The first reading this evening is taken from Luke chapter 1 and starting at verse 26. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, greetings favored woman, the Lord is with you. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. Don't be frightened, Mary, the angel told her, for God has decided to bless you. You will become pregnant and have a son, and you are to name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign over Israel forever. His kingdom will never end. Mary asked the angel, but how can I have a baby? I'm a virgin. The angel replied, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby born to you will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What's more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age. People used to say she was barren, but she's already in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible with God. Mary responded, I am the Lord's servant, and I am willing to accept whatever he wants. May everything you have said come true. And then the angel left. Good evening everybody, our first carol that we're going to sing is Come and Join the Celebration and we'll just stand together, thank you. ♪ Hurry up to where we're headed ♪ ♪ Gaze in wonder at the sun above you ♪ ♪ Maybe more than love and joy in celebration is ♪ ♪ How very special they are ♪ ♪ And share a new relation ♪ ♪ It's a new thing born today ♪ Let's worship God and start a new day. I'm the one who sets it free. Thank you. If you just have a wee seat, we're going to have our next reading. Thank you. The reading is from Luke chapter 2, verses 1 to 5. And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And this tax was first made by Quirinius, the governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, everyone to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, into the city of David, which was called Bethlehem. Because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be taxed with his wife, with Mary, his espoused wife, great with child. Amen. So thank you all for coming tonight. I hope you're really looking forward to being sort of up and down because we've a lot of carols to sing. But please, if it gets to the point where it's too much for you to stand, that's absolutely fine. As long as you sing, you're not allowed to sit and not sing. If you sit, you have to sing. So we're going to sing another carol now, if you just stand with us. It's O Little Town of Bethlehem. ♪ The still gleams he denied ♪ ♪ Of all the dream that we may see ♪ ♪ The silent star so high ♪ ♪ Yet in the dark we shined ♪ ♪ The everlasting light ♪ And this, of all the years, are left in me to die. Oh, that she's gone. Peace to men on earth, and silence be the silence. in this world of sin. Many souls will receive His help, but the Christ Eternally more with us. We'd just like to invite the YF to come and lead us in song now, thank you. ♪ ♪ ♪ ¶. O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him ♪ O Canada we stand on guard for thee ♪ O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him Luke chapter two, verse six and seven. While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. Then she gave birth to her firstborn son and she wrapped him tightly in cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them. The next carol that we're going to sing is Sea Amid the Winter Snow. In a manger lies He who built the starry skies, He who O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? All that I am, all that I am All that I am, all that I am All that I am, all that I am Reach us to be set free In thy strength, O God. Love incarnate, love divine Star and angels gave the sign Bow to babe on bended knee The saviour of humanity. Unto us a child is born. He shall reign forevermore. Noel! Noel! Come and see what God has done. This story of amazing love, the light of the world, given for us, Noel. Son of God and Son of man. Born to suffer, born to save Born to raise us from the grave Christ the everlasting Lord ♪ The story of amazing love, the light of the world, ♪ ♪ given for us, Noel. ♪ ♪ ♪ Noel, Noel Come and see what God has done The story of amazing love The light of the world Give it for us Noel Noel, Noel Come and see what God has done The story of amazing love The light of the world given for us Noel, Noel Good evening, everybody. Just a verse from Isaiah, chapter nine, verses six and seven. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. of the increase of his government and the peace, there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice, from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Thank you. Okay, so the next song that we're gonna have is our offering hymn and it's the Calypso Carol. Now the Calypso Carol needs some extra percussionists and I thought that perhaps if there's any boys and girls, could you come up? Because we've got some maracas and I don't know what else there is here. So if you want to come up and give us a hand, okay? Because we've only got drums here and a couple of guitars but we could do with some help, okay? Now, we haven't practiced this, so I'm not sure how it will go. And I think I'd like a maraca. Maybe I could have one. OK, come on up. Up you come. All right. Now, don't be shy. All right, just slowly flex your legs. So there's cha-cha-cha at the end of this one. I just love the cha-cha-cha bit at the end of this. Anyway, we're going to sing the Calypso Carol, and it is our offering song. So please just remain seated. Don't forget to sing, because we've got such talent up here now tonight that I don't want you to forget to sing the Calypso Carol. Thank you. Well done. That was so good. I've always wanted to play maraca on that one, so I got my chance. That was great, boys and girls. Thank you so much. Just as they take their seat, we'll have the prayer for the offering. Father God in heaven, we just thank you so much for this wonderful time of the year. We just thank you so much, Lord, that we can sit here tonight in this building and worship something and someone that is real tonight, Lord. We just thank you for your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one that you sent from heaven to be the savior of the world. Lord, we thank you for this time of year, and we just pray that you will bless us. Lord, we think of those tonight, Lord, who are sad, and Lord, we just lift them up to you tonight. We pray for the Steele family, and Lord, we just bring them before the throne of grace tonight, and we just pray that your love will surround them, and that your compassion will be real to them tonight, Lord. Father, we thank you for this offering. We thank you for the many gifts and the many blessings that you have given to us. But we just pray that you will take this little that we have given back to you tonight, Lord, that you will use it, that you will multiply it, Father, and that the gospel will be spread abroad from this place to the surrounding area. For it's in your name, Lord, we ask all these things. Amen. Luke chapter 2, verses 8 to 14. