17/12/23
Your weekly update from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
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Services this week
Sun 17 Dec
9.30am - St John's Holy Communion
9.45am - St Margaret's Holy Communion
11am - Hub service at Ven Bede (Parish Eucharist).
Mon 18th Dec
St James Carol service 5pm
Wed 20th Dec
6.30pm, St John’s Carols
Thurs 21 Dec
10.30am - Holy Communion at Ven Bede.
Dates for your diary
Mon 18th Dec
St James Christmas lunch 12-2pm
Christmas fayre 3.30-5pm
Carol service 5pm
Wed 20th Dec
6.30pm, St John’s Carols
Christmas Eve, Sun 24 Dec
9.30am - St John's Holy Communion
11am - Ven Bede hub service
4pm - St Margaret’s crib service
11.30pm - Midnight Mass at St James
Christmas Day, Mon 25 Dec
10am - Ven Bede
News
Advent & Christmas events 2023
Carols from St John's
Wednesday 20th December, 6.30pm
Location: St John's Benwell Village, NE15 7PL
Christmas Dinner
Monday 28th December 12-2pm
Location: St James Benwell, NE15 6RS
Christmas Fayre & carols
Monday 28th December
Fayre from 3.30pm
Carol service at 5pm
Location: St James Benwell, NE15 6RS
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Sunday 24th December (Christmas Eve)
9.30am - St John's Benwell Village, NE15 7PL
11am - Venerable Bede, West Road, NE4 8AP
St Margaret's Crib service
Sunday 24th December, 4pm
Location: St Margaret Scotswood, NE15 6AR
Midnight mass
Sunday 24th December, 11.30pm
Location: St James Benwell, NE15 6RS
Christmas Day
Monday 25th December, 10am
Location: Venerable Bede, West Road, NE4 8AP
Help needed - Christmas Fayre 18th Dec
At St James' on Monday 18th December we need volunteers for the stalls, games and to serve food. If you are able to help please let Revd Chris or Kath McIntyre know!
We also need donations of tombola and raffle prizes! Bottles, homewares, hamper items etc.
Christmas flower donations
Donations are much appreciated towards church flowers for Christmas! If you would like to donate please speak to Elspeth Kirkwood, Liz, or Olwyn.
Embrace - Gaza appeal
The people of Gaza are living through an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Israel’s response has led to indiscriminate civilian suffering, with residents forced to move from place to place in search of safety. Food and medical supplies have all but run out; water, electricity, and fuel have been cut off.
The people of Gaza were already on their knees with 80% of residents reliant on humanitarian aid to survive. Please, can you make a donation into help in their hour of need?
You can donate online, by clicking below, or by calling 01494 897950. Your gift will support Embrace’s Christian partners in the immediate aftermath of this humanitarian crisis and to help to heal the wounds it’s caused across Israel – Palestine.
Sunday Worship
Sunday 17th December 2023
3rd Sunday of Advent
O Sapientia
Purple/rose
Intercessions
Prayers for others:
Maria Hawthorn
Herbert, Lucy, and Luke Agbeko
Ellis Nelson
Pauline Nelson
Michell Wilson
Peter Wilson
Alan Taylor
Maureen Tayor
Irene Foskett
Lorraine Atkinson
Lynn Mosby
Diana Humphrey
Esther Kolie
David Veitch
Baptisms
Keira-May Mawdsley
Weddings
Amanda and Dave Watlow
Rest in peace
Alan
If you would like to add someone to the prayer list please email church@benwellscotswood.com
The name will stay on the list for 1 month unless requested to be long-term.
Lighting of the Advent wreath (The rose candle)
Lord Jesus, light of the world,
John told the people to prepare, for you were very near.
As Christmas grows closer day by day,
help us to be ready to welcome you now.
Amen.
Sermon
by Revd David
In the Name of God Father, Son & Holy Spirit Amen
We continue our Advent Countdown this Sunday lighting the pink candle ‘Gaudete’ rejoice. We are getting nearer. They say the darkest hour is before the dawn, today we remember John the Baptist, there is dark as well as light in his story. How should we understand John? We heard his own words today, ‘I am not the Messiah’ Not what he is, but what he is not. Reminds me a bit of the Monty Python comedy ‘Life of Brian’, Brian’s mum says, ‘He is not the Messiah he is a very naughty boy’. ‘The Messiah’ A familiar word, but what does it mean? Where does it come from? and how should we understand it today? Just to make clear I am not talking about anyone called ‘Lionel’.
The word Messiah comes originally from the Hebrew word meaning to anoint to pour oil on. In ancient Israel Kings and Priests were anointed with oil as a sign of the authority given them by God. This ritual was understood as God’s way of empowering them for their special task. The word Christ is simply the Greek translation so when we talk about Jesus Christ it is not like talking about Chris Minchin, it is not a surname, it means ‘Jesus the Anointed One-the Messiah’ .
