Readings – 1 Samuel 17:20-50, Matthew 8:5-13

What’s the first thing you think of when someone mentions David and Goliath?

A children’s song
Battling against the odds
The FA Cup third round
Someone even mentioned …
a large crane in Belfast Dockyard known locally as Goliath!

The difficulty with this passage and others like it, is that we remember it as a children’s story … something we read when we were very young. It is a grand story, isn’t it?! Along with Samson and the lion, Jonah and the whale, Daniel in the fiery furnace and others, the heroes of faith become comic book characters living alongside fairy tales and other adventure stories … and like our childhood fantasies, we tend to lay these bible stories aside as we grow up, thinking that they are no longer relevant to our grown-up selves, and no longer have anything to teach us. Well, we know that’s not really the case, don’t we – they’re in the Bible, after all, God’s word to us for all time. But it’s hard to make that transition from comic book hero to serious Christian character on whom we should model ourselves, someone to imitate and follow.

So, if we want to take these stories seriously now that we’re all grown up, how do we go about it?

Of course, as children’s stories, we read about these characters as if their adventures were the most important thing about them. We remember all about Jonah’s three days inside the whale, even if we can’t quite remember why he was there. So we need to do a bit of detective work, to go beyond the action and excitement somehow, to reach something more enduring, more significant, something we can identify with in our mundane adult lives and not just our childhood imagination. I hope at the end we put something of the adventure and excitement back again … let’s see how we get on.

Now, you’re all used to me going on about context … and this passage is no exception. When we start to look at the OT, it can be hard to identify how what we learn could possibly apply in our modern age. After all, the culture is so completely different. It’s hard enough reading the NT sometimes, to work out how to transfer what we learn about our relationship with God into our daily lives. But who, recently, has had to wrestle with a lion or to separate the waters of the Tamar to walk across on dry ground? I’m sure the Navy would have something to say about that!

So what we need to do instead, is to look for underlying principles rather than practises … to discover a way of applying the same truth in a different culture. Actually, we have to do that all the time, and we do it without thinking too much about it. But in the OT we have to work at it just that bit harder …

We heard last week about Samuel anointing David as God’s chosen King for his people the Israelites. And when we last saw David, he was playing the harp for King Saul, who had not yet relinquished the throne, indeed who had no idea as yet that God had other plans.

Yet Chapter 17 is written as if Chapter 16 never happened. David is once again at home with his family, there is no recognition of David’s anointing by Samuel by his brothers, even though they were there, and Saul doesn’t recognise him. What’s going on?

It’s probable that we have two different written documents about the life of David in one. Whether the same author wrote both and then tried to amalgamate them (remember they didn’t have cut and paste in those days!), or whether they were stories from two different sources, we’ll never know. But it’s clear that each began their story at a different point in David’s life.

It’s not really important – but it’s rather like reading a detective novel in which the author gives us, the readers, some important information not yet available to his sleuth. We’ll not refer to it again, but I didn’t want the apparent contradictions to confuse you.

At the beginning of Chapter 17, the Israelites and Philistines are at war – probably over land and servitude, the usual reasons. In those days, every state tried to extend it’s influence by overthrowing local kings of the surrounding cities or nations. Fighting was only possible at a certain time of the year, in spring after the grain harvest in April, and after the end of the rainy season. Only then could they be sure that roads would be in good condition, that there will be plenty of fodder and grazing for war horses and pack animals, and that an army on the march would be able to raid the fields for food. But for six weeks now they had been at stalemate (forty days, vs 16) and time was being wasted.

We know the details … Goliath stands head and shoulders above everyone else and offers to meet another individual in one to one combat to the death on behalf of their respective armies. Who would fight him? Why not Saul himself – we know he was tall, too. Or the leader of his army, Abner? Or his son, Jonathan? Neither of them are even mentioned in this story!

And why, when he arrives, does David volunteer? He is brave and handsome, yes, but he’s not even part of the army, and is certainly not an obvious champion.

Can anyone remember last week’s memory verse?

Do not consider his appearance or his height … Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7

It’s an easy mistake to make … Eliab made the same mistake when he challenged David for bothering him in verse 28! All Eliab saw was his annoying younger brother getting some attention and he didn’t like it. He didn’t see beyond to David’s faith and faithfulness to God.

David didn’t pay any attention to Goliath’s height or the size of his biceps, he took no notice of his armour or the breadth of his javelin … he saw beyond the outward appearance of strength and saw only a man standing in defiance of the one true God, his God, the God of Israel and of the entire army standing around him. And he took God at his word. Notice the subtle difference in the way Goliath is described by the men of the army and by David …

Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel … (v25)

Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? (v26)

David knew that Goliath’s defiance was more significant than his size …

When David’s words get back to Saul, he was sent for … and Saul too, judged David by outward appearance and age, ‘You are only a boy!’ (v33). The terms of the confrontation were servitude and slavery to the loser. It wasn’t worth the risk of sending out a mere boy just to save face … but David is confident, and somehow his confidence is contagious …

But still Saul trusts to human strength and makes David wear his, Saul’s, armour. But David knows not only that it won’t help, but that it’s the wrong thing to do. So he sticks with what he knows, takes his staff and his sling and goes out to face the enemy.

And we know the end of the story … or at least what happens to Goliath. The end of the story isn’t quite the fairy tale ending we think it is. What were the terms of the conflict? And what rewards were promised by Saul to the victor? What did Goliath shout out every morning?

Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us. (v8b,9)

Goliath is killed and …

When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran. (v51b)

There’s not a lot of honour or honesty going on here, is there? Well, what do you expect from your enemies?

The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his father’s family from taxes in Israel. (v25b)

Well, David certainly gets his share of the plunder … he takes Goliath’s sword (and incidentally, his head, but we’ll come back to that in a minute!). But there’s no sign of any other wealth coming his way, nor for some time yet, a wife.

It seems that God’s own people aren’t that trustworthy, either. Only David comes out of this story with any honour … it is a shameful episode in the history of Israel.

So, how do we take anything of value from this story. What principles does it lay down for us, for our culture and generation.

Of course, the obvious starting point is David’s faith and his ability to look beyond appearances and to see to the heart of the matter. That we should judge both people and situations by God’s standards or from God’s viewpoint, not our own. And that takes a certain amount of wisdom and discernment … how can we get to the point where we see things as God sees them? The Bible is clear that that type of wisdom only comes from knowing God and his word, and from the Holy Spirit working in our lives. The NT tells us that it operates in direct opposition to the wisdom of the world around us, so that the accepted norms of behaviour in our society may not be God’s way at all. I don’t have time now to talk about how we reach that level of maturity in our faith (as if I’m the one to tell you!) … but we all need to work towards it, making it our aim and priority … and praying for wisdom from God in all our relationships. And praise him that he promises wisdom to those who ask … take him at his word!

Another principle we can take from this story is, like David, to be ourselves. David refused to wear Saul’s armour – armour such as that worn by kings, was made to measure for one thing and it would only have hindered David to wear something that wasn’t comfortable. He knew his own gifts and abilities … knew that he wasn’t trained to use a sword (remember, he’s a shepherd, not a professional soldier), but knew too that with familiar tools and weapons he could defeat hungry lions and bears intent on lamb for dinner. They were part of the normal, God-created order. So how much more likely was it that he could deal with an enemy who defied and challenged the one-true God every time he opened his mouth? So, too, we can be confident that God’s way is the best way. That’s another principle we can take from this story.

An uncomfortable principle is that sometimes we have to go it alone. God had a whole army at his disposal, under the direction of King Saul, but somewhere along the way, Saul lost his sense of direction, and no-one was either able or wanted to oppose him. But David was willing to stand out from the crowd – he was an unlikely hero, but his confidence – in God, not in himself – was persuasive. Are we confident in God? Do we take him at his word?

There’s one little detail I said I’d come back to. When David cuts off the giant’s head, what happens to it?

David took the Philistine’s head and brought it to Jerusalem … (v54)

We are so used to reading about Jerusalem that we probably don’t realise as we read this story, that as yet, Jerusalem is still unconquered. It’s some time before David makes it his capital when he is, finally, king … but already he’s aware of the importance of the city and has the confidence to claim it for God with this rather grisly trophy. Nor, incidentally, does he keep Goliath’s sword for his own use … in Chapter 21 we read that it was kept with the holy things by the priest of God. At some stage, David must have dedicated both his victory and wealth to God. So David was looking forward to a time when he would be king, once again taking God at his word.

So we’ve discovered a number of principles from this story – and I’m sure there are more if only we had the time to look, but I hope you get the idea. I said right at the beginning that once we’d taken a mature and adult look at this story, that we’d be able to put some of the excitement and adventure back again …

After all, aren’t these principles more like challenges? And wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to live by them …

• Not judging by appearance, but seeing things from God’s viewpoint?
• Being ourselves, rather than being who someone else wants us to be?
• Having the courage and wisdom to go it alone when necessary?
• Looking forward to a time when God is finally in control?
• And always, having the faith and confidence to take God at his word?

Just how much adventure can you handle?!

LB

Readings – 1 Samuel 16:1-23 Matthew 2: 1-12

Today we begin a series from 1 Samuel and at the end we will creep into 2 Samuel, all looking at the life of David. I find it is always interesting to read and learn again about these great men in the Old Testament isn’t it and in our Gift Groups we are going to learn about Joseph in Genesis. All great stuff and I hope we will enjoy learning again about their lives and learn something new which will enrich our Christian lives and build up the kingdom here in this place. Can I suggest that perhaps you start reading the books of 1 and 2 Samuel and get a taste of the lives of Samuel, Saul and David.

Let’s just start with a bit of background before we come to our reading today.

The events recorded in 1 Samuel cover a period of about one hundred and fifteen years from the childhood of Samuel through the troubled times of Saul to the beginning of the reign of the king whom God chose, David. In the personal lives of these three men, this book gives us an exceedingly graphic picture of these times.

Samuel was the last of the judges; Saul was the first of the kings. The records bring us up to the time when David is ready permanently to establish the monarchy and God is ready permanently to establish David’s throne. The history of this book is presented to us in the attractive cloak of biography. Everyone loves a true story. We have all probably known the stories in 1 Samuel since we were children. Who does not know the story of the boy Samuel when God called him when he was in bed and staying with Eli the chief priest or the story of David and Goliath, and the friendship of David and Jonathan? Well we can look forward to some of these in the coming weeks and as I said before try and read the book to familiarise yourselves with the history and let’s talk about it to one another.

