St John’s Church is 900 years old, or thereabouts… no-oneactually wrote down when they finished it! The best guess is sometime in the mid-1120s. So we are taking the opportunity, over the next few years, to hold some special events marking its 900th birthday!
900 Christmases
This means that St John’s will have seen many, many Christmases - cold ones, mild ones, wet ones, dry ones, even snowy ones - Christmases during times of war, disaster and plague, as well as times when people were giving thanks for deliverance and peace. There were even those years when Oliver Cromwell’s friends tried to ban Christmas! And yet, despite all that our country has gone through over the years, we will once again, 900 years on, be lighting candles, singing carols and reading the traditional Christmas story from the pages of the Bible. So do come and join in… with a piece of history.
Even older – yet for today
But of course, all Christmas celebrations mark something even older and even more amazing - more than 2000 years ago the Saviour came to our world to show us everything that we need to know about God. So, if we do come to sing carols and hear the old, old story once more this year, we are joining with something far older than we can imagine, yet so relevant for our lives today. The Bible says this of Jesus: In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. Mark Mulryne (Vicar)
