Birth pangs of the Kingdom - the first steps after Christmas
Well, Christmas is sort of over. At least for the secular world where the focus is now well an truly on the new Year parties and the annual game of reviewing the previous twelve months and making promises or resolutions that the next twelve months will bring a new us. Of course in the Christian Calendar, today is the first Sunday of Christmas. So we still get the chance to sing Christmas Carols and to consider the immense action of God who we are told in John 1 v 14 in the message version, “became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood” The two readings today help us to reflect on the particular nature of Christmas; Psalm 148 is cleverly set up mirroring the Genesis order of Creation; so we see God praised in the heavens and then on earth, in the sea on the land, by plants, animals and finally humans. The key is the linking together of heaven and earth. All that is in heaven praises God, and everything that is on earth praises God. T...