It’s beginning to look like Christmas, everywhere you go…..
So does it look like Christmas, because of the large beautiful adorned trees with glittering lights and the shining star? Or is it the beautifully wrapped gifts? Or the beautiful voices of Carollers singing heartfelt songs which warm the heart? Could it be the lovely nativity sets which bring out to remind us or the large ones in our parishes? Do we have to choose one or the other when it could easily be all the above combined.
Perhaps this year it is beginning to look like Christmas when like minded disciples yearn deeply and then surrender all else to come together to adore and worship Him. It is Christmas when we minister to others in the time that we have, so that darkness is turned into light in their lives. When we bring the peace, love, healing and joy of the Lord into the lives of all those who are thirsting for Him. Perhaps it is Christmas when our lips are opened to praise and testify to the name of Jesus our Emmanuel, so that He can reign in the hearts of those who hear us. It is Christmas when folks encounter Jesus through us. Amen
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First reading
Malachi 3:1-4,23-24 ·
Before my day comes, I will send you Elijah my prophet
The Lord God says this: Look, I am going to send my messenger to prepare a way before me. And the Lord you are seeking will suddenly enter his Temple; and the angel of the covenant whom you are longing for, yes, he is coming, says the Lord of Hosts. Who will be able to resist the day of his coming? Who will remain standing when he appears? For he is like the refiner’s fire and the fullers’ alkali. He will take his seat as refiner and purifier; he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and then they will make the offering to the Lord as it should be made. The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will then be welcomed by the Lord as in former days, as in the years of old.
Know that I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before my day comes, that great and terrible day. He shall turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and the hearts of children towards their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse.
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Gospel
Luke 1:57-66
‘His name is John’
The time came for Elizabeth to have her child, and she gave birth to a son; and when her neighbours and relations heard that the Lord had shown her so great a kindness, they shared her joy.
Now on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother spoke up. ‘No,’ she said ‘he is to be called John.’ They said to her, ‘But no one in your family has that name’, and made signs to his father to find out what he wanted him called. The father asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And they were all astonished. At that instant his power of speech returned and he spoke and praised God. All their neighbours were filled with awe and the whole affair was talked about throughout the hill country of Judaea. All those who heard of it treasured it in their hearts. ‘What will this child turn out to be?’ they wondered. And indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.
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