So back to today and our reading from ch 16. We see in this chapter God reminding Samuel of the fact that He has rejected Saul as king of Israel. Saul was chosen as king because the people wanted to be like the other nations around them. Up to that point, God had ruled the nation, raising up leaders as they were needed. This was how things operated all way from the time of Moses through the days of the Judges. They were warned that elevating a man to the throne would bring political corruption and trouble. When Saul was chosen to be their king, the people were elated. He was fine physical specimen, standing head and shoulders taller than anyone else in Israel. While he may have been a giant among men, he was a spiritually a very tiny figure! Saul was a jealous man, who lived for the praises of the people. He tended to overstep his boundaries and was guilty of gross disobedience to the commands of the Lord. As a result, the Lord proved to Israel the dangers of a human king and God rejected Saul as the king of His people. The very last verse of I Samuel 15 says that “The Lord was grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel.” God literally regretted his choice.

So the final point as we set the stage is that…God chose a replacement. That’s where our story picks up today. We’re told that God spoke to Samuel, the very prophet who had anointed Saul as King and told him to get up and go to the house of Jesse in the town of Bethlehem. If you’re listening you’ll immediately recognize the name of that town because it’s where Jesus was born. Later on in the Bible we discover that Jesus was a descendant of David. Imagine Samuel’s fear. What if Saul heard that he was anointing the next King? So God works out a plan whereby it will appear that the reason for his visit is to worship and offer a sacrifice. Samuel gets up and fills his horn with oil which he would use to anoint the new king (the same thing the prophet had done for King Saul) and heads to Bethlehem where he’s greeted by the elders of the town who are worried because the visit of the prophet often brought a word of rebuke or punishment from the Lord. But Samuel assures them that he’s come in peace, and invites Jesse and his sons to worship with him. The text tells us that Samuel was sure that the first boy that was presented, Eliab, was the one. But God said, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart”.

I’ll never forget the feeling and I wonder if you remember and can relate to it too. You’re standing on the sideline of the sports field or the playground as teams are chosen. You never get the chance to be the captain and so you try to play it cool as you stand in line with the rest of your peers. But today is no different than any other day. This game is no different than the last. You know who will be chosen first. He or she is the biggest boy or girl there, not to mention the fact that their team always wins! As the teams are chosen, members are picked according to their appearance and ability. The biggest and fastest kids are chosen first and then come the kids that no one really wants but someone will take. Somewhere down the line you know you’ll be picked, you just hope it won’t be last… again.

It’s this childhood practice of choosing teams that implants within our minds the idea that appearance and ability are everything! And while it would certainly be nice to grow up and realize how false that notion is, the reality is our culture does everything to reinforce that image. Why is it that British icons, those who are superstars, those who are the wealthiest and most well known, are almost exclusively those with the best appearance or most ability?

Gone are the days when character and lifestyle were valued above all else. Heroism today is all about who others think we are and has very little to do with who we really are. You may remember Britain’s Got Talent, well you may say I don’t watch that rubbish. Well some of it is, but it is the few people who you don’t think will do well who surprise you and have outstanding talent which makes it worth watching in my opinion. Just think of Susan Boyle, she came on that stage dressed in an old fashioned way, very nervous with a silly giggle but when she opened her mouth to sing, it made the hairs on the back of your head stand up, well it did mine anyway. I would guarantee that no-one would have thought she had a voice that was so stunning. Everyone judged by her appearance including me.

So one by one Jesse presented his other six sons and somehow God communicates the same message to Samuel about every one. I can only imagine Samuel’s confusion as the last was presented and God said “No”. ”What am I going to do now?” he must have asked himself. He turned to Jesse and said, “Is this all?” There was one more, he was out in the fields taking care of the sheep. Notice that Jesse hadn’t even thought to bring him in. He certainly wasn’t king material. His dad and brothers knew that. But Samuel was insistent and so he was brought into the house and suddenly this young nobody became somebody.

Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers. The young man is filled with God’s spirit for the task of leadership. As the Spirit of the Lord comes upon David so the Spirit leaves Saul. It is almost as if there is not enough Spirit to go around. But one day there will be as Joel prophesies:

“And afterwards, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days”.

Joel looks forward to the era of Jesus. There will come a Day of Pentecost when God’s Spirit will no longer be rationed to an occasional priest or prophet or king, but freely given to all people in Acts 2 1-11. From now on Saul is rejected by God. He suffers fits of depression. Young David is summoned to court to play the harp and ease the king’s black moods.

God chose a young peasant girl Mary to give birth to His beloved Son. Who would have thought that? God chose Jesus to come into this world as a tiny baby not as a conquering King. Who would have thought that? Those three maji followed the star to Bethlehem despite opposition from Herod and found this King Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. Not the sort of place you would expect to find a King with a young mother still in her young years. But God chose to do it that way.

The story of David is a story of right seeing. It’s a story which challenges us to look beyond outward appearances to a person’s heart and character. God saw something in David that no one else had seen. The Hebrew word that is used when the text tells us that Samuel looked at Jesse’s sons implies that he looked but didn’t really see. There’s a difference you know? Samuel, Jesse, and Saul all missed what was ultimately important to God. Unlike the qualifications we look for when we choose teams in the playground or on the sports field, God looks for something completely different. Thankfully!!

God looks at character not appearance. The text tells us that God doesn’t see as we do but God looks right through our façades and our pretence to see our heart. That should both inspire and frighten us. It should inspire us when we feel that we are judged by others according to our abilities or our appearance to remember that it’s what’s on the inside that counts. And it should frighten those of us who have survived by pretence when we know that what’s on the inside doesn’t match what we claim to be.

The truth is, God delights in choosing those who have the will, but lack the ability in and of themselves, and using them to bring about the miraculous because, finally…God sees possibilities when others do not. The sad reality is we confuse appearance with reality. We don’t see what really counts because we don’t take the time to look beyond the beauty or lack of that is skin deep.

But we serve a God who sees possibility in us when everyone around us tells us we can’t!

As David was in the fields tending the sheep I’m sure he had no idea what his future would bring. The reality is the same for us: The future is seldom clear to us. If it were, life wouldn’t be any fun, would it? If I knew what next month would bring then I’d have to worry about it today, and I have enough to worry about today.

The story of David, I believe, points to the truth that God has a plan for our life no matter what our circumstances are. You know what it is that is preventing you from being the person that God wants you to be or fulfilling the dream that God has given you. It may be your family. Perhaps it’s your past or maybe it’s the way you’re living now. He has chosen you already and if you place yourself in God’s hands, God can and will do great things through you.

The Key to fulfilment and contentment in life is being who God wants you to be. The key to fulfilment is not money or possessions or good looks. It’s what’s on the inside that counts. When we realize that and open ourselves to what God wants to do in and through us we can find the abundant life that Jesus promised us. What did Jesus say in John 10:10 – “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full”.

David was a young shepherd boy, God chose him to do great things. God has chosen you, what is He going to do through you in this New Year if you trust and obey Him.

JB

Readings – 1 Samuel 16:1-23; Matthew 2:1-12

How many people here have ever gone for a job interview? If you have, then you know what a terrifying business it can be. You spend the days beforehand finding out all about the business. You polish up on your CV. You try to rehearse your answers to all the questions you think you will be asked. But when the time comes, nothing actually prepares you for the moment when the door opens and you are ushered into the room before the interviewing panel. It’s just you and a few strangers staring back at you. You sit down and the ordeal begins…

Of course whether you get the job or not, depends on whether you are what the employers want. I guess many of us have had the standard letter that comes through the door a few days later which says, “You were an excellent candidate in a high-quality field but…” and then they list some reason for not selecting you. So the question then arises – what is an employer really looking for?

Our reading this morning from 1 Samuel is all about a job interview, although it features a process of selection you or I have probably never been involved in, and a job certainly none of us will ever be called to do. But before we dive in and look at the passage in more detail, let’s start with some background.

If you’re trying to find 1 Samuel in the Bible, it’s helpful to know that it comes about halfway between the book of Judges and the first book of Kings – not simply because that fact helps us find the right page, but also because it reminds us of the important theme that dominates the whole book. You see, in the book of Judges the people of Israel are ruled over by…guess who? That’s right, by Judges. I don’t mean old men in wigs and long robes, but leaders raised up by God to deliver His people from their enemies. By the time we get to 1 Kings however the people of Israel are ruled by …guess who? That’s right, by Kings. Again, I don’t mean someone who simply wears a crown on a big occasion, but someone with total authority over the people he governs.

So the books of Samuel cover the transition from one kind of leader – a judge – to another kind of leader – a king. Now it was always intended that one day God’s people would have a king. If we had time, we’d go back to Deuteronomy 17:14-20 where God promises Israel a king to be appointed from among the people. But that’s not the type of king the people want. There’s this extraordinary confrontation between the prophet Samuel and the people in 1 Sam 8 which ends up with the people shouting at him: No! … We want a king over us. Then we shall be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles. Do you see the problem? It wasn’t that the people were wrong in wanting a king. Where they went wrong was in wanting to be like the other nations. And so God gives them exactly the type of king they want. He gives them Saul, and in the run up to our reading we see exactly what a disastrous choice Saul turns out to be.

By the time we get to 1 Sam 16 it is clear that the Lord has rejected Saul as king. The people’s choice has turned out to be the wrong choice. Oh yes, Saul is still on the throne and as we shall see this fact will cause some interesting complications. But in essence it is time to choose a new king. So how is this king going to be chosen? Well, the first thing to notice is that there isn’t going to be an interview process. The post of king isn’t going to be filled by folk posting their CVs and explaining why they are the right person to sit on the throne. In fact, with Saul still in position, it isn’t going to be advertised at all. It’s going to be fulfilled by divine appointment, by Samuel going secretly to Bethlehem under the Lord’s direction.

Because the way the Lord chooses anyone for any task is not by the basis of how well qualified we are, or how gifted we think we are, but by the leading and direction of His Holy Spirit. It was, after all, exactly how Saul himself was chosen as king back in 1 Sam 9. There we read the long and involved story of Saul searching for his father’s donkeys and by divine appointment meeting with Samuel who anointed him as king.

So as Samuel travelled down to Bethlehem, there must have been at least a couple of questions running through his mind. First of all, what will Saul do if he finds out I’ve anointed someone else as king? Clearly the townsfolk there must have suspected something was afoot, for as verse 4 tells us: When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him.We’ll come back to the idea of two competing kings when we reach our gospel reading from Matthew. But for now, the second question that must have troubled Samuel was this: how will I know this new king will turn out better than the one I anointed earlier?

