The Last Post (of the year from Redefine in 2016)

“For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
    there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
    and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
    with justice and righteousness
    from that time on and for ever.” – Isaiah 9:6-7

We celebrated our last Redefine of 2016 at Llandudno Youth for Christ in style.

We had a welcoming committee at the door offering weary, cold travellers…I mean our regular bunch of amazing Redefiners, a nice hot chocolate or other warming drink to start with. Then we had a table (top of a chest freezer actually) laden with good things to eat; clementines, warm popcorn, mince pies, chocolate fingers, chocolate pieces and biscuits. Yummy!

In another room we had a bouncy castle! Hurrah! Lots of energy was expending bouncing and jumping in this room. Then for those who wanted to relax and take it easy, we had a quiet room with loads of board games to play; Top Trumps, Trivial Pursuit, Cluedo, Battleships, Monopoly, Connects 4, Exploding Kittens, Bananagrams to name a few.

Finally we had a room laid out like cinema, with Christmas music playing to videos on a screen.

It was to this cinematic room we all adjourned after 1 hours worth of bouncy castles, games & food.

Here, after singing our Llandudno version of ‘O little town of Bethlehem’ – ‘O Little town of Llandudno‘, the Redefine leaders enacted their Harry Potter inspired nativity, which was received with much laughter and mirth, especially one of our volunteer’s portrayals as the villain of the piece ‘Volderod’ (a mixture of Voldemort and King Herod).

We then had a short time of Q&A; a regular feature at our youth bible Studies, where the young people ask us questions about the Bible; and we aim to answer them as clearly and biblically as we can.

We finished off the night with some great renditions of Christmas carols, especially our ‘O Come all ye faithful’ that had a descant sung by some of our resident trained sopranos.

It was a great and slightly quirky night, that everyone enjoyed.

They loved the silliness of the Harry Potter inspired Nativity, and it was great to hear Tim Gough explain the reasoning behind choosing this book/film series as the genre to set the Christmas story in.

In the world of Harry Potter, Harry is born to defeat a great evil (Lord Voldemort) and save the world by his death and when raised back to life, to defeat death itself. It is a story that taps into God’s great story, even if the author J.K.Rowling was unaware of this when writing it.

This is God’s story of redemption that we see throughout the Bible; from Abraham’s obedience to willingly take his son Isaac up the mountain of Moriah to sacrifice him as an offering to God (read the whole story in Genesis 22 – btw Isaac didn’t die), to King David’s psalms about the coming Messiah (such as Psalm 22).

God’s great story, was that He would enter into this world, born as a baby to defeat the evil one and by his death defeat death itself. To come and save the world and redeem mankind. “You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached – how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.” – Acts 10:37-38. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” – 1 Cor 15:22-26

Jesus truly is the reason for the season, and that’s not just a nice cliche; it’s the absolute, essential truth.

Jesus came to destroy all the works of the evil one, to save us and defeat death. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” – John 3:16-17.

May this Christmas you find Jesus amongst all of the fanfare and festivities, and in finding Him, may you find life eternal.

Merry Christmas!