Stainglass window
Christmas 2011
3rd Dec Advent Party
12th Dec @ 2pm
Carol Service at Oak tree Court
16th Dec @ 2.30pm
Carol Service at Stratford Court
17th Dec @11am
Carol Singing outside Co-Op
18th Dec Nativity and Christingle Service and Carol Service
24th Dec @ 11pm (Service starts at 11.30pm
United Service at URC Etwall Rd
25th Dec @10am
Christmas Day Service
The Humility of Receiving
Dear Friends,
'This is our God: the Servant King; he calls us now to follow him'. As we begin looking forward to, and preparing for, another Christmas celebration, we are again reminded of the one who 'though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor' (2 Corinthians 8:9). And he calls us to follow in his footsteps.
Perhaps nowhere is the humility of Jesus revealed more clearly than in the events in the upper room descibed by John, chapter 13. Then, John says, 'he showed them the full extent of his love'.
We often focus on the foot-washing part of the story, as Jesus sets us an example of humbly serving others. But there is a second aspect to humility that many of us find much more difficult: the humility of receiving.
I was reminded of this during my weekend stay in Heartlands Hospital last month. When the medics suspect there is something the matter with your heart, they will not allow you to do anything for yourself; you must let someone else do it for you. and for those of us that are independent 'doers', it comes very hard.
And yet it is often a deeper mark of humility to receive something from a friend than to do something for them. Like Simon Peter, we instinctively prefer to do something for God, than to receive something from him. 'Lord are you going to wash my feet?' he asks, offended (John 13.6). Jesus gently reminds him, 'Unless I wash you, you have no part with me' (verse 8).
At the heart of our relationship with God must be the humility of receiving. There is no place for pride. William Temple, former Archbishop of Canterbury, writes in one of his books, 'Our first thought must never be, What can I do for God? The answer to that is nothing. The first thought must always be, What will I allow God to do for me?'
If we wish to be one of Jesus' disciples, if we want to enter God's kingdom, if we would be a Christian, then we have to be humble enough to let Jesus do something for us.
The washing to which Jesus refers in his conversation with Peter is not just a physical washing of feet. The verses that follow make that clear. Jesus is thinking of the cleansing from all that is wrong in our lives, which he freely offers. There is a powerful visual aid of washing; it is baptism. Here is William Temple again 'Baptism is the symbol of Christ's washing. That is not to say that a person cannot be saved unless he is baptised. It may not be possible for him to be so. But it does mean that if you are able to be baptised, but too proud to enter by that gate, then your pride shuts you out from the family of faith, from God's Kingdom'.
On Sunday November 21st, we shall be renewing our Church Covenant together, before the Annual Church Meeting two days later. It is a very suitable time to think about our relationship with, and commitment to, Jesus.
If you have never been baptised, then ask yourself the question: What is it that holds me back? Is it pride?
And, amongst all the inevitable talk of what we can do for
God and for others, why not make the effort to show the humility of receiving,
and let someone else (and through them, God) do something for you. Or are you
too proud?
Your friend and pastor,
Jonathan Calvert
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