A few years ago I went to an evening exploration group with some other people from church where we talked about all sorts. One thing that stuck in my mind came when we were talking about the purpose of Sunday church. One of the group who is a few years older than me compared it to bed sheets, the non-fitted kind. When they were washed they got a bit misshapen so her mother and her would take diagonally opposite corners and pull it back into shape. Church was a bit like that for her – the necessities of the week could pull her out of shape, but Sundays got her realigned.
If a week could get someone out of shape, imagine what month or even a year could do! The world around is just goes on and we get tossed about with normal day to day things, plus those extras that come up suddenly. The daily grind of working with other people, maybe driving on roads full of other drivers, dealing with family and people we live with can all get us out of shape in our hearts and our minds. And then you get the unexpected bereavance, bad news about health or job, things that come out of nowhere and knock us sideways. I’m sure by the end of it, if we had started as a rectangular bedsheet, we’d look unrecognisable by the end and would need a good strong pull to get us back in shape.
A bedsheet can’t realign itself, but maybe we can. At the beginning of this advent series I quoted from the book of Isaiah some names for Jesus. Maybe, as we get ever nearer to Christmas, we can realign our hearts and minds to God by remembering who he is, by reading Isaiah 9, and some of the Psalms, and by reading through the first chapter of Matthew, Luke and John (Mark skips straight to adult Jesus, but you could read that too if you wanted!) Maybe we can talk to friends and get help with realigning, or maybe God is trying to do just that and we’re being stubborn bedsheets and pulling back. Whichever it may be, now is a good time to get back in God shape. Whether you’re only a little misshapen or you’re stretched beyond recognition, set some time aside to remember who God is in time for us celebrating Jesus’ arrival at Christmas
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