We still use oil in church today; blessed by the Bishop at Eastertime, oils are used in praying for the sick, in baptism and confirmation. If you were confirmed, you might remember the perfumed oil on your head. The oil of Chrism that same word. So, in its original meaning ‘messiah’, anointed person, could refer to anyone anointed with oil a king a priest, even a confirmed person, but over time the meaning changed to something very specific.
Much of the early history of the Jewish people was a history of suffering, squeezed between great empires little Israel was a border zone that often became a thoroughfare for armies or a battleground. War, oppression, occupation, exile were realities that seemed to make a mockery of the promise that they were God’s chosen people. That was the climate in which the new meaning for the word Messiah took root. Yes, it was bad now, but God would change everything for the better. The prophets, talked about a new age, a new deliverance. God had saved his people once from Egypt through Moses. He had made the people prosper under their hero kings David and Solomon. He would do it again, He would break the power of the oppressing nations and bring in a new age of justice and peace. How would He do it? Through a new King, a new anointed one, The Messiah.
Around this word ‘Messiah’ all the hopes and dreams of the people focussed. When it would be, how it would be, was uncertain but the deeper the sense of crisis the more fervently the hope ignited. That is the world into which John speaks and calls people to repentance and baptism. Inevitably the question arises ‘Is this Him ? Is John Messiah?’ The leaders of the people come to ask him, hence the clear answer we started with
‘ I am not the Messiah.’
‘Then are you, Elijah?’ it was said Elijah, who had been taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot, would appear before the Messiah came. ‘No, I am not’ What about the Prophet then? another figure meant to herald Messiah’s coming. ‘No‘, Well what then?
‘A voice crying in the wilderness make straight the way of the Lord.’
TRANSLATION
John doesn’t use his own words but a word from the scriptures, just a voice, not someone of any account in his own right, but a voice that speaks of another. John says that other stands among them though they don’t know him. Johns’ role is a witness pointing to another, not himself. Reading on we hear how Jesus walks by and John says, ‘Look the Lamb of God this is the one who takes away the sin of the world’ and he goes on to say ‘this is the Son of God’.
TRANSLATION
It all seems very clear cut, but it isn’t always so. Matthew tells how prior to being executed, John is thrown into prison, from there, he sends his disciples to ask Jesus, ‘are you the one who is to come i.e. the Messiah, or should we look for another?’ Jesus sends back a message saying,
Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’
Jesus then says of John ‘no one born of women has been greater than him’ but goes on ‘the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.’
John stands on the brink. He sums up all that has gone before the law, the prophets the psalms all that has prepared the way for the coming of God’s Kingdom. But when it comes that Kingdom breaks the mould and exceeds and transforms all expectations. A Messiah without an army, a king without a state, a ruler who comes as a slave. A helpless child born in a stable and destined for no crown but a crown of thorns, no throne but a cross.
How can this be the new age? Surely this is not the Messiah. Many still reason that way, our Jewish brothers and sisters still look for a Messiah, our Moslem brothers and sisters may recognise Jesus as Messiah, but may also doubt he really died on the cross or is rightly called the Son of God, our secular brothers and sisters find the whole topic ridiculous and point to all those disagreements among people of faith to make the point.
But somehow the longing for that new world the kingdom of justice and peace persists, springs up afresh even, maybe especially, among those experiencing suffering and oppression. The longing not only for material wellbeing but for love, a world where love conquers all, and light shines in darkness persists. This Kingdom shaped hole in our lives, this Messiah shaped gap, is it just a psychological quirk best ignored or kept for the world of fiction? Or as we light that little flame can we indeed ‘rejoice’ because we see the signs of the kingdom. And as those anointed in baptism bearing the name of the Messiah the Christ, ‘Christians‘ ‘Anointed ones, can we help spread the flame?
Amen
Collect
O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
or
God for whom we watch and wait,
you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son:
give us courage to speak the truth,
to hunger for justice,
and to suffer for the cause of right,
with Jesus Christ our Lord.
Readings
Isaiah 61.1–4, 8–end
61The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
8 For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed. 10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11 For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
This is the word of the Lord.
All: Thanks be to God.
Gospel Reading
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.
All: Glory to you, O Lord.
John 1.6–8, 19–28
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.
19 This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ 20He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, ‘I am not the Messiah.’ 21And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ 22Then they said to him, ‘Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ 23He said, ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord” ’,as the prophet Isaiah said.
24 Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25They asked him, ‘Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?’ 26John answered them, ‘I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, 27the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.’ 28This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
All: Praise to you, O Christ.
Post Communion
We give you thanks, O Lord, for these heavenly gifts;
kindle in us the fire of your Spirit
that when your Christ comes again
we may shine as lights before his face;
who is alive and reigns now and for ever.