A prayer for the end of the year:
Thank you Father, in the name of Jesus, for bringing me to the end of another year. Your faithfulness, as ever, is unsurpassed. My contributions to the
process have been the problems and the sins – your grace has been my forgiveness, my life, my joy, my only hope. What a wondrous world you have provided. The year past has brought the glory of spring, the warmth of summer, and again the cycle of autumn, and winter. All nature responds to the rhythm of life. All life is your breath, and your word is a personal, living vehicle of your mind and will. Everything good which I have received is a gift from you; and beyond all gifts there is the relationship of love and faith and the promises of grace, which speak beyond the passing of time, filtering through the cracks of our ignorance to become rays of a glory light in which we were originally designed to dwell. Thank you for your faithfulness to me through another year. Teach me to value my days as vehicles of response to you.
These verses are selected verses from Psalm 90, 1-2, 4, 10, 12, 17:
Lord, you have been our dwelling-place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God……For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night…….The length of our days is seventy years – or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. May the favour of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us – yes, establish the work of our hands.
Oh, by the way, let the coming year be a joy to you and a shower of blessings to all who know you.

Has it ever struck you as unusual that the writers of the Gospels, and those who know Jesus of Nazareth well, never took time to tell us what he looked like? I suppose it doesn’t matter because it’s not the outward appearance that counts but who and what a person is.On this the New Testament has such a lot to say. But I also feel that it does paint a word picture which cuts across our own imaginary pictures of Jesus.
Being an Englishman I see him (as do many Anglo-Saxons) as with golden hair and blue eyes. But black Africans picture him as a negro – Chinese see him as one of them. Indeed, we all tend to picture him as one of us. But look at the New Testament, and see a young, strong, vigorous man. Jewish, of course, and middle-Eastern, therefore olive-skinned, and truly Semetic. This was no sissy. He was a real man – climbing high mountains (Mount Hermon is 9000 feet high), living rough when necessary; as he said, he often had no where to sleep.Powerful enough to endure a Roman scourging which ripped the skin and flesh off the back, and killed most of its victims.Then to drag a huge cross to the place of execution It could not be done by a weakling. When he was helped in carrying the cross, it was probably because the procession was going too slowly. His voice could rivet 5000 or more spell-bound, enough for them even to forget their dinner. His teaching was a revolution: his courage, monumental: his tenderness, endless. See him thronged by an angry crowd outside the synagogue parapet in Nazareth – and holding up his hand saying “Enough”, and striding away through their midst. His sense of humour was sparkling – ever thought about his similes? – about camels and needles eyes, and pompous men straining a sandfly out of their drink and then not noticing that they were swallowing a camel, hooves, humps and all.
He was passionate – see him driving enraged, street-wise traders out of the Temple Court – “This is a house of prayer not a market place”. See him sensitive to women; hugging children; sensitive also to the disabled, leading them apart from the sensation-seeking gazes before bringing them healing.
The Bible picture of Jesus is sharp and clear, and yet deeper than any words. In any case, listen to the Bible on judging by looks: I Samuel Chapter 16 v.7:
But the Lord said to Samuel: “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
A Prayer:
Father, we marvel at the revelation of yourself in Jesus. The Almighty who is vulnerable; the all glorious who is humble; the all-knowing who is innocent; the ever-present who is unobtrusive; the sought-after who seeks us; the centre of all, who is selfless. We worship and wonder in adoration.