The answer to this emerges from the rather strange selection process which then follows. Picture the scene. The elders of Bethlehem have gathered together for some kind of festival. Everyone is standing around, waiting for Samuel to give the signal to start. But before Samuel begins proceedings, he asks Jesse to bring in his sons one by one. As each son comes into the room all eyes are turned on Samuel. What is he looking for? Which one will he choose?

The first son to come into the room is Eliab. It must have seemed obvious to Samuel and everyone present that as the first-born and as a rather fine physical specimen he has to be the one. But what does the Lord say to Samuel? Verse 7: Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. After all, one reason why Saul had previously been chosen as king was the fact he was – according to 1 Sam 9:2 – an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites – a head taller than any of the others. But this did not mean his heart was right with God. You see, like any decent employer God looks beyond the sharp suit or the expensive hairstyle and weighs up what’s going on underneath, and of course with God His judgement is always accurate. Indeed Eliab’s unsuitability for the job is confirmed when we look at his attitude to his youngest brother next week.

So Eliab passes on into the room with a big thumbs down. But there are six other sons of Jesse on hand. Surely one of these is suitable to be king? So in comes Abinadab, then Shammah, then others with equally unpronounceable names. Yet each time Samuel shakes his head, until there is embarrassed silence and an awkward pause. After all, who is left?

Verses 10-11: Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, “The Lord has not chosen these.” So he asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered, “but he is tending the sheep.” Samuel said, “Send for him; we will not sit down until he arrives.”

Now we know how the story ends. After some delay, with everyone getting quite fidgety and wondering why the boy has been summoned, David appears and Samuel anoints him as king. But think about it a little bit more. What two facts does Jesse tell Samuel about his son? He is the youngest and he looks after sheep. Not, you might think, the most obvious choice for someone to be king. After all, most employers are looking for experience and people skills. Surely this choice tells us something very important about God’s choice of priorities – that so often He can see in the most unlikely of people, even in us, something we cannot see.

Not that David is without redeeming features. In the second half of our reading we read how Saul, now rejected by God, is being tormented by an evil spirit. The search is on for someone who can play the harp well and soothe the king. The choice falls on David. Why? Because one of Saul’s servants says to him, verse 18: I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the harp. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him. Clearly there is far more to David than we sometimes imagine, as a simple shepherd boy chosen to be king. But notice this, for all his courage and good looks, David is content to enter into service. The first stage in his becoming king is by taking a lowly position at court, even, as we shall see later, at great cost to himself.

I hope you can start to see that there are ways in which this story of David points forward to our New Testament reading from Matthew’s gospel. Now I guess most of us are very familiar with the tale of the three kings. We’ve heard it many times before, and we know roughly all the details. It starts with some astronomers who spot a star in the east, travel across the desert and end up meeting Herod in Jerusalem. After some anxious discussion, Herod sends these astronomers to Bethlehem where they present their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the young child Jesus. They are warned in a dream to go back home a different way, and Joseph flees with his young family to Egypt before Herod unleashes a terrible massacre in the town.

I don’t think anything I’ve just said will surprise anyone. But I wonder if you’ve stopped to think why Matthew chose to include these details of the Christmas story in his gospel. After all, Matthew makes only the briefest reference to the birth of Jesus. You don’t find any details about shepherds or angels or even of Jesus being brought to the temple, which is odd when you consider Matthew is the most Jewish of the gospel writers. So what’s going on?

In essence this reading is not about a tale of three kings, but of two. There is the king in Jerusalem – Herod – who rules by force. He has been reigning for over thirty years by the time these events take place. He has all the experience and cunning and wisdom to cement his authority, and although no other ancient writers mention the massacre of the innocents, his actions in chapter 2 tie in with what else we know of his character. Then there is the king in Bethlehem – Jesus. He has no throne. He is by definition young and inexperienced, because at this stage He is probably no more than two years old. He is born to a young couple of humble origins, although both are descended from the royal line of David. Who, then, is the real king?

On the one level it seems absurd to suggest that this baby Jesus could be any kind of a threat to Herod with his army and his officials and his political structures. Yet it is clear that the chief priests and teachers of the law knew all the ancient prophecies that one day a child would be born in Bethlehem who would be the shepherd and ruler of God’s people. Anyone who could claim to be the fulfilment of God’s promises, who would bring in the very kingdom of God, would in Herod’s eyes have to be eliminated right at the outset.

But Herod failed. Why? Because this child did not simply fulfil God’s promises. He was the very Son of God in human form. That’s why there could not or ever can be any human being who can frustrate God’s purposes in Christ Jesus. Yes, thirty years later, another Herod would be present at a mock trial where this Jesus would be sentenced to death. But even Jesus’ death on the cross could not, would not defeat God’s plan to save you and me. Jesus’ resurrection and ascension in heaven became the final and utter proof that He is the true king anointed by God, worthy of all honour and obedience. In this sense the actions of the wise men from the east only point forward to the way we ourselves should bow in wonder and worship to Jesus, Son of God and Son of David – the servant king now glorified at the Father’s right hand, the name above all names, and Lord of all.

But do we? Day by day we are bombarded with images of rich, powerful and apparently successful people. The message we get from adverts and TV programmes and the internet is that we should follow them, or at least be like them. Our readings this morning challenge us as to whether we identify with Jesus our servant king who made Himself nothing and took the form of a servant. Because when it comes to choosing who we follow, there is no neutral ground. Following Jesus comes with a cost – being prepared to stand out from the crowd, making yourself unpopular at a job interview, marked out in the workplace or at school. As we enter this New Year let’s ask ourselves: are we really focused on Jesus as our Lord and our King? And will we heed His call to take up our cross daily and follow Him and Him alone?

 Rev Tim

Reading – Luke 2:15-21

Who here has received any kind of communication device for Christmas? Who was lucky enough to get something like a mobile phone or a laptop? What about a MP-3 player or a Kindle? Did anyone get something smaller, like a humble fountain pen, or a set of pencils? We live in the age of the so-called communication revolution where they are more and more ways to keep in touch with other, to record and share information, and to spread news fast across the world. Indeed the pace of change seems to be getting ever faster, and what was yesterday’s cutting edge technology is fast getting left behind. Ten years ago I would have been standing here talking about cassettes, and videos, and Walkmans. I have no idea what I will be talking about in ten years’ time, but I suspect even today’s must-have gadgets will seem to be old hat.

So isn’t it good to gather together at the start of a New Year and talk about a form of communication that never changes? I’m talking here, of course, about the word of God. How we share the word of God may change of course – we’ve moved a long way from illuminated manuscripts and handwritten Bibles chained up in churches. But as evangelicals we believe that the word of God itself is timeless and unchanging. It is the gift of our loving Heavenly Father who caused it to be written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And when we read the Bible as the word of God we believe the same Holy Spirit lives within us to speak God’s truth to us. It’s that fundamental conviction which that drives so much of what we do at St Barnabas and St Michael’s and it’s why we offer so many opportunities for folk to encounter the Bible for themselves. For example:

• Each Sunday we have usually two readings from the Bible, and a sermon based on one or both those passages.
• We offer during term-time our GIFT groups – so called because they aim to help us Grow In Faith Together, by prayer, by fellowship and by reading together God’s word.
• We also encourage folk to read the Bible for themselves, and there are at both churches people who can get you a set of Bible reading notes and other aids to help you understand God’s word better for you.

Our programmes aren’t of course perfect and there’s so much more work we still have to do, such as, for example, teaching our young people more about the Bible. But I’d like to think that if you’ve been coming to our churches for some time you’ve had an opportunity to hear God’s word and read it for yourself. So let me ask – as you look back over the past year, what difference has all you’ve heard and read about made to your life? Can you think of a specific occasion where maybe a verse of Scripture has spoken to you? Or are there ways you can say you have you have grown in your Christian faith during 2011? I’m not asking these questions to make you feel guilty. There’s probably far more you’ve absorbed and learnt than you realise or remember. But I think it is right to take stock, and to ask what difference God’s word really makes to us.

You see, it seems to me that our reading from Luke’s gospel is all about the influence of God’s word.

First of all, there is the word acted upon.

In our reading there are two groups of people who act upon the word of God. First of all, there are shepherds. They heard the amazing message of the angels that: Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. So what did they do? If they had been media celebrities, they would have contacted their agents and waited for the right moment to get maximum exposure. If they were theologians, they would have formed a committee to explore possible interpretations of the angel’s message. But they were plain, hard-working men who simply took God at His word. They didn’t need a committee or an agent. They simply looked at each other, gave the nod and went. As it says in verse 15: Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. The Lord spoke; they acted. I don’t know where people get the idea that doing what the Lord says is so difficult. At heart the message of the Bible is very simple. It’s only the disobedience of our heart that stops us from putting it into practice and makes it all so complicated.

So there are the shepherds. Who else acted according to God’s word? That’s right – it’s Joseph and Mary. Verse 21: On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived. You see, way back in Genesis 17 the Lord gave Abraham the command that every male should be circumcised on the eighth day and from that time on the Jewish nation faithfully obeyed this law to show they belonged to the people of God. There was no reason why Joseph and Mary should have acted any differently. As Paul says elsewhere in the New Testament Jesus was born under the law, and it was important that right from the beginning of His life He should fulfil the commands of the law perfectly.

We usually skip over this verse at Christmas, but it’s worth dwelling on it just for a moment. We can get this impression that when we talk about God speaking, it’s about Him telling us something new and dramatic. Now God can sometimes speak to us like that, just as He did to the shepherds. But more often God quite simply wants to remind us of what we already know, so we do something about it. Yes, faithful obedience isn’t dramatic. It doesn’t make the headlines. But it’s the best evidence I know that Jesus is ruling in someone’s heart. When a person reads what about the Bible says relationships and puts things right, even at great cost to themselves – or decides to put into practice this business about loving your neighbour as yourself. That’s the kind of long-term stuff that produces real fruit for the kingdom of God, and we should encourage one another more and more in the coming year to put God’s word into practice.

So we have God’s word acted upon.

Secondly, we have God’s word shared.

Let’s go back to those shepherds. They heard the angel’s message; they went to Bethlehem; they found Jesus. And then what? Verse 17: When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

Notice how naturally the shepherds talked about their life-changing encounter with Jesus. It wasn’t they had been trained in a specific style of evangelism and went out with some high pressure sales-tactic. Nor did they have a minister behind them who made them feel guilty about the number of people they had or hadn’t brought to Christ. No, they simply shared their own experience of coming to the baby Jesus, of realising that this child was their Lord, their Saviour, and discovering that He was the very light of the world come in human form. And that’s why all who heard their message were so amazed. Because it was a very different kind of message from any they had ever heard before. They were used to religious people lecturing them. They were used to politicians and kings claiming a divine mandate for their rule. But here were ordinary, hard-working men who were naturally and in their own language telling a story they could relate to. No wonder their message provoked such a reaction.

