Preparing for Christmas

A Facebook friend posted today this message: "Christmas without 'Christ' is just 'M&S'." I thought it was quite apt. (For readers abroad, M&S is the archetypal British High Street retailer, Marks and Spencer - which, like other retailers, relies on Christmas shopping for its profits.)

I've just come across a whole lot of Advent podcasts from 24/7 Prayer Spaces. I wish I'd found them three Sundays ago, because they are so good. And really you want to use one a day rather than catch up with them all at one go. Anyway the first one is by Pete Greig for Advent Sunday, and then, if you want to, you can work through the sequence up to date. (By the way, they're good models for sermons - short and to the point.)

Of the other ones I particularly enjoyed Mary's Song, about the Magnificat, about how focusing on the good God who loves us, whatever our circumstances, and Simeon's Song, which asks where we find Jesus today.

I'm sure we do find him on the High Street and in many unexpected places - even in the darkness. But we need to be looking - and listening - for Him. Otherwise we'll miss Him. But the greatest truth of Christmas is not that we find Him, but that He has come and found us.

There's a rather good blog today, by the way, on the iBenedictines' blog about the corrosive effect of grumbling. "... most grumbling is not justifiable and is corrosive of community. Advent isn’t usually seen as a time for giving up things, but I certainly intend to try harder to give up grumbling. Being nice to be near isn’t just a question of which soap one uses."