Our service on Advent IV followed the theme of ‘Preparing‘ having over the last three Sundays had themes of Hoping, Waiting and Fearing. Preparing was the subject of the sermon where Andrea said that there has been considerable criticism levelled at the government that we were insufficiently prepared for this pandemic. She continued ‘ In 1907, Baden-Powell, devised the Scout motto: Be Prepared. … this, he said meant, “you are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty.” ‘ More than a century later, preparation is still a cornerstone of Scouting.
But Andrea was sure that we are all aware good preparation is often the key to a successful outcome of any project undertaken and that for any significant task in life a degree of preparation and forethought is required.
Preparing for Christmas this year has obviously been rather different. Our normal pre-Christmas activities and Christmas gatherings have been curtailed or cancelled but perhaps as that has meant we have more time on our hands to put more into our spiritual preparations..
We in St Andrew’s have, for some time, been preparing for our services over the Christmas period and we are pleased that even in the latest lockdown rules we are able to open for a Carol Service at 5.00pm on Christmas Eve followed by a 10.00am service on Christmas day. We will be able to hear our soloists for these services but thereafter the rules will change yet again and we shall have more recorded music sourced from many of our own churches and with the help of Iona community input for which we are all grateful.
We were able to hear ‘The Angel Gabriel from Heaven came’ arranged by our organist and ‘Tell out my soul’ sung by our soloist Laura. We shall hear on Christmas Eve ‘O Holy Night ‘ sung by two of our soloists and we see that this is the favourite Carol UK wide this year! It was of course composed in the early part of the 19th century by Adolphe Adam but we shall be using the well known arrangement by John Barnard.
Unfortunately we shall not be recording this service for youtube for copywright reasons but our Christmas Day service will be. We are able to seat up to the maximum of 20 and we hope to welcome everyone! We end by reminding that in the book of Isaiah, the prophet prepares the people of the exile for the coming of the Lord with the words A voice cries out “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord”
We wish everyone a Happy and Blessed Christmas and Hope for a better 2021.