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord, and this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. What other carol could be next other than Hark the Herald Angels Sing? Please stand with us as we sing this carol together. angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. Peace on earth and mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled. Joyful all ye nations rise. is born in Bethlehem. Hark! the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King! Christ, the highest heaven-adored, Christ, the everlasting Lord, ♪ In silence behold Him come ♪ ♪ Offspring of the Virgin's womb ♪ ♪ Veiled in flesh the Godhead see ♪ ♪ Veiled in thorn and nail and knee ♪ ♪ Raised from the dead and to heaven ♪ ♪ Jesus our Emmanuel ♪ O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? Born to raise the sons of earth. Born to give eternal bread. Come in, you can take your seats. So I'm sure you would agree with me that praise without music is quite difficult to do. And at Abbots Cross, we certainly know how to sing. We sing really well. And when the music is going, we are, well, we're good. We are. We just love to sing at Abbots Cross. And sometimes our musicians perhaps don't get the opportunity just to take the light for want of a better word. And so I spoke to Glenn when we were putting the program together and asked, would he do a piano solo? and that's what he's going to do right now, his own arrangement of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. So please just sit back, relax and enjoy the musician himself. Thank you. you Our next reading is found in Matthew chapter two and it's verses one and two and then verses nine to 11. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. After listening to the king they went on their way and behold the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. And when they saw the star they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother and they fell down and worshipped him. And then opening their treasures they offered him gifts of gold frankincense and myrrh. Amen. This evening, we are invited to come and see what God has done. It's an invitation to each and every one of us. It's great to see you all. It's great to have the church as full as it is. And I hope it's not the last time we see your happy, smiley faces. It's great to see each and every one of you. But we're invited to come and see what God has done. The interesting thing about Christmas for me, and carol services, and nativities, is that we like to sanitize Christmas, or keep it at an arm's length, and we don't often see. So if you want a thought for where we're gonna go for the next couple of minutes is, my eyes have seen. And I wonder if your eyes have seen. It's great that you've been here and if you've come because you've been invited here, fantastic. It's wonderful to have you. And again, I hope you've been enjoying the singing and the playing. But it's all about the invitation. Has your eyes seen what God has done? I want to read a passage. Again, it's not one that's normally read at this time. In fact, it happens about eight days after Christmas. But I want to read it because it's a wonderful passage, and it's where I got the idea from. It's from Luke chapter 2, Luke chapter 2, verses 25 to 32, and it says this. And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child, Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples. A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. The title is My Eyes Have Seen, or My Eyes Have Seen Your Salvation from verse 30. And I love the way he says about revelation. This morning we looked a bit about that. Revelation is revealing something that was hidden. And he says that this mystery, this great event that we're thinking of is a revelation. It's something that's revealed. In fact, Paul writes in Romans 16, verse 25, that this mystery that was before all edges has been revealed to us. It's been revealed to us. My question is, do you see it? Do you see it? My eyes have seen, Simeon said. Do you see? Or do we keep Christ at an arm's length because it's safe there? I like the way they talk about Simeon. One, he's an old man, but that's not the interesting bit. Age catches up on us all. But just before the wise men come, about a year or a year and a half before they come, Simeon gets to see Christ, and he picks him in his arms. They're obeying the law, they're about to offer a sacrifice as the law requires. And Simeon declares, now let your servant depart in peace, because my eyes have seen, my eyes have seen the Savior. Simeon was a just and devout man, and he was waiting for the consolation of Israel. We'll get there in a minute. This was a man who did his best to live as God wanted him to do. He was just. He tried his best to do what God wanted him to do, and he was told that he was gonna see the Savior. Now, I love the fact that it says he was waiting for the consolation of Israel. If you're anything like me, you're going, what nurse consolation? It's not a word we use very often, especially not in wrathful, you know what I mean? It's just not a word that's used very often. Consolation is the comfort received by a person after loss. God's comfort was in the form of a Savior. God's comfort was in the form of Christ. Here we have, and again I say, I don't know how you've come, I don't know what you're struggling