Of course the shepherds wouldn’t have had such a message if they hadn’t gone down to Bethlehem in the first place. And this leads to a simple point, that if we are to share the good news of Jesus, we first need a story of what Jesus is doing in our life. Evangelism, you see, was never meant to be about folk anxiously worrying each day when they could find a moment to slip Jesus into the conversation, or thrust leaflets into the hands of complete strangers. If I’ve read this passage correctly, evangelism – the spreading of good news – is about us sharing naturally what we have ourselves have experienced, how we heard God speak to us, how we acted and what we discovered as a result. So don’t try to share the good news of Jesus before you yourself know what it means to trust and obey Jesus for yourself – the chances are, it won’t work.

We have God’s word acted upon. We have God’s word shared. We also have God’s word treasured.

The Christmas story, you see, isn’t all hustle and bustle. In the midst of all the activity around the manger, there is Mary. And what is she doing? Well, outwardly she is doing what any mother would do with a new-born child. But inwardly, something very special is going on. As we read in verse 19: Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Can you, I wonder, relate to Mary’s experience? It’s so easy for a church to say it is a Bible-believing, evangelical church. It’s so easy for its members to go through the motions of reading and studying the word of God. But unless we actually treasure it, unless we value it for what it is – personal communication from the very maker of heaven and earth – it will never really touch and change our lives.

Now of course there are parts of the world where the Bible is highly treasured. There are people who prepared to meet together for worship even in the face of arrest or imprisonment or torture. For them, the word of God is so precious that nothing stops them from reading it and doing what it says. In other places there are people who are hearing the Bible in their own language for their first time. Because it is new and fresh and exciting, it is transforming not only individuals, but whole communities. It is often the first text available in the mother tongue, and it conveys the wonderful message there really is a God who cares for them and loves them.

What about us? As you look forward to the coming year, I am sure you have plans and hopes and dreams, indeed you may have shared some of them earlier on in the service. But have you brought them under the word of God? Indeed, do you have a growing hunger and desire to learn about King Jesus in 2012 and to obey Him more? When we were going through the Christianity Explored course last term we spent a lot of time looking at the parable of the sower, and you may remember that parable ends with the seed which ends up with a crop of thirty, sixty, hundred times what is sown. This seed, Jesus explains in Mark 4:20, stands for those who hear the word but accept it. They put down deep roots into Scripture. They don’t get distracted by the desires and cares of this world. Their one desire is to bear fruit for the Lord. I wonder if that description applies to you, to me.

And notice that Mary not only treasured what had happened, but she also pondered them in her heart. Because when we value Scripture and begin to engage with it, we also find we need time to work out how it applies to our lives. The Bible was never meant to be a kind of promise box where you could take a verse out at random, and instantly know what to do. It was written after all to point us to a living relationship with Jesus, and we need to listen carefully to what Jesus might be trying to say to us by His Holy Spirit. Sometimes His words may be clear. Sometimes we need to store them up in our heart and wait for Him to show us what exactly they mean for us.

If we’re still not sure, we need to get into the habit of discussing them with others, and sharing our wisdom and our experience. Let’s, after all, forget, that the Bible was primarily addressed to a community of believers where it was expected that folk would naturally talk about their faith with each other. That’s why, for example, Paul writes to the church in Colossae: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

And I think it’s significant that Paul also uses the word “heart” in this verse. Because actually folk won’t take the word of God seriously just by hearing a preacher talking about the need to act on it, to share it and to treasure it, although I would like to hope you will remember something of this sermon! If we want to move forward into 2012 as a growing, Spirit-filled church, then we need to let the word of God sink more deeply in our heart, that we look forward to reading God’s word, that we expect the Holy Spirit to teach us as we read, that we look to Jesus to help us obey what we’ve been taught. And when that happens, I believe -whether you have a fresh, new experience of the Lord like the shepherds, or simply carry on living out your faith like Joseph and Mary – others will notice and we will start to bear a crop thirty, sixty, a hundred times what is sown.

Rev Tim

Reading – John 1:1-14

Long, long ago before the invention of personal computers and games consoles, families played games together at Christmas. It was amazing the fun you could have with just a few people, maybe a pen and paper, or a piece of music. One of the most popular games was charades – does anyone still play it?

It’s really frustrating trying to communicate without words, isn’t it? Without words it’s easy to misunderstand what someone is saying, or simply get the message wrong. Indeed you may not even realise that there is a message in the first place. Is the person playing charades simply waving his hands around or is he trying to tell me something? Sometimes the answer’s not that clear.

Of course, the game of charades is just a piece of fun. But now let’s turn to our reading from John’s gospel, the one we have every Christmas day, and begin reading: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Why does John describe Jesus in what at first sounds like a rather obscure and theoretical way? The short answer is, because many people do not understand we have a personal God who communicates. Yes, they have a vague idea that God is there, that there is some spirit or power or force who is in control over all things, but who this God is, or what He is like – well, that’s quite a different matter. We can only hope to get to know this God by ourselves seeking to address Him and hoping that we get some kind of response. And so religion becomes a matter of performing this ritual or seeking this mystical experience in the hope that maybe, just maybe we might acquire some knowledge of this God who is somewhere out there.

But that is not the view of God the Christian faith presents. By calling Jesus “the Word” John is making a fundamentally important point – we have a God who speaks. He doesn’t play charades with us, or leaves us to struggle towards some state of enlightenment. We have a God who communicates with us, who makes Himself known.

How, then, does God speak to us? I know this can be a question which confuses a lot of people. After all, in the usual course of business, we do not tend to hear God talking directly to us. Of course this is not to say that God cannot audibly communicate with us, if He so chooses. Looking back on my own life I myself can testify to a particular occasion about 15 years ago where I unmistakeably heard His voice. But if my experience is anything to go by, such occasions are rare, and tend to be the exception, rather than the norm.

So if we are not talking about God speaking in an audible, clearly unmistakeable way, what are talking about? This is what John explains in our reading this morning.

First of all, God speaks through His work of creation.

Back in the Old Testament the psalmist wrote these words: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. (Psalm 19:1-4).

All around us we are surrounded by the tangible evidence of a good, creator God. Some of that evidence is spectacular and beautiful like the colour of a winter sunset, or the roar of a woodland waterfall. Some of that evidence is more mundane but nonetheless just as real, such as the regular cycle of seasons, and the rhythm of harvest, harrowing, ploughing and planting. Wherever we look and whatever we look for, we can learn so much about the nature of our God by observing the world around us.

So why is that more people do not hear God speaking to them through creation? John gives the answer in verse 5: The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. Now John is not saying that we live in a world where there are two equal and opposite forces of light and darkness. But He is saying there is a kind of spiritual darkness which has blinded us to the goodness and generosity of our God. He has given us a wonderful and beautiful world, yet all too often we have spoilt it with our greed and selfishness. Even more importantly, we have turned our backs on God and tried to live without reference to His commandments and His goodness. As we look back on this turbulent and extraordinary year, we can see all too clearly how this has been the case. Harsh regimes who have ruled by fear and terror, natural disasters made worse by human errors and poor planning, leaders and opinion makers whose judgement has been clouded by a desire for fame and financial reward.

Yet God has not given up this world. If you read the Old Testament you realise how God spoke to Abraham, to Moses, to David, how He raised up a people to love and to serve Him, and how He sent His prophets to remind them of the promises He had made. The idea was that this people – the people of Israel – would show to the wider world who God was, and how He could be known. But the tragedy of the Old Testament is that by and large this people failed to live up to their calling. They went after other gods, forgot the law God had given them, and failed to trust those promises. Not that they were in any sense worse than anyone else. Yes, it might be easy to look back over Scripture and criticise the attitude of God’s people, but history shows that there has never been anyone who has faithfully kept and obeyed God’s law. God’s law can tell us who God is, and how we should worship Him, but mere words on a page cannot change the attitude of our heart.

So, God speaks through His work of creation. He has spoken in history through the giving of the law. But on the whole we have not been listening. John writes these words in verses 10 and 11: He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Words which surely apply not only to the world in general or people out there, but also to you, and to me. For if we’re honest with ourselves, all of us know that we have not fully recognised God for all that He is, or received Him into our hearts. If anything, we have tried to shut Him out of our lives, excluded Him from the major decisions we make or obeyed Him only when it suits us.

And this takes us back to the question at the very heart of this passage – has God failed in His attempt to communicate with us? Are we simply left playing charades with God, trying to glimpse what He might like and attempting to read the signs He has given us?

Amazingly, the answer to this question is “No”. Because right at the heart of the Christmas story is the simple and astonishing fact that Jesus the eternal Word of God has been born into the world. Jesus is the ultimate communication from God who tells us who God is and what He is like. As the writer to the Hebrews puts it in our first reading: In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. Isn’t that truly wonderful? God has spoken once and for all through His Son Jesus. When we come to Jesus, all our searching and all our striving comes to an end. For there in the manger is the answer to our deepest longings and deepest questions – the Creator of heaven and earth now present in human form, come to be our Saviour and our Lord.

The gospel writer John puts it this way: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. And let’s not forget as we read these words, that as one of the twelve apostles John spent three years in Jesus’ presence. They spent hours each day, talking, eating, walking together. If anyone had seen any sin or failure on Jesus’ part, it would have been John. But as he looks back over Jesus’ life, he can only summarise his experience of meeting Jesus as an encounter with God’s glory. John is one of the eyewitnesses who confirms the essential truth of our verses from Hebrews, that God really has spoken, that the Word made flesh is God’s ultimate revelation to us.

Of course, you may well say that’s very well for John. He was privileged to see Jesus walk this earth. He was able to experience God’s glory directly for Himself. Surely it’s very different for us. We cannot see or experience Jesus in the same way. So how can He reveal God directly to us? Don’t we face the same issue with Jesus revealing to God to us, as hearing God speak?

That’s a good question, but it has an answer. Listen again to verses 12-13: Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. What John is saying is that when we recognise Jesus for who He truly is, and when we place our faith and trust in Him, then something very special happens. This same Jesus comes and lives in our hearts. It’s what John in his gospel calls “born-again”, a phrase which is often used wrongly, but simply means this: that Jesus by His Holy Spirit enters the centre of our beings and becomes an active presence in and among us.

