View from the Vicarage

A very Happy New Year to you all. I hope this new year will bring with it much joy and hope. Certainly it will begin with real changes as we finally separate from the EU and find our way forward as a sovereign state again. The beginning of the year will also see a surge in the vaccination campaign as it rolls out across the country, bringing with it the thoughts of returning to a semblance of normality. So two big changes to our national life which will impact on the way we conduct our personal lives for some months or years.

The theme of ‘From Darkness to Light” over the Christmas period provoked an outpouring of creativity across the Dever Valley churches. Christmas was celebrated in churches, in church yards and on polo fields. This was true to form as much of the Christmas story was played out in the open air–with shepherds visited by angels on a hillside, the kings travelling from afar following a star and Jesus himself being born in a stable.

The immediate impact of Jesus’ birth was that the years of darkness were coming to an end. They had waited four hundred years since the last prophet spoke. Jesus really was the light coming into the world bringing those long years of separation and darkness to an end. The fulfilment of the prophecies was seen as a most significant omen but none at that stage could even venture to know the impact that Jesus birth would have on history and culture and contemporary life today.

Jesus’ mandate, his code of living, quickly became the basis for civilisation to live by. It still continues to be the standard by which governments and their laws across the globe are judged. Jesus came offering a new hope, and a new way of living that has continued to give energy to churches, and communities and individuals that wanted to make a difference in their own back yard.

What an opportunity for us to renew our commitment to God’s way of doing things through the power and direction that Jesus brings in 2021. With such changes in our national life that will affect all our lives eventually, we will need an army of committed people prepared to be different and to stand up for the mandate that Jesus shared with us when he came at that first Christmas 2,000 years ago.

John Rennie January 2021