News from the Pews

‘For I know the plans I have for you” declares the LORD.  “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.’

Hello my brothers and sisters in Christ. Happy New Year. I hope this Christmas has been wonderful for all of you.

Sometimes the month of January does not feel to me as a new year, it is more like a continuation of a long winter, with long nights of darkness especially after all the Christmas lights come down from the shop windows and people's houses.

Reflecting on this I was suddenly encouraged once again about the knowledge that it was precisely into our darkness that Jesus the 'true light that gives light to all' arrived, his birth changed the course of history, so from then on, we have a new start, and each year is a new opportunity, a new adventure with him.

During Advent we watched and waited for the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ which we celebrated on Christmas Day; however, Christmas is not yet over, we are still in the Christmas Season as we watch and wait for the coming of the Magi. The Wise Men bring their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, symbolic of Jesus the King, the Priest, and the Prophet, and of course a foretaste of his death.

They are costly treasures, deeply personal and prophetic of who He is and what He came to do and can be summed up by the words of the Carol Silent Night: ‘Christ the Redeemer is here.’

As Jesus gave himself to us as the greatest gift there is, let us this Epiphany take time to reflect on what gift we would give Him this year.  What gift can we give that is priceless…

I suggest that there is only really one true gift that we can offer him, and it is the only gift that Jesus wants from us. In the words of the Carol, “Bleak Midwinter” touchingly says:

What can I give Him,

poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd,

I would bring a lamb;

if I were a wise man,

I would do my part;

yet what I can I give Him –

give my heart.

This Epiphany lets us give Jesus our heart, for there is no other gift that could ever be more precious to Him.

As we journey together during this Epiphany season, let us join together with the three wise men (or three Kings) who honoured baby Jesus with gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh and honour Christ with our own gifts to Him, our HEARTS.

Giving our hearts means submitting ourselves to Him and to His mission in the world. As His disciples, doing everything as He commanded us to do. We can start by digging deep into ourselves in the next few months and produce those treasures (our gifts, time, money, pastoral supports for others) which can sustain us and others in the coming months. Remembering that everything we do for others we do it for Christ.

As we look forward to the New Year, we also look back on the past year and give thanks to God for the blessings he has given us, for the challenges he has brought us through, and for the fact that he has preserved us in the true faith for another year.

Let us thank Almighty God for the great spiritual fellowship that we experienced as a Church community in 2022. In looking forward, and trusting in the promises of God, let us take a good hard look at how we can continue to serve our Lord in this next year.

Someone wisely said that: “to reach up for the new, we must let go of the old. What lies behind us is not nearly as important as what lies in front of us.”

Together we must begin to make sense of 2022, the old, in order to determine what lies ahead of us for 2023, the new. We begin this through a journey of self-reflection as individuals as well as a body of Christ towards a better future. When we self-reflect and become more conscious of what drives us, we can more easily make changes that help us develop and improve our lives. 

As we look forward into 2023, both as individuals and St Andrew’s as a Church, we should be regularly asking God to show His plans for us in 2023. I have drafted our Mission Action Plans for 2023-25 which I will be sharing with you soon once it has been agreed and approved by the PCC members.

I believe it is also crucially important for us to recognise God’s own presence and power at work in all our situations – for God is indeed the very source of the hope which we long for, as we pray and work for his loving purposes and vision for our world to be realised.

We’ve recently celebrated Christmas, the birth of Jesus the Messiah, Son of God and Son of Man, Emmanuel (God with us) which wonderfully reminds us that the very presence of God’s own powerful love and light is indeed with us even in the darkest moments of our existence, which gives genuine, constant, dependable hope for the renewal of our world.

As we begin 2023 with our hopes for a peaceful, happy and prosperous year, we begin a new season of the church year - Epiphany – which reminds us that the light of God’s loving presence which came to us all in Jesus’ birth, continues to shine in the midst of the challenges and anxieties we still face, individually and collectively, as a family, a Church, community and as a country as a whole.

God indeed calls each of us to be ‘portals’ of that light through which His hope can shine through to others! Let us start 2023 with thankfulness and hope.

Let us be thankful for the gift of each new day, the gift of faith and trust, the gift of our family, the gift of friendship, the gift of our health, the gift of our community of faith, the gift of key workers and emergency services and the gift of a new year, 2023.

I pray that this year 2023 will be a prosperous, flourishing, and fruitful year for each and every one of us as individuals and as one body of Christ here at St Andrew’s.

May each of us allow God to shine the light of his powerful love and hope through the way we live our Christian faith in our daily lives in 2023.

With my prayers and blessings to all of you for a very happy and healthy New Year! 

Reverend Olasupo Ogunyinka.

PRAYER LIST