And when we have the presence of the Holy Spirit in our heart we know what it means for God to speak to us. We don’t have to spend our lives wondering if there is some God out there who might however vaguely care for us and love us. We have the very presence of God our Creator and Redeemer right with us, wherever we go, whatever we do. And to me that is the real wonder and mystery of the Christmas story – not just that God Himself takes on flesh and makes His dwelling among us as tiny child, though that is marvellous enough. It is that this same Jesus comes and makes His dwelling today among all who recognise Him for who He is – as Saviour, Christ and Lord, the very word of God.

As Charles Wesley wrote in the well-known carol we will be singing shortly:

Mild, He lays His glory by;

Born that men no more may die;

Born to raise the sons of earth;

Born to give them second birth.

So let me ask you at this Christmas time – do you recognise Jesus as the Word of God? If so, how have you responded? Do you know this second birth Charles Wesley talks about, or are you yet to receive the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit? Let’s all of us spend some time reflecting on our reading from John’s gospel and then I’ll pray…

(Read John 1:12-13 again)

]]> http://stbarnacles2.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/the-god-who-speaks/feed/ 0 admin http://stbarnacles2.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/christmas-celebrations/ http://stbarnacles2.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/christmas-celebrations/#comments Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:12:46 +0000 LB http://stbarnacles2.wordpress.com/?p=920 ]]> St Michael’s and St Barnabas 24th December 2011

Reading – Luke 2:1-14

For the past few years one story has hit the headlines with almost regular monotony around October or November time. A council announces its plans for its seasonal celebrations; some eager young official changes the name of the celebrations to Winterval; a cry goes up from the traditionalists in the city; and a national newspaper uses the whole affair to lament the decline of traditional standards in our society. You may have noticed that even in Plymouth this year we have been celebrating a Winter Festival, although I notice that the word Christmas does appear in rather smaller print underneath. So how should we respond to the renaming of this season?

For my part, if the idea of a Winter Festival comes from a desire for political correctness, to make sure that nobody is offended, then I am certainly not in favour – unless, in the interests of fairness, the council is also planning to rename Diwali, Ramadan and all the other religious festivals in the city. But on the other hand I believe there’s also a certain honesty in giving the celebrations a purely secular title. After all, most of the festivities have very little do with the original message of Christmas and quite a lot have to do with raising money for the city and local businesses and charities – which in these straitened times is no bad thing, but not necessarily linked to the birth of Jesus.

Clearly this is a debate which is not yet settled and I am sure it will rumble on for a few years yet. But it has at least got me thinking about what name we give to our celebrations tonight.

There are, for example, a small but growing number of people who believe that the proper name for the season is Yuletide. The reason why we celebrate Christmas tonight is that the early church took over old pagan customs and renamed the festival. By using the name Yuletide we are in fact recalling the true origins of the season and recognising the roots of our celebrations.

That may be true, but even if we have retained some of the old traditions, what is striking is how completely the Christian faith replaced the old religion. There is a lovely story of how in 627 AD King Edwin of Northumbria met with his counsellors to decide whether to accept the new Christian religion. What tips the balance in favour of him being baptised is a speech by one of his chief advisers who says…

“Your Majesty, when we compare the present life of man on earth with that time of which we have no knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight of a single sparrow through the banqueting-hall where you are sitting at dinner on a winter’s day with your thegns and counsellors. In the midst there is a comforting fire to warm the hall; outside the storms of winter rain or snow are raging. This sparrow flies swiftly in through one door of the hall, and out through another. While he is inside, he is safe from the winter storms; but after a moment of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the wintry world from which he came. Even so, man appears on earth for a little while; but of what went before this life or of what follows, we know nothing. Therefore, if this new teaching has brought any more certain knowledge, it seems only right that we should follow it.”

That adviser, it seems, glimpsed something essential about the Christian faith – that it gives a hope and a certainty that other religions cannot give. And this insight of an unnamed person long ago ties in well with the words the angels spoke to the shepherds in our reading this evening: Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.

Jesus, you see, has the power to turn fear into hope, sadness into joy. Why? Because He is first and foremost a Saviour, someone who can rescue us from the grip of death and sin and evil that so often dominates people’s hearts and minds and souls. And that is as true now as it was when the angels first appeared to the shepherds two thousand years ago, or in the depths of a Northumbrian winter in 627AD. Because what we are celebrating tonight is not a story or some bygone historical event, but the presence of the living Lord Jesus who has broken once and for all into human history and is able to change your life for good. So, yes, the name Yuletide may point us to our ancient roots but as far as I’m concerned, it also reminds me that the story of Jesus’ birth has transformed and is transforming people, societies and even whole nations for good.

What about the name Christmas? I guess this is such a familiar word that we don’t even think about it that much. Yet it struck me recently that if we were going to celebrate the birth of Jesus, shouldn’t we call the event something like “Jesus-tide” or “Jesus-mass”? Why is it that we focus on “Christ” and not “Jesus”? Surely the answer lies in the identity of the child born in a manger in Bethlehem. He is not simply someone special, who will grow into a prophet or a wise man. He is the Christ – or if you prefer the Hebrew term – the Messiah.

And that is important for two reasons. First of all, as the Messiah, He is the one promised by the prophets from long ago. Seven hundred years earlier, for example, the prophet Isaiah had written these words: 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 increase 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. And for seven hundred years successive generations had been asking: when will this child be born? Kings had come and kings had gone, but there seemed to be little sign of David’s throne being established forever. Indeed for most of the time the experience of God’s people had been almost anything other than justice and righteousness.

Which is why the message given by the angel to the shepherds comes as such good news. That prophecy of Isaiah – and many, many others more besides – has now at last been finally and fully realised. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.

But there is also a surprising, perhaps even shocking, twist in the angel’s words that we so often fail to recognise, because the story is so familiar: This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. After all, children who are born to take up a throne aren’t usually wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger. They are swaddled in royal robes and placed in the queen’s bedchamber. Every effort is made to ensure that the royal newcomer will grow to enjoy the privileges and honour of his station. Yet here are the angels announcing that all God’s promises will come to fulfilment where? In a cattle feeding trough.

On one level it just doesn’t make sense. If you were making plans for the salvation of the world, if you had been preparing this event ever since the beginning of time, would you have chosen a rough-hewn box filled with hay to be the centrepiece of the action? There is surely something profoundly mysterious, something profoundly unexpected in the Christmas story and I think it would do us all good to ponder and reflect on the awesome purposes and plans of God tonight.

But on another, this humble birth also points to the second reason why we call our celebrations “Christmas”. Because the kingdom set up by this Messiah is not to be a physical one, where entry is restricted by race, nationality or social standing. It is to be a spiritual one where membership is open to all, even to you and to me. The one qualification for entry is that like the shepherds we respond in faith and humility and accept Jesus the Messiah as our Messiah, that we too bow down and worship Him as King and Lord and Saviour in our lives, and receive His gift of the Holy Spirit.

So Yuletide reminds us of the power of Jesus to change lives. Christmas reminds us that this Jesus is Messiah with a spiritual kingdom. But there are also two further terms which also remind us of the sheer humanity of the occasion.

The first one is Noel, which comes from the Latin word natalis referring to birth. It is an intensely physical kind of word which reminds us that Jesus went through all the processes of becoming fully human. The reason why we recall Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem with Mary, and the birth of Jesus is a manger is to affirm that Jesus belonged to a real place in a real point in history. If you so wish, you can go to Bethlehem today. You can visit the church built on the traditional site where Jesus was born. You can see the exact spot where Mary is said to have been delivered of child. And although you can worship Jesus equally well in any part of the planet, there is something intensely moving and intensely humbly in realising there was a particular place on earth – if not that one, then certainly one nearby – where Jesus the Messiah was born.

Jesus really is Emmanuel – God with us – in the most literal sense of the word. He is a God who knows what it is to be human (though without sin), to be tired, to be angry, to grieve, to grow. So Noel reminds us that we have a God who understands, not simply because He made us, but because He has stood among us and stands with us even today. If that does not act as an incentive to prayer, then I don’t know what does.

But then there is the other term – Xmas – reviled and hated by purists, and probably rightly so – which reminds us of the other end of Jesus’ life. The X comes from the Greek letter chi which is the first letter of Christ, but to me it also reminds me of the end of Jesus’ earthly life, that if Jesus the carpenter took his first breath in a rough wooden box, He took His last crucified to two planks of wood in the shape of a cross. And unless you keep the cross in view, there isn’t much point in celebrating the Christmas story. Yes, we can dress up as a pretty story for children to act out, or turn it into a sentimental tale of God’s love for us, but we will lack a full explanation of why Jesus chose to come into the world.

Take a moment to reflect on those words the heavenly choir sang on the hillside outside Bethlehem: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favour rests. We are probably so familiar with them we haven’t considered what they really saying. They are not simply talking about peace on earth among men. They are talking about peace on earth between God and man, about God showing His favour to us, to you and to me. How, then, can this be possible? After all, if we’re honest with ourselves we know that so often we have ignored God’s will for our lives, set our own agenda and priorities, not loved Him with our whole heart and soul and mind and strength nor our neighbour as ourselves. So how is it possible that God can show us favour?

The answer lies rooted in another one of those ancient prophecies that we find in the book of Isaiah, this time in chapter 53: We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And let’s not imagine that the cross was an afterthought, a plan B when Jesus’ original mission on earth went a little bit wrong. There is sacrifice right at the heart of the Christmas story. We talk so casually about God becoming man. But ponder, if you can, the mystery of Jesus giving us His position of honour at the right hand of God, of accepting the limitations of a human body, of becoming weak, helpless and utterly dependent on human parents. All the while knowing that one day this flesh would have to be torn and broken in order to bring true lasting peace between God and us. Yes, the Christmas story is about love. But it is not the cloying, sentimental love we so often make it out to be. It is about the firm, unflinching commitment of Jesus to do what we cannot do for ourselves, to rescue from ourselves and pay the ultimate price for our wrongdoing.

So whatever you call this particular season of the year, may I challenge all of you this evening to put the familiar readings and carols we are enjoying tonight into the bigger picture. After all, what is Jesus’ birth all about? It’s about His power to change lives. It’s about the coming of a new kind of kingdom. It’s about Him sharing in our humanity. It’s about Him paying the price for our sins. Those are the essential truths at the heart of Christmas. So, do you know them to be true for yourself? Have you welcomed Jesus as Saviour, Christ and Lord into your life? Or is there a step of faith you need to take tonight to make Jesus alive and real in your heart?

Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.

