{"id":636,"date":"2011-12-26T10:20:14","date_gmt":"2011-12-26T10:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faithgoeswalkabout.org\/?p=636"},"modified":"2011-12-30T14:45:10","modified_gmt":"2011-12-30T14:45:10","slug":"a-star-a-stable-and-lots-of-sheep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.faithgoeswalkabout.org\/?p=636","title":{"rendered":"A Star, a stable and lots of sheep"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday\u00a0 25th<\/sup> December 2011, Christmas Day<\/span><\/h1>\n

The Word lived amongst us\u2026 full of grace and truth.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A star, a stable and lots of sheep.<\/strong><\/p>\n

All Saints Church, Ashwicken<\/strong><\/p>\n

Isaiah 52: 7-10, Hebrews 1: 1- 12, John 1: 1-14<\/strong><\/p>\n

Freely given. Full of grace and truth.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve made it!! Christmas Day is here\u2026.. No more shopping\u2026hooray!!<\/p>\n

What a lot of preparation, how about all that wrapping paper, twinkling lights.<\/p>\n

I was in one of our little villages this week on the way to a Carol Service, pouring with rain, dark as dark.<\/p>\n

Cottages on the way a glow with twinkling lights, the snowman in the garden, Father Christmas in full gear and well lit up heading up the wall on a pretend ladder, not to be out done one of the other cottages and a similar array of lights, trees and just about everything.<\/p>\n

But what is it about Christmas that actually makes it special?
\nWhat is it like when all the presents have been unwrapped, put away or exchanged at the store?
\nWhere is Christmas actually happening?
\nI began to wonder if it was in fact a big ploy by Marks and Spencer\u2019s, Waitrose, Tesco and others, a strange mix of shoppers, trolleys brimmed full and queues and queues, carols playing,
\nFather Christmas hats everywhere, even young scouts and guides helping to pack the bags.
\nJohn 1, v 14\u2026. The Word lived amongst us\u2026 full of grace and truth.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The gift of love, given by God.
\nGod has become visible, for my sake and for your sake. Things hadn\u2019t been going well 2000+ years ago, drastic action was needed.
\nIt had been prophesied for years and years, some people were prepared or at least thought they were prepared, you know all the presents wrapped, ribbons and all.<\/p>\n

But it didn\u2019t happen as they expected at all. The most surprised of course were the religious leaders at the time, we\u2019re all human.
\nThe gift of love given by God, grace is divine love, and this is freely given.
\nThe love of God is a gift and our lives are fundamentally held in that love.
\nIt does not have barriers or warnings, it is not a \u2026I will love you if you do this type of love\u2026 it is freely given and we live in that grace and truth. It is like a warm core to our being with security and strength.<\/p>\n

Changing the subject a bit, do you know the Gestalt theory, that the whole is more than the sum of its parts?
\nThe Nativity for instance , what do we have, a stable, animals, sheep and shepherds, Mary and Joseph, 3 wise men, a star in the east and a baby, Jesus.
\nIf you take them all separately they have their own values, if you put them all together they have another value and a story starts to emerge,
\nthere is something that happens to the separate entities that creates a much larger whole than simply all the things of which it is composed.<\/p>\n

A love and journey and start of something great\u2026<\/p>\n

There for us. The word made flesh. Full of grace and truth.<\/p>\n

Full sermon on Christmas\u00a0 page<\/em><\/p>\n

Sue Martin<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday\u00a0 25th December 2011, Christmas Day The Word lived amongst us\u2026 full of grace and truth.   A star, a stable and lots of sheep. All Saints Church, Ashwicken Isaiah 52: 7-10, Hebrews 1: 1- 12, John 1: 1-14 Freely given. Full of grace and truth. \u00a0 We\u2019ve made it!! Christmas Day is here\u2026.. No […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.faithgoeswalkabout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.faithgoeswalkabout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.faithgoeswalkabout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.faithgoeswalkabout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.faithgoeswalkabout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.faithgoeswalkabout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.faithgoeswalkabout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.faithgoeswalkabout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.faithgoeswalkabout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}