One of the most moving preachers I ever had the privilege of hearing a great number of times, was the late Dr. W. E. Sangster. He was pure magic in the pulpit. So much so, that after two or three sentences you didn’t notice his most peculiar accent and speaking mannerisms. He would crack a joke and you’d laugh. He’d say something else and you’d cry. And always his preaching was biblical, evangelical, scholarly, and so down-to-earth that no one could ever misunderstand him. He would reach a conclusion and you’d feel disappointed he was only going to finish after such a few minutes, when of course in reality thirty, or forty, or fifty minutes had fled by. He was a great preacher.
Well, yesterday I spoke of the Methodist annual Covenant Prayer, and Will Sangster was a leading Methodist. This busy, world-travelling preacher was struck down with an incurable, debilitating sickness which left him a human shell, helpless and dependent. He spoke of the Covenant Prayer, and how for over forty years he had used it to covenant himself to God each year. He had used it in ’schools for preachers and evangelists’, but “Oh how different this year”, as he said. A brilliant, busy activist, lying helpless, saying:
“Put me to suffering. Let me employed for you Or laid aside for you”
Imagine, a man, never still, ever about his Father’s business – “Let me be laid aside for you” – a physical wreck; a heart and soul and mind so willing but in a body so paralysed!
The prayer of relinquishment is the hardest of all prayers to pray. This is from Psalm 44, v.9-10 and 20-23
But now you have rejected and humbled us; you no longer go out with our armies.You made us retreat before the enemy, and our adversaries have plundered us…… If we had forgotten the name of our God, or spread out our hands to a foreign God, would not God have discovered it, since he knows the secrets of the heart? Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us for ever.
A Prayer:
Forgive, O Lord, our lack of faith, that when we do not understand, we accuse you; when we are wretched, we blame; and when we are laid aside we are laid so low.

Our friends, the Methodists, all over the world, hold a Covenant Service annually which has hardly changed since drawn up by John Wesley. At its heart is prayer which I always find a most searching challenge to pray.
Let me read this Covenant Prayer for you now – it’s quite short – but don’t hurry, let each phrase soak in. We are talking to God, remember.
“I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will
Rank me with whom you will
Put me to doing
Put me to suffering
Let me be employed for you
Or be laid aside for you
Exalted for you
Or brought low for you.
Let me be full
Let me be empty.
Let me brave all things
Let me brave nothing.
I freely and whole-heartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.”
So, when I say I find this a prayer so hard to say with meaning, you will understand me. It’s possibly the hardest prayer in the world.
The supreme occasion of self-surrendering prayer is, of course, Jesus, our master and Lord. With all the world to win, so much to teach it, so much to do, faced a sudden and brutal death at the age of 33. Listen, to Mark Chapter 14, v.32-27 They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray”. He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death”, he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch”. Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon”, he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? ”
A Prayer:
Lord, teach me to pray with my will, as well as with my mind and heart.

All believers find the story of Abraham being tested by God a real problem. You remember the story from Genesis Chapter 22, when God apparently orders Abraham to sacrifice his beloved and long-promised son Isaac as a burnt offering.
A million sermons have been preached in churches, and synagogues, on obedience and passing the test by being willing to do what God commands, no matter how horrific it may seem. The real problem is not God saying “I must be sure you love me more than your son”, but rather did Abraham get it wrong in the first place? Would the God we see in Jesus actually put any man to that test? What about the effect on the boy – tied down on an altar about to be ritually butchered? Doesn’t that qualify in any age as an appalling act of fanaticism? What do we say to modern fanatics who not only seek to murder government leaders, destroy innocent hostages, even perhaps obtain an atomic bomb to press their wild belief that ‘God is telling them to do it’? With one voice we shout “You’ve got it wrong. God doesn’t give orders like that”. Hence the problem with this story of Abraham. Perhaps we should emphasise the story’s profound lesson, not of Abraham’s willingness to go the whole hog, but of God’s intervention in stopping him.
I wonder how many things this past year we have pursued, certain that God was telling us to do what later we found out, we had got wrong? This should call us to be more discerning in discovering and pursuing matters of life and death. But wait, listen to this, from Romans Chapter 8 v. 31-34
What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
A Prayer:
Lord, since we are so fallible and flawed, so open to error and self-deception, teach us to pray with minds wide open to all your guidance, lest we pursue our narrow beliefs and hear not the clear commands of your written word.

