Events

Sunday 14th December
10am Queens Road Unitarian Free Church, Urmston
11.30am Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel, Altrincham
11.30am on Zoom ID 841 9082 8195 no password required

Led Ministry Student Peter Flower 

Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent and a time when many Christians rejoice because they know a light will soon come to lighten the darkness in our world and brighten these darkest days of the year. It’s also a day for joy. We know that finding joy in what can often seem to be a joyless world can be difficult, a challenge, but it’s there. A gift for humanity from the mystery of the divine, one that we all deserve to experience, but perhaps one that we might struggle to find, and need to have faith that it will find us when we most need it.  

All are most welcome. Come as you are exactly as you are, but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition

The following is an extract from the service...

I think that’s one of the things that I enjoy about Christmas. It’s the way it unites and brings us together. I love the way that it’s been embraced by people of all faiths and none, the ways in which we celebrate a wonderful mix of traditions and cultures, the echoes of our pre Christian history. I love the way that our rituals and routines vary from person to person, from family to family, and we might all be finding something different to celebrate or commemerate, but celebrate and commemerate we do and we embrace one another, embrace the difference in a way that maybe we don’t at other times of the year. 

There’s something about the season, the nativity story that makes me think about our common humanity, and it’s a great leveller. It invites everyone from the shepherds to the kings to come together for a common purpose, to unite around something good, something right. I’ve always loved the story of the soldiers in the first world war who stopped fighting and joined together to celebrate. If only for all too brief a time remembering and embodying the birth and life of a man sometimes called the Prince of peace. Perhaps that shows what is possible, the kind of world we could have. Maybe like the Christmas lights we get ourselves in a tangle sometimes and need someone, something to untangle us so that we can be our brightest and best.

The nativity is a simple story at heart. A story of a birth that didn’t quite go to plan, and it’s a story that has been lived out for real more times than we can imagine, but it’s a story that’s stuck in our collective conscience. It’s a story that’s inspired. It’s a story that’s inspired many to decorate their homes, their neighbourhoods, to bring light into the world, spread a message of hope, peace, love, care, neighbourliness, extend a hand of friendship regardless of just where they feel the truth of it may lie, and in that I find joy, and for that I rejoice.