Welcome

God is contrary: always choosing the least expected places and people.  Micah 5:1-5, tells us not to look for God amongst the great and the good but in the little and the overlooked.  God chooses Bethlehem, the littlest clan of Judah and he chooses Mary, the littlest of the littlest clan.  Today, in Luke 1:39-56, Mary is running for the hills, apparently unaccompanied.  When she arrives this unmarried, pregnant young girl finds welcome with an old, married woman from a well-respected family.   It is a meeting of opposites and yet Elizabeth finds something familiar in Mary: the child in her womb leaps for joy in recognition of the child Mary carries.  The word Greek word used to describe this leaping is only found in two other places in the Bible: both times to describe the joyful reception of the presence of God symbolised by the ark of the covenant. Mary may have no place to call home, but the Elizabeth’s baby recognises that God has made a home in her.  From the hills Mary will travel back to Nazareth and onto Bethlehem from where she will run away again, this time to Egypt.   On her journey Mary will struggle to find a safe place to be at home in the world, yet, when Elizabeth affirms it, she finds herself at home in God and God in her.  Together they, and their unborn children, create a community which will continue to grow, gathering in many who do not find themselves at home in the world but discover that God wishes to make them a home in them.  To find her true home, Mary makes a journey, she leaves the familiar and the everyday and risks the reception of others who are not like her.  Are we too prepared to journey outwards from ourselves, to discover others where God is making a home and allow our own lives and communities to become a dwelling place for the divine.

On Sunday 22nd December at 6.30pm, make a bee line for church for a traditional service of lessons and carols.

There is no better way to be reminded of the importance of the Nativity than through this familiar selection of readings and music.

Holy Spirit Clapham uses ChurchSuite. ChurchSuite is designed specifically for churches with the potential to draw us closer as a community and make us more effective than ever in our mission work together.