NEWBURN PARISH

Diocese of Newcastle upon Tyne

Dear Readers

 

My grandson Charlie has recently celebrated his 3rd birthday.  He has had three birthday cakes, one with his granddad and me two days before the event, one on the actual day and one on his party day the following weekend.  Charlie was more interested in the candles than the cakes.  Fascinated by the flames he had to have them relit and blown out several times.  He was getting so close that we had to be careful that his nose didn’t get burnt in the process!

 

As well as on candles on birthday cakes, fire is often used to mark celebrations and special events. In the Silver Jubilee year of 1977, on the evening of Monday, 6 June, the Queen lit a bonfire beacon at Windsor which started a chain of beacons across the country.  On 4 June this year a network of over 3,445 beacons will be lit by communities and others throughout the United Kingdom, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, along with the Commonwealth and UK Overseas Territories to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

 

From 19 May to 27 July this year the Olympic torch will be carried by 8,000 torchbearers across the UK, covering places from the Orkney Islands to the Channel Islands.  Newcastle will hold an Olympic Torch evening celebration event on Friday, 15 June.

 

So in the next three months we will witness the use of fire in the marking of these momentous occasions.

 

This month in the Church we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. In the book of Acts, Luke writes that ‘when the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each one of them’ (Acts 2: 1-3).  On this momentous occasion in the life of the Church, the Holy Spirit came like fire upon the disciples and the result was that ‘all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them’  (Acts 2: 4).  From then on the disciples were on fire for the Lord as they took the message of the gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

 

There are many instances of people’s experiences of the presence or grace of God being accompanied by a burning sensation.  The disciples who walked to Emmaus with a stranger on the first resurrection day said, after they had realised it was Jesus, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’  

 

When John Wesley came to realise that he was saved through the grace of God he said ‘I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.’

 

If you have a copy of this month’s magazine, you can turn to page 21 to read of the ‘fire of faith burning bright’, literally through the gift of fire to people in great need.

 

‘As we rejoice in the gift of this new day, so may the light of your presence, O God, set our hearts on fire with love for you, now and forever.  Amen’... these words may sound familiar to anyone who attends a Sunday Morning Prayer service.  The prayer is said by the person leading the service on behalf of the whole congregation.  We should be aware of and be careful what we ask – God hears and answers our prayers.

 

I pray that we will be set on fire with love for God and that the Holy Spirit will be at work in our lives as he was in the lives of those first disciples, so that we and God’s Church in this place can be a beacon which will shine brightly, drawing others to the Light of the World.

 

Yours

 

Margaret

 

 

Clergy Letter

Members of the clergy take turns to write for the monthly Parish Magazine. The Reverend Margaret Ledger writes for the May 2012 edition: