29 December 2024: First Sunday of Christmas
Our numbers are usually down the Sunday after Christmas because many of our regular worshippers are visiting relatives. In addition, our Rector follows the traditional practice for parish clergy and takes a week off after Christmas. We therefore had a service of Morning Prayer led by one of our Lay Ministers, who had been himself away on Christmas Day visiting relatives.
At the very start of the service he referred to today’s readings, which both concerned the Temple, the New Testament reading being Luke’s story about Jesus’s visit to the Temple when He was twelve. Why, he asked us to ponder, was this reading sandwiched between Christmas and Epiphany, when we think of Jesus as an infant? He promised to give us his explanation later.
He did so in his sermon. He said he thought the New Testament reading had been chosen for today because, like the readings for Christmas Day and Epiphany, with was about a relationship with God, in this instance about Jesus’s relationship with God as His Father. We can all reflect on these readings and consider our own relationships with God.