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SUMMARY:Midnight Mass
DTSTART:20241224T233000Z
DTEND:20241225T003000Z
DTSTAMP:20260923T115851Z
UID:11441502024-12-24 23:30:00+00:00achurchnearyou
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DESCRIPTION:The First Mass of Christmas: celebrant the Revd Tola Badejo.\n
 \nFirst reading: Isaiah 52. 7-10\nGospel: John 1. 1-14\n\nOur night-time C
 ommunion service\, which begins late on Christmas Eve and ends early on Ch
 ristmas morning\, is the quietest and most reflective of our Christmas ser
 vices\, although it still includes all the usual sung sections of the litu
 rgy.  This year's readings avoid the traditional narrative of the birth of
  Jesus and instead focus on the transformative effects of his incarnation.
 \n\nThe first reading from Isaiah emphasises that Jesus's birth is the ful
 filment of Hebrew prophecy\, and in the painting above by Duccio\, the nat
 ivity scene is fittingly flanked by the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel. In th
 e Gospel\, John's famous opening passage seems intentionally to reach out 
 beyond Israel and to engage with the philosophical questions of the Greek 
 and Roman world\; 'word'\, as a translation of 'logos'\, means far more th
 an its ordinary English sense\, embracing concepts of divine reason\, inte
 ntion and creativity. John asserts that this divine reason\, with whom Jes
 us is fully identified\, created everything and is present in everyone\, n
 o matter how imperfect or fallen they may appear to be. At the same time\,
  John refers back to the Hebrew scriptures by echoing the first words of G
 enesis: 'In the beginning'.\n\nIt is interesting that John's Gospel\, whic
 h begins with an assertion of Christ's divinity rather than\, as the other
  Gospels do\, allowing it to emerge from the story of Christ's earthly lif
 e\, is probably the last to have been written but the only one that might 
 be the work of an actual disciple\, setting it down when he was an elderly
  man.
GEO:0.037423;51.469833
LOCATION:Kidbrooke\, St Nicholas
URL:https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/671/service-and-events/events/11
 44150/
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