Three little words – even more dramatic than any volume of books. Just three words which split all history into two. Three words which completed all the centuries of prophecy, of revelation, of human striving and failure.
For centuries:
The Covenant relationship had stood. From Abram (and even earlier from Noah) that relationship was conferred, but broken by men and women who did not deserve such a gift
The Ark which was meant to represent the presence of a Holy God became a talisman, an idol – God in a box. The power source of Israel became a magic image
The Temple, the place chosen for worship and prayer, the House of the imageless God, where he had placed his name: the City of Jerusalem itself, which was to be the Holy City, the place where redeemed life was lived, which had become a ‘den of thieves’:
The glory of Israel was the Law, the Torah – the very revelation of God’s mind and will in writing – and the words of prophets of justice and goodness and true living. It contained also the liturgy of worship, the wisdom of the ages, the very letters of grace – which had become the tradition, the idol, to be supported, advocated and revered, but not obeyed:
The ministry of prophet and priest to assist the double function of the Messiah King to establish Israel and through Israel, the whole world – lay as still-born at each fresh coronation:
The Hebrew race, the nation called to be heaven’s shock troops for the Kingdom of God on earth – the missionary race, the heralds of God’s Kingdom here, who believed they were chosen because of their qualification of goodness and fitness to be chosen, and not by God’s forgiving grace (who can ever make silk purses out of pigs’ ears?):
The dreams of the centuries of visionaries, the dedication of humble saints of old, the insight and vision of the prophets ……..all hanging fire, all heaped up, waiting for the coming of the Breath to make them alive. Such vast potential, such a conglomerate purpose of promise, prophecy, and power, waiting to be ignited – waiting in stalemate for the catalyst to transform them from dream into reality – from “If only” to “Let’s go”.
Then those three little words which are in Matthew Chapter 3 v. 12 – “THEN JESUS CAME” … then Jesus came … ! That’s the fulfilment.
Listen to the first recorded words of the earliest Gospels: St. Mark, Chapter 1, v.14-15: After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”.
A Prayer:
Lord, this day I repent even of my repentances, and I believe that in Christ the realm of God is here, and that now nothing is impossible to you – nothing!

If you could encapsulate the message of Christmas into one verse, how about this one? Luke Chapter 2 v. 11
Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
Today, within our time scale, into our world, as part of our race, at a specific place and time, there is born to us a Saviour, a deliverer; a promised answer to our deepest needs of body, mind and soul, of our communal life, and our individual personal moralities, our spirituality and purpose. The Messiah has come. This was the Hebrew title for God’s anointed king, whose role was to bring justice, truth and holiness into the human race. He was the ‘impossible dream’ – the longing of the ages – the fulfilment of all of Moses and the prophets. The one who would stand before God in the name of Israel and all mankind, and to stand before Israel and all mankind in the name of God. The very incarnation of God – the embodiment of love and grace and wisdom: the mediator holding together the nature of a Holy God, and a sinful, struggling mankind: the one perfect sin offering, also the High Priest, the Living Word, the Redeemer. They very image of the invisible God, embodied in a human being.
The Hebrew word for all this (and more) is “Messiah”. The English word for him is “the Anointed of Jehovah”. The Greek word for this is “The Christ”. It’s not a name, it’s a title. And the Christian Gospel is that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah – the Christ – the Anointed King. The only one ever to fulfil the job description of a king who is also prophet and priest – and Saviour. No wonder the coming was special!! Luke Chapter 2 v. 11-14
Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favour rests.”
A Prayer: Lord, enable us this day to rejoice in the presence of our rightful King and Lord, and be so filled that the great good news overflows my little boundaries. “O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.”
Hey – how’s this for a thought for the day? As Paul Sherer said “God walked down the stairs of heaven, with a baby in his arms”.

Now I know that of all the days in the year, most people would look forward to Christmas Day, or the day they went on holiday, or their birthday; but to me, it’s today! When our children were small I would waken them up to come for breakfast with the news “Come and enjoy the most exciting day of the year”. To me Christmas Eve was magic. It was the anticipation, the excitement. There was something in the air. Even the milkman was in a good humour wearing a funny hat. People who called in for mince pies and stuff always had some mysterious packages to deliver; and of course it was the night when bedtime, for the children, was full of excitement and promise, as well as threats about not putting the lights on at 2 a.m. to see – if he’s been!
All through these many years the scenes have changed, but the sense of magic has remained, but in my days as a husband and father I have tended to mark the beginning of the real Christmas season as 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve, when the B.B.C. broadcast of The Nine Lessons and Carols went out live from Kings College, Cambridge. I could never get through it without having surreptitiously to dry my eyes, and it isn’t all nostalgia – it’s the sheer beauty of English church choral music at its flawless best. It’s the blend of ancient and modern, the traditional and the daring, the word and the worship, as well as the memories of sitting listening with our children as we sat on the floor and peeled apples ready for the next day’s apple sauce.
Your memories are doubtless very different from mine, and I do apologise for burdening you with my reminiscences, but perhaps you agree with me that this day’s anticipation has a magic of its own. It’s almost as if all the ages of expectation are met in Bethlehem tonight.
This is from Micah Chapter 5, v. 2-3, and remember the word ‘Ephratha’ was the name of the district and the old name (Beth-Ephrath) for Bethlehem – the House of Bread.
But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. Therefore Israel will be abandoned until he time when she who is in labour gives birth.
A Prayer: For the coming of Jesus to this dark world, we give you praise and thanks, O God our Father.

