Eyes to See

When I was a child, I loved to hang red and white striped candy canes on our Christmas tree. I loved eating them as well, and the sweet, peppermint taste always reminds me of my lovely, childhood Christmases. I always thought they were pretty but I was delighted when I found this story.

A candy maker in Indiana wanted to make a candy that would be a witness, so he made the Christmas Candy Cane. He incorporated several symbols for the birth, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ. He began with a stick of pure white, hard candy. White, to symbolize the Virgin Birth and the sinless nature of Jesus, and hard to symbolize the Solid Rock, the foundation of the church, and firmness of the promises of God. The candy maker made the candy in the form of a “J” to represent the precious name of Jesus, who came to earth as our saviour. It also represents the staff of the “Good Shepherd” with which He reaches down into the ditches of the world to lift out the fallen lambs who, like all sheep, have gone astray. Thinking that the candy was somewhat plain, the candy maker stained it with red stripes. He used the three small stripes to show the stripes of the scourging Jesus received by which we are healed. The large red stripe was for the blood shed by Jesus on the Cross so that we could have the promise of eternal life, if only we put our faith and trust in Him.

Unfortunately, the candy became known as a Candy cane - a meaningless decoration seen at Christmas time. But the meaning is still there for those who "have eyes to see and ears to hear".

I hope you like this story as much as I do, and that it has given you something to think about when you see a candy cane. (or eat one !)

God Bless

Diane

Real or Romantic?

Have you ever thought about that long journey that Mary and Joseph took from Bethlehem to Nazareth? Well, I recently asked some year 4 children to consider just that. And as usual they amazed me with their insight and understanding of things we often take for granted. No one knew where Bethlehem was, so we looked at maps and worked out how far they would travel (about 70 miles) and thought about the kind of countryside they would have travelled through. We talked about the climate, about the difficulties they might encounter along the way. What would they take with them?

I then asked them to write a letter from Mary and Joseph to the family back in Nazareth saying what the journey was like and how they felt when they arrived. The results astonished me. Apparently it was a very boring journey with a very smelly donkey. They missed their family back home and they felt dizzy, tired and hot. They ran out of water and they were astonished to find that there was no room for them in Bethlehem. Mary was very depressed and Joseph felt redundant because an angle (yes I know that is not the correct spelling) told them it was a special baby. Mary worried about how she would be able to look after such an important baby, God’s own son. Would she be up to the task?

They also talked about the joy of the baby and how wonderful the whole experience was. They said how kind the inn keeper was to help them when everyone else turned them away. They knew they had been given a very special job- to care for the hope of all mankind. But my favourite by far was the little girl who ended her letter with a post script. “You’ll never guess, something really funny happened. Three wise men came to see the baby and brought presents. Fancy that!”

This Christmas I shall be thinking about that special baby in that special family. The romantic version of the angels singing and the night sky lit by a huge star does not really come close to the reality of 2 people obeying God and doing their best whatever the circumstances.

Diane

Newsletter 20th July: Pastoral Visitors Course

At St Martin’s we have recently completed a Pastoral Care Visitors Course. This course was designed to give people confidence to visit someone in distress, to encourage them to pray for and with people and to learn how important it is to listen to others. Often we find it easy to visit our friends, but it is harder when it is someone we don’t know so well. We also want to be open to what God is saying to us at St. Martin’s. We are already fortunate to have so many kind people who visit and help others.

We intend to meet as a group from time to time to encourage each other and we also had a few practical ideas. We now have some specially designed cards to leave at a house if no one is in, letting someone know they are thought of and being prayed for. We will soon have some printed prayers to give out as well.

Please contact Simon, Lesley or Diane if you would like someone visited and we will do our best to send a member of the team.

You can request prayer for yourself or someone else by putting a prayer on the prayer board or by asking Simon to send out a message. You can also ask Lesley to put it on the prayer cards, which are distributed each month for people to pray for daily. You do not need to give details if you don’t want to, maybe just a name or even an initial. Many thanks to Lesley for leading and all who attended.

Diane