The Golden Bay (and surrounds) carols will be happening again on Sunday 20 December! Golden Bay Baptist, Deo Gloria Singleton and the Secret Harbour Anglican church are combining this year to make this a community celebration to be remembered! There’ll be games, face-painting, a sausage sizzle, burgers, cold-drinks, an ice-cream van, and a coffee van. And, of course, carols!
The event kicks off at 5:30pm at the Coastal Community Centre on Tangadee Road. Carols start at 7pm!
If you’d like any more information, please don’t hesitate to contact Nick on 042 428 4777, or email church@goldenbaybaptist.church
The message of Christmas
The Christmas story is one that most of us are very familiar with. Year after year, in keeping with tradition, we sing the same carols. We are reminded time and again of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus. It’s possible that many enter this season in the church thinking: Not again! I’ve heard it all before.
But the story of Christmas is worth hearing time and again. Because Christmas starts to speak of how very greatly our God loves us. At Christmas, we are reminded that the one who made all things loved us so much that he humbled himself to the point of being a helpless babe. The one who sustains and holds all things together had to be cradled and held.
Arguably, Easter is a greater Christian holiday than Christmas for Christians. At Easter, we remember how Jesus died, taking the punishment for our sins. Christians remember how we died with Jesus to the power of sin. And we then recall how God raised him to life again – and with him all those who put their trust in him.
But as important (and vital!) as Easter is, it isn’t the whole of the good news. If it was, it would have made sense for Jesus to arrive on earth as a mature man (as he is quite capable of having done), suffer, die, and then return to the Father. Instead, Jesus was born as a helpless baby. He grew older – just like the rest of us. He learned to speak and walk. He probably learned carpentry from his adoptive earthly father. He lived a life just like ours. He was, as the writer to the Hebrews reminds us, tempted in every way – just as we are. And yet he did not sin.
We celebrate Christmas because the God who suffered and died and rose for us at Easter is also the God who is with us. The God who knows in intimate detail what it is to be human. Jesus didn’t just die to save us; he also lived to introduce us to God; to the God who loves us enough to become like us. (And that’s a big deal, since we were made to be like him!)
Sure – you might have heard the Christmas story before. But it’s worth wondering again: why would God do this?
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