Napier Baptist

A few days ago I received an email from an online shopping site. It said something that I thought was very telling about how New Zealand society views Christmas...

"With Christmas gone, get down to the real celebration with our Boxing Day & New Year Specials...!"

I knew that Christmas had become very commercialized but I didn't realise it was this bad!

Wishing you all a merry Christmas. May you know the good news that God is with us, not just in the clean superstar Beckhamised world. But God is with us in the muck and mire of real human life, with saving grace.

That night when o'er the newborn Babe
A tender mother rose to lean,
A loathsome leper smiled in sleep
And dreamed that he was clean.

That night when to the mother's breast
The little king was held secure,
A harlot slept a happy sleep
And dreamed that she was pure.

That night when in a manger lay
The Holy One who came to save,
A man turned in the sleep of death
And dreamed there was no grave.

--Author Unknown

What a beautiful service today, Andrew and team.

The music, the sermon, the choir, the children, the violinist - it all came together beautifully.

Thanks. :-)

How are your Advent preparations going? I've been making use of ReJesus daily prayer. I also normally make use of d365 but it keeps coming up "undefined"...? Goshen College also have some brilliant daily reflections that they e-mail to you for the season of Advent.


I thought I'd post some art that captures something of the Advent/Christmas season. The painting below is painted by Jean-Leon Gerome and is called "The Age of Augustus, the Birth of Christ". It's held in the Getty Museum and I love the way it contrasts the "Peace of Rome" with the "Peace of Christ". Getty writes this blurb about it:

At the apex of this theatrically arranged study, Augustus Caesar sits in front of the Temple of Janus and touches the shoulder of a man personifying Rome. Surrounding him are scholars and statesmen while foreign tribes gather below. The Nativity scene in the foreground illustrates the coincidental moment of world peace under Augustus when Christ was born. In 1852, Jean-Léon Gérôme received a state commission to paint a large mural of an allegorical subject of his choosing. In selecting this subject, Gérôme perhaps sought to flatter Emperor Napoleon III, whose government commissioned the painting and who was identified as a "new Augustus." In preparation for his large mural, Gérôme traveled all over to find the appropriate ethnic types to portray the different peoples of the ancient world. When The Age of Augustus, The Birth of Christ was shown in 1855 at the Universal Exposition, his skill in depicting various nationalities led some to remark that Gérôme gave a lesson whenever he painted a picture.