BH Bulletin - Friday 18 December 2020

​Thought for the Day by Catharine Currell ​(Families Minister)

 spotted a magazine in Tescos the other day that promised ‘Ideas and recipes for the Christmas you deserve’. Their adverts similarly tell us that ‘after this year, you deserve it’. “Every Good Boy Deserves Food,” as my piano teacher taught me, but so, apparently, do people who have had a difficult year. Since the 1970s critics have been divided about the final lines of Greg Lake’s song ‘I believe in Father Christmas’  which ended with the ominous words, “Halleluiah, Noel, be it heaven or hell, the Christmas you get you deserve.” But do we really deserve Christmas?
In Luke 7 we find some people pleading with Jesus to visit a Roman soldier who has asked for his help. “This man deserves to have you do this,” they told him. However the officer himself had a different perspective. He wanted Jesus to heal an employee who was important to him but his request relied on  Jesus’ kindness and authority not on his own deserving nature. His message to Jesus was quite clear: “I do not deserve to have you come under my roof.”
His response delighted Jesus who praised his faith and remotely healed his servant without hesitation.
We do not deserve to have Jesus come to us. We don’t deserve the grace that sent a Saviour to dwell among us and become one of us.
After the life he lived and the indignities he suffered, Jesus deserved the ringing endorsement of heaven but what he got was the isolation and suffering of the cross. The Christmas we are offered is the one He deserved on our behalf.
Let’s remember and rejoice and thank the LORD who gives us the Christmas we don’t deserve.

He does not treat us as our sins deserve
    or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
Psalm 103:10,11

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Christmas in one picture

​If you could sum up Christmas in one picture what would it be?
 
As part of our Christmas Day service this year we would love you to send in your pictures so that we can show them at the start of the service.
 
You could dig up an old picture and send that in… you could take a picture of a scene or place that makes you think of Christmas…  you could even take a picture of the Tesco delivery man (with his permission) coming with all your food… or you could show the children carefully wrapping presents.
 
Whatever sums up Christmas in one picture we would love to see it!
 
Please be aware that any pictures you send in we will show, so please be mindful with your submissions.
 
The place to send your photos is [email protected]
 
If you could submit them by lunchtime on 24th December (although the earlier the better) that would be a great help.
 
Looking forward to seeing your pictures!
 
Ben

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Coffee and Chat after the Sunday morning service

This Sunday  will be the last chance this year to join other members of BH on zoom for a post service chat.  Everyone is welcome.  Join through MyChurchsuite or the website.  It will start at 11:30.

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