with or what you're not, I don't know what your background is, but do your eyes see what God has done? God is bringing about the comfort, consolation, the forgiveness, the peace, the joy, the wonder of salvation before our very eyes, but do you see it? That's the question. We sing the carols, we sing them every year. In fact, I bet some of you could sing them without looking at the words, because they're ingrained in us. But do we see what they're about? My eyes have seen, my eyes have seen. That song, Noel, invited us to come and see what God has done. Before time, before all, before anything was created, God had in his mind what he was gonna do. And this mystery that was lay and was told and was revealed bit by bit, come the birth of Christ, finally this mystery is revealed on show to all. God's salvation, God's comfort, God's peace, God's love on show. But do you see it? Do you see it? Do you let it come in? Do you let it draw close? Do you let it Do you think about the fact that this is what you see? Because I love the shepherds. I love the wise men. In fact, I love what one of the shepherds says to the other one. He says, come let us see this thing. Come let us see. But notice they didn't, from what we're told, they didn't stand at the door going, oh yeah, that's nice. They went in close. It was very personal. It was very close. It was very intimate. And again, the question comes, do you see? Has your eyes seen God's comfort? Do your eyes see it? Do you draw close to Christ and let him draw close to you? Do you see the comfort he will offer you? In the midst of the battles we face, the wrestles we have, the good times, the bad times, do we see the comfort that is found only in Christ? In fact, Simeon uses a word, a name, a title. He says, my eyes have seen the Savior. This was promised. The Savior was promised. He wasn't just a good man, a prophet, a teacher. He was the Savior. He's come to save his people. He's come to save his creation. Do you see it? I invite you to come and see. Come and see what God has done. God's salvation on show, this promise salvation, as we looked at this morning, starting thousands of years before Christ came. Then we get to Isaiah, 700 years, you have all these prophecies, and yet Christ has come. So Simeon invites us. He declares, my eyes have seen. Now there's two responses here. There's two responses, and with this I will leave you. I just want to put out these two responses that we have. One is you can say like Simeon, you could recognize that Christ is the Savior. He wants to be your Savior, and if He's not, I hope He is by the time you leave. He could be your Savior. This promised and long-awaited for is now revealed, but do you see Him? So that's one response. You could be like Simeon and go, He is my Savior. My eyes have seen and he is now my savior. Or you could be like Mary and Joseph. And I like in verse 33, it says, and Joseph and his mother marveled at these things which were spoken of him. They marveled. They stored them up, they thought about it. There wasn't that same sense of, response as there was with Simeon. I think there's two responses we can have as we leave today. As we go up for our supper, we have our tea and we fight over the things that are up there. There's two things we can do. We can rejoice like Simeon and go, my eyes have seen, my eyes have seen what God has done. The long-awaited for mystery is now revealed. I see this mystery. But it's not just a child. It's for Easter. Christ grew so he could die and rise again. Or you can be like Mary and Joseph. And I'm not gonna say they did this, but I wanna give you two options. You can leave and go, yeah, that was all right. And you can marvel at a few things and think about them. But you can just leave and go, yeah, well, that was all right. That's your choice. The invitation tonight, it's very simple. Come and see what God has done. Come and see the mystery revealed. Come and see, and as Simeon says, my eyes have seen. Make it personal. Make Christ your personal savior this evening. Doesn't matter if you used to walk with Christ and you're not walking as close as you once were. It doesn't matter if you've never accepted Christ or you've been walking with him for years. The invitation is still the same. My eyes have seen. Make him personal. Get a deeper relationship with Christ. Come and see what God has done. Amen. Sorry, we forgot to check how many verses there were in the last hymn. We're going to sing, of course, no carol service would be complete if we didn't sing O Holy Night. And so as a congregation, if you can please stand and sing O Holy Night. ♪ The dear Savior's word ♪ ♪ Long may the world ♪ ♪ In sin and error fighting ♪ ♪ Delete a mirror and a soul that is worth ♪ ♪ That riddle of hope ♪ ♪ The weary world rejoices ♪ ♪ For yonder breaks ♪ God is God. led by the light of faith serenely gleaming, with glowing hearts by His reign. Believe me, thou know the wise men rule on the northern land. The knee of Greece made us involved in danger. In all our trials, born to be our friends. ♪ To the King that is the Savior ♪ ♪ And all to Him be glory ♪ ♪ And all the earth be full of His praise ♪ So as we journey through Christmas this year let it be with one clear focus that the father has sent his son to be the savior of the world. May God's plan made an eternity before Adam and Eve had even walked in the garden excite encourage and enthuse us to recognize the awesome nature of this annual celebration. May Jesus be first in our thoughts each day, included in our conversations and the center of every meal table. And may God's precious gift demonstrate to our children why gifts await their attention on Christmas Day. Our pastor will just come and close in prayer. Thank you. Let's pray. Lord, we come and we see. We see a babe in a manger. We see a child as you grow. We see a man hung on a cross. Our eyes see. Lord, we wanna thank you for this time when we could sing some very well-known carols, the worship of you, because without you, there is no Christmas. May you thrill our hearts, may you be the center of all that we do, and may you get the glory at this time of year. We ask this in your name, amen. you you you you