Celebration for Endings and New Beginnings.

This picture is a story we must all write together, for our children and our children's children,
as we put right the things we have allowed to happen around us through our lack of care and attention.

God gave us the responsibility of looking after all the creatures,
and looking after our world and each other.

God looks after us, and when we make bad choices, we damage the world that God gave us as our home, and hurt our families and friends, and all the other people we don't know as well who live together in the Earth.

Each person in the world is a reflection of God, and although we do not see each other the way that God sees and knows us,
we must respect each other as though we are the most precious wine ever to be put into a vessel.

We each of us have can have a little spark of God inside us.

We may all be annointed by God to do a special work for him. Even change the whole world if that's what he asks us to do.

When we mix this special wine of loving dedication and believing and following Jesus, and the spark of  God's divine presence inside us, with a dedication of ouselves that we make with an annointing of a cross of Holy Oil on the outside, We are all saying that we are ready to do God's work in the world, and put our own plans and ideas aside.

Imagine when wine is made, it takes time to ferment and be stored and turned to make beautiful wine. It takes a very experienced winemaker to do this. So it is with our lives.

The first miracle that Jesus did for us, turned water into wine for a wedding banquet, as the wine for the banquet had run out. Jesus asked for jars of wine to be filled with water, yet when the servants drew the water from the jars it was a very special wine, the best wine.

This is how it is when we are asking Jesus to refill us when our own resources have run out. When we ask Him in truth to change our lives so that we can trust him, and live our new lives through Him, He does this same miracle for us. The water in the Jars, is a symbol for God's Holy Spirit.

This is why we use water for our baptismal service. We are also asking God to fill us with His Holy Spirit. When we draw on this water of God's Holy Spirit from within us, by doing things that God would like us to do, it is also a miracle like the one Jesus did at the wedding in Caana. This water becomes the best wine to offer to other people.

God promises us that we can 'Move Mountains' with his help, so that we can reveal his real purpose that lays underneath the mountain. His purpose throughout the history of the world, is to show us that Jesus is His own son, and that through Jesus everyone can start a new life, and begin again to do things that are the very best for ourselves, and the people round us. 

By this he means that just one single person who wants to do something to put things right, can change a big problem into something that everybody cares about.

But we can only do this with God's special help and guidance, and trusting that it is always possible to follow Jesus in His example, and know that God Himself has walked in Jesus' skin, and lived in the same world we live in. We know that Jesus always manages to put aside His own desires and plans, and always does what God asks Him to do.

When we ask Jesus to come and be our own Saviour, the person who can rescue us from not listening to God, and doing the things that hurt the world, the animals, and all the people in the world, and our own families, something wonderful happens. God puts a Divine Spark of imagination within us that gives us the vision to see how to put things right.

Very often we have difficult days to live through, and difficult decisions to make, and things don't alway go as we would like them, but this is how God trains us to be more like Jesus. Sometimes we have to suffer injustice and difficulty to see what is right in God's eyes, and not what just seems best to ourselves.

But God is always with us and ready to help. 

When you ask God to help you make the right decisions and listen carefully to a voice of 'conscience' inside yourself, you can start to hear God speaking to you.

Sometimes we have never heard this small voice, and we have to listen very hard.

A man called Elijah had this problem of learning to hear what God's voice sounded like.
He lived in a cave high on a mountain, and he would have starved if Ravens had not fed him.

You can read his story in the Bible. He was a very brave Man, and did many amazing things with God's help.

Elijah was a hero in God's Eyes, because he learned to listen to the 'still small voice' that we hear when God speaks to us.
 
There is a special party and ceremony that Jewish people have to celebrate Elijah, and the very youngest child has a very important job to do during the Evening.

Perhaps if you go to school with a Jewish friend, they can tell you about Elijah, and what happens during the ceremony.

Now it is time to get a good nights rest, and go to sleep. God watches over you and keeps you safe when you are sleeping,
and He has got lots for you to do tomorrow when you wake up.

A little bedtime prayer to share together.

May God bless and keep you safe in peaceful sleep, and when you wake refreshed give you a day of new joy in His creation. That He will give you the inspiration through His Divine Spark to know how to see his lovely plan for your life. And as Jesus promises, you will always have the guidance you need by studying and following his example, and learning what God requires of us by studying the first Five books of His Holy Bible.

Amen.