Vicar’s Update – Saturday 6th December 2025
Stupid Boys and Girls…
Some times those in authority have to point out to those of us not in authority the error of our ways. Perhaps the most famous example is the ongoing dialogue between the wise and never wrong (!) Captain Mainwairing and the foolish Private Pike in Dad’s Army. I’m sure many of you can hear Mainwaiaring’s regular exclamation ‘You Stupid Boy!’
Similarly, my old Housemaster (yes I went to a school like Hogwarts but sadly without the magic..) at school had a pithy saying that he used to say to us :
‘There’s three ways of doing things – there’s God’s way, there’s my way, and there’s your way – and the first two are the same!”
It was usually employed when one of us had done something particularly foolish (setting a fire extinguisher off or launching a firework at the neighbouring house the kind of thing..) and he needed to both assert his authority and point out to us the foolishness of our ways.
So often in life we discover God’s ways do not align with our ways. Last week we considered the aspect of waiting and how we have both got better at waiting (for hospital appointments and the like) and worse at waiting (I want my delivery to arrive same day..). And this week as we shift our Advent focus to think about John the Baptist we find another way where we and God differ – namely in that what God gives us after all our waiting is something or someone completely unexpected. The Jewish people had waited hundreds of years for God to do something – and then when he does it is wonderfully unexpected – a wild man of the desert, a locust eating poorly clothed man speaking powerfully of repentance. John comes, the last but one prophet, to prepare the way of the Lord – to get us ready for the coming of Jesus.
So tomorrow in our Communion service we ask John once again to help us prepare for Christmas, to clear again the road of our life to receive the King of Kings. Yes the same John as last Advent and the year before – but the same God who is always doing new and surprising things, whose ways are not our ways and whose mercy and love are far greater than we can ever hope for or even dream of..
Peace and Blessing
Andy
Brislington Community News 