Have you already sent someone into the loft or ventured yourself, to bring down the Christmas decorations?
Are you someone who carefully and sensibly stores the lights each year, so that they are easy to put up the next? Or, when you get them out of the box, are they in a tangled mess?
Do you have an Advent candle for marking the days to Christmas?
And for those of you who are leading worship in Advent, do you rejoice at the prospect of lighting the Advent candles or do you blanche at the prospect of the matches not working, the gas lighter malfunctioning, the candles not lighting or....a draft unhelpfully snuffing them out during the service?
Driving around at night at the moment reveals the joy that some people take in lighting up their neighbourhood. Some streets appear to have the householders in competition with each other. And of course, many of our communities will have their own display - breaking up the darkness.
As read at our Presbytery meeting last night, the light that is Jesus shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
There is much that we will be involved with in the coming weeks - in our homes, in schools, in communities, in workplaces, in care homes, in churches, in parishes and with our families and friends. Carol singing, carol concerts, nativities, mince pie eating contest, school assemblies, nine lessons, Christingles, watchnights etc etc. At every event there is an opportunity to shine a light on why we celebrate Christmas. And at every event there is an opportunity to be light in the darkness.
We might at times feel like our light is flickering - but it always amazes me just how much the darkness is impacted by only a very little light. And as our Moderator, Rev Shuna Dicks, said last night, whatever we have planned is enough.
Rev Stella
