CHRISTMAS 2025
The Christmas season at St Helen’s starts off with the CAROL SERVICE on Sunday 21 December at 6 pm: the traditional service of Nine Lessons and Carols
Our legendary NATIVITY PLAY takes place on Christmas Eve at 5 pm. Expect lots of audience participation, with members of the community and school, as well as our four legged friends, including, but not limited to: sheep, a pony, dogs and if you’re lucky, a lamb. It’s a fabulous community event bringing the Christmas story to life. Make sure you arrive in good time to get a seat.
On Christmas Day we have HOLY COMMUNION at 8.30 am: a short reflective service in celebration of Christ’s birth for those with a busy day ahead. This is followed by MORNING SERVICE and HOLY COMMUNION at 9.30: a family service for Christmas Day. We welcome all who wish to join us in this traditional service.
23rd November 2025. Christ the King (Stir up Sunday)
Prayer for today: Eternal Father, whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven that he might rule over all things as Lord and King: keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit and the in the bond of peace, and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Stir up, O Lord, the wills of your faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by you be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Among those who are sick we pray for Brenda Clark, Sue Hanning , Elizabeth Wood, Nigel Baty-Symes , Andrew McKendrick, Graeme Common , Kate Marris, Maureen Stevens, Prue and Nancy, Ned Ryan, Daniel Bosman, Suzie Dent, Nick Cook, Christina Baldwin, Lorraine Dodd, Kathleen Lee, Carol McKendrick, Stuart Bell, Maggie Bennett, Elizabeth Sambell, and Heather Loughead,
Please remember John Wilde among those who have died, and also James Robert Clark, John Thomas Robson Harding, Bobby Gordon, Mary Moore and Alys Dodds, whose year’s mind is about this time.
Readings: Jeremiah 23: 1-6
‘Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!’ declares the Lord. 2 Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: ‘Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,’ declares the Lord. 3 ‘I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. 4 I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,’ declares the Lord.
5 ‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord,
‘when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch,
a King who will reign wisely
and do what is just and right in the land.
6 In his days Judah will be saved
and Israel will live in safety.
This is the name by which he will be called:
The Lord Our Righteous Saviour.
Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.[c]
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
8 Come and see what the Lord has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
10 He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.’
11 The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Luke 23: 33-43
33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified Jesus there, along with the criminals – one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’ And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.’
36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’
38 There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the Jews.
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’
42 Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’
43 Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’
Thoughts on today’s readings
For there to be a kingdom, there needs to be a king.
We celebrate today that Christ is our king, so how jarring it seems that our gospel reading, at this time of the year, should be St. Luke’s account of the crucifixion. Yet Luke proclaims the coming of the kingdom of God in the person of Jesus, and it is a kingdom where all the assumptions and presumptions of human power have been turned upside down, as the children in school were learning on Friday.
It is a kingdom where the hungry are filled, and the rich are sent away empty; the humble and meek are exalted, and the mighty are dethroned. In that kingdom the Lord has scattered the proud in the vain imagination of their hearts.
In our justice system judges sits high above the court, wearing their robes of office and delivering judgement, as once also did the monarchs of the past. Luke presents us with Jesus, the one who delivers God’s judgement, after having been denied justice in a human court. He is indeed lifted high, but not upon a throne – nailed to a cross. No robes proclaim his dignity: he is stripped and helpless in the face of his tormentors. No cup bearer brings him fine wine – a soldier who has been tasked with killing him mockingly brings him the sour wine of the poor. The sign which proclaims him king of the Jews is also a joke, and those who appear to hold the power: the rulers and the soldiers, mock him, and bid him save himself.
But from the very cross upon which this death is inflicted Jesus proclaims God’s justice. He does not, as was traditional, curse those who torment him or confess his guilt. Instead he intercedes for the forgiveness of those who are responsible for his death. And so he draws the sting of the evil which had caused his death by breaking its power – he remains in power. To the criminal who turns to him in faith he promises that today he will be with him in Paradise. Paradise is a very specific word – it means a garden, and harks back to the Garden of Eden, from which the first man and woman were exiled when through their disobedience sin and death entered into the world. Jesus Christ is the key that opens those gates, he is the way to that Paradise where the power of sin and death have been washed away. And to that man: condemned, disgraced, put to death, that man who turned to him in faith, Jesus says, ‘You will be with me in Paradise today.’ Look, St. Luke is telling us, here is the kingdom of God: behold your king. He has not come to save himself but to bring salvation for the whole world.
Our first reading comes in the middle of verses where the prophet is delivering God’s message: those who rule over Israel, who have used power for their own ends, who have been corrupt, who have been unfaithful to God and to their own people, will be cast down, and die far away in exile. Yet there is a promise in the midst of the condemnation . God is faithful to his covenant with his people. From the root stock of David he will raise up a righteous one who will save them. No longer will the people celebrate God who saved them from slavery in Egypt, but the Saviour who has gathered them in from every land.
And so as we approach Advent we will again hear the story of humble Joseph, that son of David, not a shepherd but a carpenter, who obeyed the Lord and took to wife an obscure young woman, Mary who, because she believed, was filled with the promise of God, and with them journey to the city of David, where that promise was fulfilled and, in great humility, the Kingdom of God came to life.