Dear Friends

It’s been a while since my last letter and I am wondering how you are all finding the current national lockdown? Things perhaps feel harder since I last wrote though it does appear that there may be some respite on the horizon for Christmas before another potential lockdown in January once again. When will this all end, you may well be wondering? The announcements made in the past two weeks regarding the development of vaccines do at least offer us some hope and a way out of the current impasse, though of course realistically it is going to take a number of months before a nationwide vaccine programme is implemented. So what is going to sustain us in the meantime?

Advent is a season of watching and waiting. Not just for the birth of Jesus but for the day when He will one day return again and make all things new. So it is the prospect of Jesus’ arrival into the world at Christmas, and of His Second Coming, that can sustain us now in the present. Jesus came into a context where people were crying out for hope, hope from the oppression of the Roman occupation. And although his arrival didn’t liberate people from the Romans, it did offer them a new way of living, and loving, in the midst of their struggles. And what was true for people then can be true for people now. We struggle with the pain and the problems of the pandemic – we are crying out for relief. Jesus doesn’t wave a magic wand to take us out of the situation but He does provide us with the resources to live, and love, through it.

And there are many ways, of course, that churches up and down the country have been reaching out to others in their communities to help them through this time. One excellent way that we have developed as a team is the telephone befriending service. There are many in our area who are lonely and isolated at present, and we now have more requests for help than our existing volunteers can cope with. So, if you could offer an hour or two each week to ring someone in our locality who would like to receive a call, please let Heather Copperwheat, our scheme administrator, know. Heather can be contacted at telephonebefriending@westwarringtonchurch.uk.

So as we look towards the arrival, and the second coming, of Jesus this Advent, may I encourage us all to look out beyond ourselves to the needs of others.  Yes, we need to pay attention to our own needs too but we are also to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. It’s as we do that, so we can discover the joy and fulfilment that Jesus came to bring, and experience something of His life in all its fulness.

Do continue to take care, and to stay safe. With my best wishes and prayers.

Jeremy Tear, Pioneer Team Rector