Readings – Genesis 15:1-6; 1 Chronicles 17:7-14; Micah 5:2-5a; Matthew 1:18-23

How many people here like a good murder mystery? Or maybe has bought one of those boxed DVD sets of something like Morse or Inspector Poirot for Christmas? I don’t know why but at this time of year we regularly get repeats of all those old classics like Murder on the Orient Express or A Touch of Frost. Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that after a long day trying to show goodwill to our nearest and dearest we like to escape into a good murder mystery and see if we really are clever enough to spot “whodunit”. Not that I hope any of us gain any ideas for any real life situations…

Of course the thing about a well-written murder mystery is that it’s so hard to spot in advance who is the real villain. Maybe it’s just me but I never fully work out the plot until the detective has gathered everyone in the drawing room and revealed his conclusions. There are so many false trails along the way, so many characters who have the means and the motive, so many twists and turns in the plot. If the writer’s worth his salt, we are left guessing right up until the end. And if you are of a certain age and remember a sketch with Sid James and Tony Hancock you will know what it’s like to find the last page is missing. There is nothing worse than reading a book and still at the end being no wiser as to who did it.

How does all this relate to our carol service this evening? Well, I’m not suggesting that the Bible is a murder mystery, although it does contain plenty of stories of adventure and action. But I am going to put it to you that rather like a good thriller the first half of the Bible is full of clues and mysterious hints which are only finally worked out and explained by the good news of the birth of Jesus Christ in a manger in Bethlehem.

That’s why I have chosen these readings from the Old Testament this evening. We started off with the promise the Lord makes to Abram many hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. You need to know that at this point in his life Abram and his wife were both well on in years. Humanly speaking the time for bearing children was over. Yet even as Abram was preparing for his servant Eliezer to inherit his estate, God made the tremendous promise that: This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. Not only that, but through this son Abram would have more descendants than stars in the sky. It was a truly astonishing promise – so how was it going to be fulfilled?

Well, as the story unfolds we hear how three strangers visit Abram one day and promise that by the following year Sarah will have a son. That son Isaac grows up and becomes the father of twelve sons of his own. From these sons form the twelve tribes of Israel. Within a few hundred years there is an entire nation numbering in the tens of thousands. And yet – has the promise to Abram really be fulfilled? Previously the Lord had told him that all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. There is a nation, yes, but it is only a small one in one small part of the world. There are many people but they can be counted, unlike the stars in the sky. So has the Lord’s word really come true?

Wind forward many hundreds of years we find the greatest king of Israel upon the throne – King David. Again the Lord appears to him and makes a promise: When your days are over and you go to be with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne for ever. So who is this son going to be?

In the short term it looks as if his son Solomon is the answer to this prophecy. He does indeed build a house of the Lord, the first temple constructed in Jerusalem. He also firmly secures the kingdom of Israel and under his wise reign Israel reaches its peak as a nation, with borders extending to Egypt to the south, and the river Euphrates to the north. It is a time of great and unprecedented peace and security. And yet… and yet… Solomon has one major weakness that proves his undoing. For all his great wisdom it really isn’t a clever move to have 300 wives and 700 mistresses, and he is led into all kinds of revolting pagan practices.

The kings who follow Solomon aren’t a whole better – in fact many of them are a whole lot worse. As you read the history of Israel over the next 400 years you see a kingdom which falls in two, and then falls apart under corruption, false religion and foreign domination. In the end the final piece of Israel – the southern tribe of Judah – is carried off to Babylon in 587 BC. And yes, a couple of generations later some return. But what happened to the promise of a kingdom and a throne would last forever? On a human level, it is all gone. So what about the word spoken to David?

Then there are the words of the prophets. I could have chosen any number of different passages from different Old Testament prophets, but I thought I’d use one that we often hear at Christmas time. It’s from the prophet Micah about the town of Bethlehem, a small village to the south of Jerusalem. Here again we come across a promise of God, that one would come from there to stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. Again, we have to ask who is this shepherd going to be? Looking at the kings of the day, none of them seem to fit the bill. They are small, declining leaders of a small, declining nation, and there’s not much sign of the Lord’s majesty being revealed.

As you go through the pages of the Old Testament, then, you have promise after promise made by God to His people. And as each promise is made, so the questions begin to mount up. How is this word of the Lord going to be fulfilled? And when? And by whom? By the time we reach the final book of the Old Testament, Malachi, just like in any good detective novel we have a whole array of hints and clues, but we just don’t have any way of putting them together.

Then we turn over to the first book of the New Testament, to the book of Matthew. And right in the very first chapter, in the message the angel of the Lord gives to Joseph we hear these words: She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. Are you beginning to see now why these words are just so significant? This child about to be born in a manger in Bethlehem is going to be the fulfilment of all those words spoken all those years ago. He will be the promised son of Abraham whose descendants will be more numerous than the stars in the sky. He will be the promised son of David whose kingdom and throne will last forever. He will be the shepherd promised by Micah who will care for God’s people in the strength of the Lord. In fact every single promise God has made will be met in Jesus. The wondering, the questions, the mysteries are over.

Well, that’s all very well, you may say, but what’s that got to do with me sat here in this carol service 2000 years later?

Let’s go back and look more closely at those promises of the Old Testament. Because first of all, they help us understand that Jesus is the son of Abraham through whom all peoples of the earth will be blessed. Now you may be sat here wondering why we are gathered here today to remember the birth of a child in a far-off land many, many hundreds of years ago. The answer is simple – this child started a worldwide movement that today reaches into virtually every corner of the world. Even as we gather here tonight I can think of friends and colleagues in Paraguay, in Kenya, in Mongolia who also have come together in praise and worship to celebrate the birth of Jesus. The followers of Jesus have indeed become more numerous than the stars in the sky, just as was predicted all those thousands of years ago.

Secondly, these Scriptures tell us this Jesus is the promised son of David whose kingdom God has established and whose throne lasts forever. You see, this Jesus we are celebrating tonight did not remain as a baby in a manger. He grew into a man who went out preaching the good news of forgiveness and healing the sick. As a preacher and a healer He was hated by the religious authorities who arrested and killed Him. There was little mystery about this murder and it should have been the end of the story. But God’s promises could not be frustrated even by death. This same Jesus rose again from the dead and revealed Himself as the one given all authority and power and honour by God.

And so the second reason we are gathered today in praise and worship is remind ourselves that this Jesus really is alive. If we think of Jesus just as such some historical figure, or spiritual being, then we have got our view of Jesus profoundly wrong. Jesus reigns as king, and as a king He is looking for people to follow Him, and to submit to His authority. Now I know some people are uncomfortable with this idea of Jesus. They would much prefer a tender baby Jesus who can be placed in a crib once a year, and put away once the working year resumes in January. But that defeats the whole point and purpose of Christmas – which is show God coming to intervene in this broken, battered world, to reveal His authority and to change lives for good. Removing the idea of Jesus as king removes the reasons for our celebrations tonight.

But thirdly, this Jesus is also the promised shepherd Micah wrote about who stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. Now I guess it can make us feel uncomfortable talking about Jesus as king. It conjures up images of a severe tyrant, maybe someone remote and unapproachable who we can never really know. Yet the wonderful truth of the Christian faith is that when we submit to Jesus as king we discover that He becomes our shepherd. He cares for us, guides us, protects us and speaks to us, in a deeply, deeply personal way. Obeying Him isn’t a matter of rules and regulations where we are afraid of getting it wrong. Instead it’s about responding in love and joy for all that He has accomplished on our behalf.

Because actually this Jesus has done something that no-one else has ever done or will ever do for us. Did you catch what the angel told Joseph? She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection were no accident. They were all part of God’s plan right from the beginning to put our relationship with Him right, by Jesus paying the price for all the things we have ever done wrong. And that is how Jesus brings God’s blessing to the people of the world today. It is how He establishes His authority over us. It is how He demonstrates He loves for us.

So at this Christmas time, what should our response be? Right back in our first reading we heard these words of Abram: Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. Abram, you see, shows us something very important. That all God is looking for in us is faith and trust, to take God as at His word, to claim His promises, and to make Jesus our source of blessing, as shepherd and as king.

Therefore let us pray in the words of the carol we have just sung:

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in;
Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Immanuel!

Reading – Luke 1:57-80

Have you ever received an offer that is too good to be true? If you happen to be on the Internet, or have a mobile phone, the chances are you receive these offers almost daily. You know the sort of thing, the text that tells you you’ve been chosen in a special prize draw, or an e-mail promising you an unbeatable way of making money. I hope everyone here either filters them out, or presses the delete key once they arrive. Because if an offer seems to be too good to be true, then the chances are, it is, and you may find yourself getting involved in something extremely unpleasant.

For example, I once knew of a man who was promised a substantial sum of money if only he agreed to bank a cheque for £100,000 from a Nigerian businessman. (This was about 20 years ago). As you might expect, the cheque bounced, and his commission never arrived, but he did get a visit from the local police who quite understandably wanted to ask a few questions.

But it’s not just dodgy e-mails from strangers that can catch us out. I don’t know how many of you saw the recent Panorama programme about the special deals supermarkets use to entice us in. While some, if not most of them, may save us money, some of them do not. Yet they rely on the fact we are so dazzled by their promotions we often don’t stop to think what it is the best value.

Quite rightly we don’t trust offers that seem too good to be true. But what about God’s offer to us? If you’ve been part of this church for some time you know that I regularly preach about the grace of God, how He offers forgiveness of sins, eternal life and a new relationship with Him through His Son Jesus Christ. Indeed I will return to this subject later on in the sermon. But let me ask up front: how have you responded to all that you have heard? Have you been listening? And if you have, what difference has God’s offer made to your life?

Zechariah was someone who heard God speaking to him. The angel Gabriel appeared to him in the temple with the astonishing news we read about in Luke 1:13: Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. You see, Zechariah had been waiting for a son for his whole married life. The years had gone by, and humanly speaking the time had passed. Yet now an angel appeared to him – not only to say that he would have a son, but that this son would have a special place in God’s saving plans. And what was Zechariah’s response? How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well on in years.

As far as Zechariah was concerned, this news was too good to be true. He hadn’t realised the essential difference with God, that when God says something is going to happen, it will. So for the next nine months plus a few days he is struck dumb. Imagine what it must have been like for Zechariah during that time. Each day as Elizabeth grew bigger, as the back ache started, and the baby began to move for the first time, Zechariah would have been living with the fact the last words he had spoken were to question the angel Gabriel’s message. He could only watch on helplessly as Elizabeth went into labour and was delivered of child. He had no words to say as his son was laid in his arms for the first time. We can only speculate but during these long months Zechariah must have been doing serious business with God, repenting of his own unbelief, learning afresh the promises God had made with His people.

