As
the morning service progresses we will all see just how much truth there may be
in that statement for me today…
We
begin today with words from the Psalmist - Psalm
92:
It
is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name O Most High,
Proclaiming
your love in the morning and your love at night, to the music of the
ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.
For
you make me glad by your deeds, Lord;
I
sing for joy at what your hands have done.
How
great are your works, Lord, how profound your thoughts!
‘My Jesus, My Saviour, Lord there is
none like you.’
Now,
I’m talking mainly to the children and young people, but the grown-ups can
listen in too.
I’m
not very good at drawing, but we’ve got a new easel upstairs in the Nursery and
I’ve been desperate to have a go! So, on Monday, when the Nursery was closed
and there was no-one around, I sneaked in and had a go (Don’t anyone tell
Angelique though!) I cleared everything up after myself so no one would know
I’d been there.
I
decided I would paint a picture of my house. I had so much fun and I’m really
pleased with my picture. I tried to get everything right. So.... This is my
house, with its front door, the grass outside, the tree next to my house...
Even
though it wasn’t very sunny on Monday, I thought it would look better in
sunshine, so I’ve put the sun in...
What
do you think?
Are
you sure it’s in the wrong place? But I thought I’d got it right. Maybe I’ll do
better next time etc.
Sometimes,
no matter how hard we try you don’t get everything right. Sometimes we get a
bit mixed up. But that’s okay. God gives us as many chances as we need to get
things right, so long as we are trying to do the right thing and trying to live
as he wants us to live. When we get things wrong, we always have the chance to
do it better next time because God is patient
Father God, we often make
mistakes and we ask for your forgiveness. Please help us to do better next time
and to be the person you want us to be. Please bless these precious children. Amen.
I
shall take my masterpiece home for my lounge wall – it will be the centrepiece replacing
the old Rembrandt!
Now for those a bit older
This
morning I would like you to consider yourself as a paint pot…
Upstairs in the Ark we do a lot
of art and craft activities. One of the wonderful things about coming to
nursery is that you get to do all the messy exploration that you’d get into
awful trouble for at home.
As a staff team we are usually
pretty considerate of each other; we are fair in the division of yucky jobs,
and we clear up after ourselves when we use ‘The Messy Room’ but in the run-up
to last Christmas, it became ‘every man for himself.’ It was survival of the
fittest and if you snooze you lose!
With 45 children each making 10
different items to take home for Christmas, paint, glue and glitter were the
order of the day... clearing up was not a priority!
We have a vast array of paint
pots that have built up over the years (the good old ones that were made to
last are still around from the early days,) we have tall pots, small pots, pots
with lids and brush holders, broad based pots, narrow based pots... you name
it, we have it, around 40 or so altogether.
As Christmas approached, one by
one the paint pots were used up; some for paint (in every rainbow colour,) some
for paint and glitter mixes, others for paint and glue glazes, others that you
really couldn’t be entirely sure what they contained.
There came the inevitable point
where EVERY paint pot had been used, many of them more than once, with layers
of paint or glue that had dried out and the pot then refilled with something
else.
I needed a paint pot. I needed
it for white paint. (Even with the artistic licence of a 3 year old a snowman
has to be white.) I hunted high and low – there must be a pot somewhere that
hadn’t been used, or something I could use to put paint in? (No-one had wanted to be the one to
wash them so everything that could be used had been used!)
No. There was nothing else for
it. I was going to have to tackle the paint pot mountain and it was a daunting
prospect.
So, should I start with the
pots that looked the easiest to get clean? The ones that had been used in the
past couple of days, that just had one layer of paint to remove and that hadn’t
had sticky glue mixed in. They didn’t look like they would take too much
scrubbing to come clean.
Or should I get the really bad
ones out of the way first? The ones with several layers of hardened paint dried
on, with added glue and glitter, and even some with stray pom-poms that were
destined for Christmas cards but hadn’t stuck.
I filled the sink with hot
soapy water, threw in a random first assortment of pots, and started cleaning.
It was interesting. It wasn’t
how I’d anticipated it. (It was a lot messier and a lot more fun for a start!)
Some of the pots that I’d
thought would be easy to clean just refused to cooperate. The stain from the
colour they’d previously contained just wouldn’t wash off. Even with frantic
scrubbing they wouldn’t come clean. The stain clung on tightly, as if it had
sunk into the plastic of the pot itself.
At the other end of the scale,
some of the pots that I thought would take ages to clean up, if they ever
would, gave up their stains willingly? In fact, the sticky glue that I’d
envisaged would make the job so difficult, actually made it easier to clean;
the paint and glue just cleanly peeled away! Leaving a stain-free pot! Just
what I needed to put my white paint in – I didn’t want any left-over stains
contaminating my white paint.
Some of the paint pots had
ridged sides, with nooks and crannies that made the job a little more tedious,
(thankfully they were all round rather than square, and therefore had no
corners to get into...)
Whilst I was washing them, my
mind was wandering and wondering - If we were all paint pots what would we look
like?
Have we gathered layers that
have hardened over the years? Are we stained from some of the things we’ve done
or said? Hurts that haven’t healed? Situations that have never been dealt with?
Have we masked a colour or an episode we didn’t like with another painted on
top? Do we have some hidden nooks and crannies that harbour old resentments?
Sometimes we look at ourselves,
or at others, and wonder how or if we can ever truly be made clean?
The stains of our sins can’t be
removed by washing: As we can read in the Book of Jeremiah, chapter 2, verse
22, there is no ambiguity, ‘Although
you wash yourself with soda and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your
guilt is still before me," declares the Sovereign LORD.’
The wonderful thing is that, as
Christians, we can be washed clean. We are washed clean. Jesus made it so. By
dying on the cross in atonement of our sins, we are clean. All we have to do is
claim His cleansing.
In the words of a Herbert Booth
song : (Song 415)
“From every stain made clean,
From
every sin set free;
O
blessed Lord, this is the gift
That
thou hast promised me.”
and in the words we sang
before:
“Lay
aside the garments, that are stained with sin,
And be
washed in the blood of the lamb;
There’s
a fountain flowing for the soul unclean,
O be
washed in the blood of the Lamb!”
We heard that this is confirmed
in 1 John Chapter 1 verses 5 to 7, when John bears witness to his actual
encounters with Jesus, both in human and divine form: As John read to us
earlier, he writes,
“This is the message we have
heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at
all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie
and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the
light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son,
purifies us from all sin.”
Even knowing that Jesus has
washed us clean, as humans we don’t always accept his cleansing and let go of
old stains, so I urge you today; give up your old stains, and be a clean vessel,
ready to be used as God chooses.
Candidate
Hilary Borthwick
The Salvation Army
(Armee Yn Taualtys)
Douglas Corps
Isle of Man UKT