Low Sunday's Trivia Quiz. Are The Answers That Easy?

This sermon was delivered to St Oswald’s in Maybole,

Ayrshire, Scotland on the 26th December 2010 by Gordon McCulloch

(a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries).

Welcome

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today is known as Low Sunday because, it is all over and done with, Christmas has come and gone ... but we are still in the festive season, so why not waste it. Today we will exercise a little bit of relaxation instead of a heavy sermon, and have a trivia quiz to test you knowledge of the Nativity scene. Yes I am aware you know it all, but we will see. be prepared for some surprises.

But more on that Later; for now we will start with the peace.

We meet in Christ's name. Let us share his peace.

The Gospel Reading.

Hear the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to John Chapter 1 verses 1 to 18. Glory to Christ our Saviour.

John 1:1-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

Give thanks to the Lord for his Glorious gospel. Praise to Christ our Lord.

“Please be seated, and join me in a short prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord. Amen. (Ps. 19:14)

Introduction

Usually for every service we have a clear theme throughout, For example my last sermon was on “Joy”; the sermon before that was on “Christ the Kings” and I can’t remember the sermon before that, nor what was in it, but I know it had a common theme all the way through it.

Today’s service however is more complex, as the revised common lectionary simply calls it the “first Sunday after Christmas”. This year it just so happens to be boxing day as well: so this Sunday is referred to by some as Low Sunday. After all, the best day of the year is over, all the presents have been given out, we have all stuffed our faces and all the hard work has been done. All the Christmas festivities are coming to an end, and we now have to really shake ourselves to get ready to return to life normality.

To some this is good news, but to many, like me; they like to let Christmas linger on that wee bit, after all it is a special time of the year where we can let things “go” a little in celebration of our Lords birth.

Today I thought we could exercise a little bit of that relaxation and have a Bible trivia quiz as a test of your basic general knowledge of the nativity; keeping your answers and scores to yourselves of course, and let us see where that takes us regarding a sermon.

The first question is simple; whose birthday are we celebrating?

Jesus of course. I wonder, is there anyone here who shares Jesus birthday? …

Second, (they get harder) what day was Jesus born ?