Advent is one of those seasons that feels familiar every year yet still manages to open something new in us. It isn’t just a countdown to Christmas; it’s a way of paying attention again — to what God is doing, to what we long for, and to how Christ keeps arriving in the middle of ordinary life. Over the four Sundays of Advent, we will ponder the opening moments of each of the four Gospels. We will pay attention again to the first glimpse, the first sentence, the first arrival that John and Matthew, Mark and Luke give us of the Jesus that we are awaiting.
We begin on Sunday 30 November with Hopeful Confusion, guided by John and his traditional symbol of the eagle — the creature the early Church used to describe the way John’s Gospel soars higher than the others. John introduces Jesus not in Bethlehem but before the beginning of time, lifting our eyes into the vast, bright mystery of the Word through whom all things were made. We can expect to meet the Jesus who existed before beginnings and who will gather all creation back into that first light, where hope is complete; and we follow the Jesus who still exceeds our explanations and draws us into wonder rather than certainty.
From there we move to Peaceful Disruption on Sunday 7 December. Matthew’s Gospel has long been linked to the symbol of the winged “son of man.” Here Jesus arrives in the middle of a family crisis, and mercy quietly rewrites what righteousness looks like. We will meet the Jesus who will reorder the world with justice without violence and mercy without end; and encounter the Jesus who still unsettles our expectations so that a deeper peace can take root.
Our third Sunday is 14 December, when we will find Joyful Warnings in the opening lines of Mark. Mark’s Gospel has always carried the image of the lion to capture its urgency and strength. Here we can expect the Jesus who bursts onto the scene with joy blazing through urgency; we anticipate the Jesus who will finish what he began, bringing a joy that judges and a judgment that heals; and we receive the Jesus whose good news still comes as siren call — joy wrapped in urgency, demanding response over reverie.
The final Sunday before Christmas is 21 December, the turning point of winter. On this longest night of the year, we will encounter the Faithful Uncertainty of Luke’s story. The early Church gave Luke the symbol of the ox — steady, patient, grounded — because his Gospel is filled with stories of ordinary faithfulness carrying extraordinary promise. Before Jesus speaks or acts, we meet a priest still serving, a woman still hoping, a girl still saying yes — ordinary people whose steadiness makes room for God.
So in our worship this Advent, we will meet Jesus afresh four times over — and let these first encounters train our eyes and ears and hearts to recognise him in the life we are living now.
Sunday 30th November
10am Together for Communion — Rev Sarah at St Barnabas
11.15 Together for Communion — Rev Sarah at St Wulstans
Sunday 7th December
10am Together for Communion — Rev Sarah at St Barnabas
11.15 Together for Communion — Rev Paul & Rev Sarah at St Wulstans
3pm Brass Band Concert in St Barnabas Church
4pm iSingSUNDAY families’ celebration in St Barnabas Hall
Sunday 14th December
10am Together for Communion — Rev Nick & Rev Sarah at St Barnabas
11.15 Together for Communion — Rev Rosie & Rev Sarah at St Wulstans
4pm Games Church at Christ Church
we will once again share Morning Prayer by Zoom 8am from Wednesday 17th December to Christmas Eve. This is a daily 20 minutes of reading, music and prayer for the week. You can join us directly from the saintwulstans.online page
Sunday 21st December
8am Morning Prayer for the Week before Christmas (online)
10am Together for Communion — Rev Sarah and SES team at St Barnabas
3.45 Tea & Tinsel — community carol service at St Wulstans
Christmas Eve
8am Morning Prayer for the Week before Christmas (online)
3.45 Midnight Communion at St Wulstans with Rev Sarah
5.15 Crib and Christingle for all the family at St Barnabas
11pm Midnight Communion at St Barnabas with Rev Andy & Rev Sarah
Christmas Day
10am Christmas Day Communion at St Barnabas with Rev Sarah & Rev Andy
Sunday 28th December
10.30 Cluster Communion at St Wulstans with Rev Sarah
Sunday 4th January
10am All-Age Celebration with the Wise Men at St Barnabas
11.15 Epiphany Sunday Communion at St Wulstans with Rev Rosie & Rev Paul
An Advent Thought
Our Prayer for 2026
Our Season of Prayer brought us this well-known Serenity Prayer, as our choice for the new liturgical year, that begins on Advent Sunday 30 November 2025 and carries us through until Christ the King on Sunday 22 November 2026. This prayer’s opening lines have travelled far through recovery groups and communities seeking steadiness in hardship. Its structure is simple but searching: acceptance where we have no control, courage where we do, and wisdom to tell the difference. Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) wrote it as the world slid toward war, when anxiety and idealism both ran high. A pastor and public theologian, he understood how easily fear or wishful thinking can distort faithful living. The longer version of the prayer adds realism, patience, and trust — a way of praying that neither denies the world’s brokenness nor surrenders to it.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
Our Christian faithfulness is lived between what is and what will be. Beginning this prayer in Advent starts cultivating that balance: accepting the limits we cannot alter, acting bravely where God calls us, and seeking wisdom to discern the difference with clear eyes. Its patient, day-by-day trust offers a counterweight to seasonal pressure, and its quiet hope aligns us with the promise that Christ will indeed make all things right. This prayer steadies our Advent waiting with grounded, courageous faith, and will go on to support and sustain as we seek to live our faithfulness afresh in the coming year.