“The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” — Psalm 34:18 As the leaves fall and the days grow shorter, November invites us into a season of remembrance. It is a time when we pause to remember those we have loved and lost—family, friends, and members of our parish who have shaped our lives and our faith. In our All Souls services, we gather in quiet reflection, holding those precious memories before God, trusting in His promise to be near to the broken-hearted. This month also brings Remembrance Sunday, when we honour the brave men and women who laid down their lives in service of peace and freedom. We give thanks for their sacrifice, and we pray for peace in our world today. It is a solemn time, yet one filled with deep gratitude and reverence. Psalm 34:18 reminds us that we are never alone in our grief. God draws close in our sorrow and holds us in His love when our own strength fails. Whether we come to church with tears, with memories, or with prayers unspoken, He meets us there, offering comfort and hope. As we light candles, lay poppies, and whisper names of loved ones gone before, may we also lift our hearts to the God who brings light into the darkest places. May we carry forward their love and courage in how we live today. With every blessing, Rev Emma
St. Andrew’s, Wormingford30th November 2025Advent 1 Isaiah 2. 1-5 and Matthew 24. 36-44When I was small I absolutely loved Christmas. I’ve got many happy memories of childhood Christmases which for the small Christian community in Iran where I was born and raised was an intense and very special time of year. I admit, however, that the seemingly endless stretch of Advent I was less keen on. Once we’d lit the first candle of the season all I could do, like many children I guess, was think about Christmas Day and the celebrations and excitement that awaited us. Iran being an Islamic country, there was no public holiday and we had to get special permission to be off school just for Christmas day and so we made the most of it. We packed it from 6 am, when we woke to open our presents, right through to late at night with social events, festivities and church services. The idea of waiting for 4 whole weeks was almost unbearable.Now I have to say that as I’ve grown older I have come to appreciate Advent a lot more – this season of waiting in darkness for our greatest longings to be fulfilled. Despite the pull of Christmas all around us in this country, urging us to get into the spirit of celebration, I find the themes underlying the season of Advent to be more real somehow. Advent gives voice to our deepest longings and points to the possibilities of God but it also recognises the grittiness of real life. In Advent we can acknowledge the sadness and sorrow and mess of life, we can name our pain, our confusion and our lack of understanding. But all the while, as people of faith, we hang on to the fact that our present reality is undergirded by the hope of God’s future and of what is yet to come. And we are helped in all of this by the unlikely biblical text set as our Gospel reading for today. If we were tempted to think ahead to the joys of Christmas, Matthew prevents us from rushing forward – instead, he compels us to be patient. Thoughts of Christmas are far off and instead we are confronted with a much darker vision of the apocalypse – the end times - and a wholly unknown future. There is, it seems to me, very little clarity and certainty in this passage – two will be in the field, one will be taken and the other left; two women will be grinding meal, one will be taken and the other left – and on it goes painting a pretty grim picture. When will all this happen? Why will some be taken and others left? What on earth does it all mean? I confess I struggle to understand all of this. In fact, I’ll go further and say that I often struggle to understand the ways of God, to make sense of faith and to have clear answers for the challenges we face. But I find some comfort in today’s Gospel reading which seems to recognise that perplexity and doubt are ever present ingredients in our journeys of faith. Indeed the passage begins with verse 36, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father”. Uncertainty, it seems is not only a very real human condition but is even part of the best biblical faith.So we can breathe again and not feel guilty. We are not expected to know or understand everything. The mystery of faith is too big even for the angels to comprehend. Perplexity and confusion are OK. Ours is not to worry about the who the why and the wherefore. BUT… neither are we expected to be passive and uninterested – static or inactive. Rather, we are called to be awake and to attend to the here and now. In many ways these verses point to the ordinary things of life, to the work of everyday, and it is within these mundane realities of our lives that we are called to be faithful and watchful for the Lord’s coming. So, what is your ordinary? What does your mundane look like? What does it mean for you to be faithful in what you do and how might you see signs of God at work in your present, every day reality? Perhaps it’s in the small things that give encouragement, the moments of joy, the acts of kindness, these are things that if we care to notice offer glimpses of God’s presence even in the midst of dark and difficult times. So, our attention is to be fixed very much on the present – the here and now – whatever that looks like for you. But we are also encouraged to open our eyes – to see and notice signs of God at work, in smaller and larger ways, and we are to hold on to the hope that while we see glimpses of a future vision now, the fulfilment of God’s promises are yet to come. “The Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour” writes Matthew, and from our first reading, Isaiah speaks of the Lord’s house being established “on the highest mountain” to which “all the nations shall stream” – what a wonderful image of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual future. An age when swords will be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks; when weapons of war will be obsolete and can be turned instead into tools that are life-giving. How much we need to hear this good news, given what’s going on around us and in so many parts of the world.So finally, we are called this advent and through these difficult, challenging times for our communities and British society more widely, to do what we can to usher in God’s future. Not to worry or feel guilty about what we don’t understand and cannot control, but to participate with God, in our ordinary and mundane lives, but in a spirit of alertness and of hope, to establish God’s peace and justice. In small ways to influence the world around us for good. And it takes a degree of commitment. It won’t happen by magic. It is the way of faith and we are invited to participate. “Come”, says Isaiah, “let us walk in the light of the Lord”. That same invitation is still open to each and every one of us and God’s promise beckons us forward. A promise that will usher us through advent and beyond. +Guli Chelmsford