And then the time comes when in accordance with the Law of Moses the child is brought into the local synagogue to be circumcised. As a priest this was the sort of ceremony Zechariah himself may well have performed many times before. But of course he cannot speak. He can only look on from the sidelines as the service proceeds. Everyone else is saying the same familiar words he knows, yet he cannot join in. And then it comes to the part when the child is to be named. It seems that the boy’s going to be named after his father, Zechariah. Everyone is nodding to each other in agreement, then almost as an afterthought they turn to him – making signs, as if he were deaf, as well as dumb.

But Zechariah by now has learnt the angel’s message must be trusted and acted upon. So he writes down on a tablet – one made of wax, not an i-Pad, of course – “His name is John”. And as everyone looks at him in astonishment Zechariah suddenly finds he is able to speak again. In fact praise is just pouring out of his mouth. Questions, doubts and unbelief have given way to trust and hope and confidence, and above all a new sense of the Holy Spirit at work in his life.

So what does Zechariah gives praise for? There is a clue in the very name the child is given – John. Because the very name means “God is gracious”. Zechariah has learnt the hard way that God’s special offers are never too good to be true. Even his own lack of faith has not proven an obstacle to God working out His plans and purposes. But notice Zechariah’s song of praise is actually not about himself. And I think there’s something really important to learn here. Because when it comes to praising God, I know that so often I want to thank God for the things he has done personally in my life, as if they were the most important things.

Sometimes however we need to stand back and look at the bigger picture. After all, what’s most important in the biggest scheme of things is not how God has answered my prayer, but what God has done, not just for me, or for this church, but for everyone, everywhere. And that’s what Zechariah focuses on in his prophecy.

First of all, he rejoices in the fact God has acted:

Verses 68-69: Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.

We have a God who takes decisive action. I think this is an important point to make at this time of year when we gather again to celebrate the Christmas story. Because for many people the Christmas story is just that, a story. It is simply a load of words we listen to once a year, a script for a nativity play, perhaps, or the text for a YouTube video. There is no appreciation of the fact that Christmas is about God acting decisively once and for all in human history, and that He still makes a difference today.

And how has God acted? Zechariah uses what sounds at first like a rather odd phrase borrowed from the Psalms of David where he talks about God raising up a horn of salvation. But imagine for a moment you are faced with a rhinoceros charging towards you. What’s the thing about the rhinoceros you would fear most? That’s right, it’s his horn. The horn stands for strength and for power and when a rhinoceros decides to use it, little can stand in his way. That may be a silly picture, but think now what Zechariah is saying about the coming of Jesus. Jesus is not just a little child in a manger, all meek and mild. He is a strong Saviour, a mighty Deliverer. Nothing can get in His way when it comes to His plan of salvation.

Now on the one hand, that can be a great comfort. To know that Jesus is there, always able to save, always able to hear our prayers, is just about the best news going. But on the other hand, it does mean that when we do business with Jesus we have to recognise He is so much greater than we are. He is the one with all authority and might, not us. And for quite a lot of people that fact is simply an inconvenient truth. We’d much rather be in control of our lives, rather than hand ourselves to Jesus and acknowledge He’s the boss, the number one. But as Zechariah learnt the hard way, the Lord is in control whether we like or not, and actually there is no better thing that any of us can do than submit to His plans.

God has acted. Secondly, God has remembered.

There are plenty of occasions in the Bible where it talks about God remembering His covenant – going all the way back to Noah and Gen 9:15. Again, this seems at first a rather odd expression, as if God was indeed the rather forgetful old man He is sometimes made out to be. But that’s not what is meant by God “remembering”. Rather when God remembers, He acts in accordance with His promises. His words point forward to His actions, and His actions reflect His words.

Why is this such a great reason to praise God? For the very simple reason, we can know what God is like and how He is going to act. There are so many people who spend their whole lives wondering what God is like. They may try all kinds of methods to get in touch with Him, from crystals to meditation to anything else that’s fashionable at the time. But if we want to know what God is like, we simply have to look at His word, and indeed at the Word made flesh in a manger in Bethlehem.

The apostle Paul wrote these words to the church in Colossae: in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form (Col 2:9).Not just a little bit, or some partial revelation, of God – but the whole, absolute fullness. So if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. If you want to know God’s mercy and forgiveness, then look at Jesus. If you want to know God’s power to – using the language of verse 74 – rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear – then look at Jesus. And what we find when we look at Jesus should not surprise us because it is entirely consistent with the promises he made beforehand to Abraham, to Moses, to David. God has acted in accordance with His promises, and now all these promises are gloriously and wonderfully fulfilled.

God has acted. God has remembered. God has sent.

Of course, it’s all very well to say that God has taken decisive action, and kept His every promise. But how do others learn that this is so? The answer is, because God sends people to share the good news. Now of course in one sense the part John was going to play in his adult life was unique. His job was to prepare Israel at a very particular point of history for the coming of the Messiah. But in another sense the mission John was given is one that is given to all who to profess to follow Christ today. Verses 77-78… to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God.

God, you see, has the most amazing plan to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. He doesn’t send out lots of e-mails or text messages, or broadcast lots of advertisements. Rather He sends out people, ordinary people, like you and like me to share what Jesus has done in our own lives. And before you say that sounds all rather scary, and it’s something you could never possibly do, think for a moment about the people who gave you knowledge of salvation. Because the reason why any of us are sitting here this morning is that someone dared to tell us more about Jesus, to teach us about the forgiveness of sins, and the tender mercy of our God. How often, do we praise God, for these people who led us to faith? They, so to speak, played the part of John the Baptist in our lives and we should be deeply, deeply grateful for them.

Not only that, but their example should also be one we are inspired to follow. The chances are, whoever led you to faith was probably quite an ordinary person, a family member, perhaps or a friend. They may not have let on, but they were probably quite nervous or scared as they answered your questions. They might well have felt out of their depth, and they may have wondered if what they were saying was any help at all. But God used them nonetheless, in spite of their own faults and failings.

What about us? At Christmas time it seems to me that behind all the celebrations there are so many people wrestling with big questions such as: Will anyone forgive me for the mess I’ve made this year? Can I be free from my addiction? Does anyone actually care for me? If we cannot use this opportunity to point to the manger and the empty cross, then, brothers and sisters, what are we really all about? God is not asking us to give all the answers, to present a coherent, theologically sound, and completely articulate statement of faith. But He is asking us to show others Jesus, to show that God is there, that He has acted, that He has made Himself known. Because that is the very essence of the Christmas story we are celebrating, and it is one that God calls all of us to share.

And this seems an appropriate note on which to finish our Advent sermon series. Over the past few months as we have looked at Jesus’ stories in Matthew’s gospel and the first chapter of Luke we have focused, and rightly so, on being ready both to celebrate the good news of Jesus’ birth and his return as King and Judge over all. But now as we are about to celebrate Christmas for ourselves, what are we going to do to tell others about the good news which really is true? Will we be silent like the old Zechariah out of fear and unbelief? Or will we be like the Zechariah we read about today, praising God in the power of the Holy Spirit so that others too accept God’s offer for themselves?

God has acted. God has remembered. And now He is sending you.

Rev Tim

Reading – Luke 1:39-56

What is it you want to thank God for? One thing I have noticed from years of leading small groups is that when it comes to a time of praise and prayer, there always seems to be more to pray about, than to praise God for. On the whole folk are very good at sharing immediate prayer requests, and rightly so. They may well share something to celebrate like an anniversary or a birthday. But generally when I ask them what they want to praise God for, there is all too often a blank expression and a puzzled look.

I’m not just pointing the finger at other people, though. I know, when it comes to my own prayer life, I come before God armed, so to speak, with a whole long list of concerns, and people who are on my heart. Now I know that the Lord loves to hear me pray, and I certainly shouldn’t stop interceding for others. But if I’m really honest, I have to ask myself, where is the praise and thanksgiving in my life? Is it that God isn’t actually blessing me? Or have I stopped noticing what He is doing in my life?

As Christians we’re just not that good about this whole business of praise. There are some believers, I accept, who go to the other extreme, and go round loudly praising the Lord even when the whole world is falling down around their ears. But I sometimes wonder if these voluble, and dare I say it, rather irritating brothers and sisters are in fact covering up the same problem all of us have – that generally we do not carry in our hearts a deep, lasting appreciation of all that Jesus has done for us and of our lasting, secure relationship with God our Heavenly Father.

C.S.Lewis in his Reflections on the psalms said “Praise almost seems to be inner health made audible”. If what he says is true, then I believe it would do us all good this morning to have a spiritual health check and look again at this whole subject of praise.

Which is why I want to turn to Mary’s song of praise in Luke 1:46-53. Now if you were here last week we saw how Mary was greatly troubled by the appearance of the angel Gabriel – v.29. When she was told that she would give birth to the Son of the Most High, Jesus, she still had questions, even though she believed. She may even have gone to visit Elizabeth to escape the gossip and the rumours about being a young pregnant teenager with some apparently far-fetched story about being overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. Mary’s circumstances were far from easy – and yet she praised God. Why? And just was importantly, what can we learn from her song of praise today?

First of all, Mary praises God for His provision:

My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me – holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.

Mary, you see, wasn’t focused on what other people might have thought of her, or how her family reacted to her changed circumstances. Her focus and her object of praise was on what God had done for her. Yes, the angel’s message had been troubling and unsettling, yes, her life was completely upside down, but Gabriel’s words showed that God had been mindful of her, had heard and acted upon her prayers. And in that light nothing else truly mattered.

After all, as a good Jewish girl, Mary had been taught from the earliest age about God being the Saviour, the Mighty One. But now she could now testify from her own experience to God’s generosity and goodness. Her prayers had been answered beyond her wildest expectations. The great and wonderful God of Israel had become her God. It was little wonder, then, that praise so freely and so eloquently flowed from her lips.

So why had God been mindful of her? Was it, as some Christian traditions hold, that she was somehow special or different from other women? Or was it that she lived a particular good and upright life? The answer surely has to be no. The only reason why the Lord was mindful of Mary was, as verse 48 tells us, because of the humble state of his servant.

Now if you think about it, humility is not exactly an attitude you can boast about, or bring before God as some kind of virtue. If you pride yourself on how humble you’re being, then the chances are, you’re not humble. Humility is in fact the attitude of the poor, the broken, the needy, those who know they have nothing to offer God but can only trust in His mercy and His provision.

That’s how we are to understand Mary’s declaration in verse 50 that His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. We get this verse wrong because we think of fear as something negative – it conjures up for us images of people cowering before a jealous and angry God. But that’s not what it means at all. Fear of God comes exactly from that recognition you have nothing, you are nothing before God, and all you can do is trust in His grace to save and rescue you.

