andrew’s, Buckland
6.30 p.m. Christingle and Carol service, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

THE COMING MONTH
(Morning Prayer usually takes place each day: Monday and Tuesday in Barkway; Wednesday and Saturday in Barley and Thursday in Reed)

Monday 17th December
2.00 p.m. Ready and Waiting: Advent study course, The Rectory, Barkway

Tuesday 18th December
6.30 p.m. Barkway VA First School Christmas performance, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Thursday 20th December
10.00 a.m. Barkway VA First School Christmas service, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Friday 21st December
9.00 a.m. Reed First School Christmas service, St Mary’s, Reed

Sunday 23rd December - Advent 4
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Holy Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
3.00 p.m. Joint Carol Service (with reed chapel), St Mary’s, Reed
6.00 p.m. Nine Lessons and Carols, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Monday 24th December - Christmas Eve
5.00 p.m. Crib Service, St Mary’s, Reed
8.30 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
11.30 p.m. Midnight Mass, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Tuesday 25th December - Christmas Day
10.30 a.m. Christmas Holy Communion