To me one of the most poignant love stories of all time was a short story written by O. Henry, who died in 1910. His real name was William Sydney Porter, and his story is called “The Gifts of the Magi”. It described a young married couple living in penury, towards the turn of the last century, in a beat-up apartment in New York. The beautiful young wife was Mrs. James Dillingham Young, and all she had to buy a present for her beloved husband was 1 dollar and 78 cents. She wept. Her Husband Jim earned only 20 dollars a week, and his only valuable possession was his father’s gold watch, left to him, which had no chain. Della’s pride and joy was her long flowing hair which, when let down, could reach her knees. She went to a wig shop and sold her hair to them for 20 dollars, then, head cropped, she went to the jewellers and bought a platinum watch chain for Jim. It cost 21 dollars. She hurried home.
At 7 p.m. Jim was due; He arrived late. She panicked and tried to cover her head with a scarf.
“Please God, make him think I’m still pretty” she cried. Jim stared at her, and she blanked out what she’d done.
“Don’t look at me like that.I sold my hair to buy you a Christmas present.”
“So your long hair has all gone?” he asked, as if in a trance. He put a small package on the table, saying, “I love you with or without your long hair”.
She opened the present – it was a set of tortoiseshell combs, made for long hair: she’d always wanted them.
“It will grow again” she said. “Now let me put this chain onto your lovely gold watch and see how splendid it looks”
“But I sold the watch to buy the combs” he said. And there they were, laughing and crying in each other’s arms that Christmas Eve.
John Chapter 3 v. 16
Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
Thank you Lord for your love which gives and gives and gives.

This is a bit of the Christmas story almost everybody knows, from Matthew Chapter 2 v. 1-2 and v.11:
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? ….On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.
Most people know the story by Henry Van Dyke, called ‘The Legend of the Other Wise Man’. Let me remind you of it. The Bible doesn’t say that there were three wise men. We have assumed there were three because they present three gifts. Well, in Van Dyke’s story there was a fourth. He was called Artaban, a medium from Ecbatana. He discerned from the heavens, and from studying ancient writings, that a king was about to be born in Israel. He sold all his possessions and purchased three gems, a sapphire, a ruby and a pearl, to give to the new born king.
He missed meeting the other three magi, who met at the Temple of the Seven Spheres, because he had stopped to save a poor man from dying, for which he had had to sell his sapphire. He continued his journey alone. He arrived at Bethlehem too late. Herod’s soldiers were massacring the innocents. Artaban saved a baby boy’s life by bribing a fierce soldier to spare him, but the price was the ruby. Now he only had one gift for the king. For years he wandered, seeking the king, and found himself in Jerusalem at Passover, which was in uproar. They were crucifying three men, one of whom had said he was the King of the Jews. Surely this was whom he had sought for over 30 years. In the crowds going to Golgotha a girl pleaded for help. She was to be sold as a slave to pay her father’s debts. He gave her the one gift he had left – the pearl as her ransom.
In the strange darkness late that afternoon an earthquake shook the city, and a dislodged slate fell onto Artaban, wounding him fatally. As he died, bemoaning his failure to give his gifts to the King Jesus, he looked up and, in puzzled wonder, asked “But when did I see you hungry and fed you, sick or in prison, and came to you? 33 years I have sought you, but have never seen your face, nor ministered to you, and (and the rescued little maid said she heard a voice saying) “Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me”.
These are A. E. Houseman’s words:
Light looked down, and beheld darkness
“Thither will I go”, said Light.
Peace looked down, and beheld war
“Thither will I go” said Peace.
Love looked down and beheld hatred
“Thither will I go” said Love.

So came Light and shone
So came Peace and gave rest
So came Love, and brought life.