And the great paradox of the Christian life is that when you reach this point of realising how small you are before God, and how great and holy He is, then you discover He can do more than you can ever ask or imagine. Maybe one reason we do not praise God enough is because we do not fear enough, or come before Him with due humility. It’s hard to praise God when you don’t really believe you depend on Him for everything. Yes, we’d like to have an amazing story about God working in our life, but only if He fitted in with my lifestyle and my plans. So we carry on praying without letting God be truly God in our lives, and then we wonder why we have so little for which to give Him thanks. We can, it seems, learn much from Mary’s example of humility and her experience of God’s provision.

So Mary praises God for His provision. Secondly, she praises God for His priorities.

I wonder what you make of verses 51-53: He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

For if you think about it no ruler was literally brought down from his throne during Jesus’ life-time. The king of Judea and the emperor of Rome and the high priesthood all carried on pretty as much as before. And despite all of Jesus’ teaching there were still issues with hunger, and the gap between rich and poor remained as wide as ever.

Of course, Mary could just be making the general point that God is in control of history, and provides for those who confess their need of Him. But I think that Mary’s words go deeper than that. Think for a moment about how people did or did not react to Jesus. For example, what about Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, who met Jesus at His trial? He saw Jesus was someone special, he may even have glimpsed that Jesus was indeed some sort of king. But his encounter with Jesus did not change him. He still carried on ruling in the same brutal kind of way. Or what about the Pharisees and the teachers of the law? They met Jesus loads of times. But they refused to accept Jesus’ claims about Himself in spite of all the evidence. Their hope for a Messiah remained unfulfilled, they still tried to earn their way into God’s favour even after all Jesus taught about trusting and believing in Him. Or then again, the rich young ruler who fell on his knees before Jesus? He went away sad because he would rather cling on to his riches than follow Jesus.

So in a very real sense the rich, the powerful, the religious did go hungry because they refused to accept Jesus for who He was. They never knew the joy and the privilege of entering into God’s kingdom, or the peace of having sins truly forgiven and eternal life assured. But on the other hand think of the widow who put two little copper coins into the offering box in the temple, or the blind beggar who cried to Jesus for mercy, or the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. In the gospel story these are the ones who become great in God’s kingdom, the humble who are lifted up to positions of honour and privilege because of their faith and trust in Jesus.

In a season where we are encouraged to spend and eat and drink more and more, it’s worth stopping and realising where God’s priorities lie. God’s heart this Christmas is for the lonely, the widowed, the sick, the carers. And if you can in any sense identity with any of these groups, don’t think that Christmas is not for you. Because if the Christmas story teaches us anything, it is that God is on your side. He never intended to create festival where only the rich, the happy, the religious fit in. He intended to set up a kingdom where it is the broken-hearted and the spiritually needy are lifted up, honoured and exalted. Society may look down upon you or ignore you this Christmas, God does not. You are precious in His eyes. And that is surely a great source of praise.

Mary praises God for His provision. Mary praises God for His priorities. And finally, Mary praises God for His promises.

Verses 54-55: He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants for ever, even as he said to our fathers.

For Mary this was the ultimate reason why she could praise God – His word could be trusted. Yes, the message the angel gave her was in one sense radically new and different. But in another it was simply the logical outworking of all the promises God had made so far over the course of the history of Israel. Right back even before the beginning of the nation God had promised to Abraham that through his seed he would become a great nation. Within a few generations this appeared to come literally true. You may remember the story of Joseph and how all the sons of Jacob came to settle down in Egypt.

Wind forward a little and you have the people of God, by now numbering in their tens of thousands, gathered at Mount Sinai, and God making promises that they would be a holy nation and a royal priesthood, if only they observed His law. Go many generations after that to King David in Jerusalem and there God promises that he will always have a descendent on the throne, providing they keep their commands. The whole flow of the Bible comes out of these significant promises God makes at key times with Abraham, Moses and David.

This doesn’t mean that the history of Israel runs smoothly – far from it. God warns His people time after time what will happen if they disobey Him. And what happens? They disobey Him, they are carried into exile, they lose their land and their temple. It’s in many ways a tragic tale of compromised faith, idolatry and persistent sinfulness. But what they realise through all this is that when God speaks He means what He says. If God promises penalties for disobedience, then you will in the end suffer those penalties unless you repent. But equally, if God promises a seed, a kingdom and a blessing for all people, then those promises must also come true.

And that is exactly what has happened with the announcement of Jesus’ birth. Suddenly it all becomes clear where the whole of the history of the Old Testament has been heading. No longer do you have to put together a kind of jigsaw puzzle, wondering how each promise relates to the other. Because now you have the full picture gloriously revealed. Jesus is the true promised seed of Abraham. He is the one who perfectly obeys the law given to Moses. He is the one who sits on the throne of David forever. In fact every word ever spoken by God to His people has now come true.

God keeps His promises. That’s the lesson Mary learnt from her reading of the Hebrew Scriptures, which we know today as the Old Testament. What about us? We have both the Old Testament and the New Testament, both promise and fulfilment. If we find reading our Bible a duty, a chore, and not a source of praise then I suggest we maybe need to take a fresh approach. Because the Bible is God’s word of promise to us, and as Mary saw, we can trust and rejoice in what it says to us in every season of life.

So let’s sum up what we have learnt this morning. Mary praised God for His provision, His priorities, His promises. It’s little wonder that this song of Mary has been used by countless generations of Christians as their song of praise, for believers have seen their own experience mirrored in hers. But if all this talk of praise seems to you a little strange, maybe something you’ve never really thought about before, then let me finish by pointing you to the Christmas story we will celebrating in a couple of weeks’ time.

For at the heart of the Christmas story are the very truths Mary sang about. The baby born in a manger shows us that God provides for the needy and the humble, that God’s priorities are for the outcast and the poor, that God keeps all the promises He has ever made. And when you realise that, when you look beneath all the tinsel and the glitter, and see what Christmas is really about, surely all of us can say with Mary:

My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.

Rev Tim

Reading - Luke 1:26-38

Some twenty years ago a bishop called John Finney set out to discover how people become active Christians and participants in their local church. So instead of writing another weighty tome or putting forward an interesting theory, he went out with a team to interview a whole range of churchgoers of different ages and different backgrounds, and ask them some very simple questions about their faith. The published research: Finding Faith Today was a ground-breaking book and it’s one that’s still worth reading today.

And as you might expect one question he asked was: which factor led you to become a committed Christian? There were a whole variety of responses. Some of them talked about a particular event or reading the Bible. Rather more talked about the support of a friend or a minister. But what surprised the researchers was how many people talked about the birth of a child being an important event that led them to ask questions about what they really believed.

That’s something that has been borne out in my own experience. There is something about having a baby that changes the way you view the world. No matter how much you prepare for the big event, or how much you think you are ready, suddenly finding yourself in charge of a living, breathing creature 24-7 acts as a real shock to the system. I think one of the more honest cards we had when our first daughter was born read: This child will bring more joy into your life than you can possibly imagine and more stuff into your car. Having a child really does turn your whole life upside down.

And as parents learn to cope with the upheaval, it’s not uncommon for them to start thinking, however vaguely. about God.

For some, it’s the sheer sense of wonder at having this tiny bundle of joy in their arms. Yes, of course we know the biology and the practical nitty-gritty of how babies are conceived and develop. But for so many folk, when they hold their child for the first time, they realise they are clutching a little miracle, a new creation that seems nothing other than a gift from a good and wonderful maker.

For others, a new-born child brings out feelings of responsibility and the sudden awful awareness that from now on they have to look and after protect their offspring, from the first day at school, to the teenage years, even into adulthood. And one of the biggest decisions parents have to make right at the beginning is what to call their child. As some of you know all too well, the name your parents give you will stay with you for the rest of your life. I was chatting to my brother recently and apparently he has a colleague at work called Mr Seal. Not too bad, you might think, until you understand his first name is Ron. I am sure Mr Ron Seal must by now be tired of jokes about doing what it says on the tin.

For still others, they start to think about God as they begin to wonder and dream about what this child might become – possibly an astronaut, maybe a brain-surgeon, or then again, a world champion cyclist. As they think about the big wide world into which they will be launching their little darling, it’s not surprising that they turn to prayer, for safety, for wisdom, for guidance.

But of course it’s one thing developing a vague sense of wonder, or praying about your responsibility or wondering what the child might become. It’s quite another finding out what this God is like, whether He is really there and whether He will hear you when you call.

That’s why I want to turn to our reading this morning from Luke’s gospel. Now even if you know very little about the Bible, or have hardly ever set foot in a church before I reckon you are probably very familiar with this story of the angel’s visit to Mary. In fact is there anyone here who has played the part of Gabriel or Mary in a school nativity? Or seen your child or grandchild perform the part? It’s a well-worn, familiar story that gets acted out thousands of time across the country each year.

But just because it is well-known doesn’t mean we should lose sight of what it is really all about.

Because, first of all, this is good news of a baby who is in the most literal sense of the word a miracle. That message of the angel about the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary and overshadowing her wasn’t designed to puzzle or confuse. It was to reveal the great, earth-shattering truth that God has come among us in human form. So if this morning we are wondering if there is a God somewhere out there, who might listen to us and help us, we can stop wondering. For God has made Himself known fully and finally by sharing in our life, by sending His Son to be born as a tiny, weak baby, to experience all the emotions of growing up and becoming a man.

So in answer to the question: does God understand us? The answer is a resounding “Yes”. Not just because He is the creator of us all. But because He Himself has become part of this world, and understands at the very deepest level what it means to be human. That’s the wonderful and essential good news of this story, and I would encourage you to look it at again with fresh eyes, to see what it’s all about.

But there’s more. Because, like any other baby, this baby has a name. As the angel Gabriel says to Mary: You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. Not just because the name Jesus was trendy and fashionable at the time, or because there was already someone in the family with the same name. But because in those days names told you something about the nature and character of the person. And the name Jesus gives us an essential clue about the reason why He came to be born in a manger in Bethlehem. For his name actually means “God saves”.

Yes, Jesus came to be one of us, to share in our life. But He did more than that. He came to offer us a future and a hope beyond this life, to give us a remedy for the things we have done wrong, to put us back into relationship with God as our Heavenly Father. The Christmas story is not an isolated event we can bring out of the loft once a year. It is part of a bigger picture that leads through Galilee down to Jerusalem, to a cross and an empty tomb.

And this leads on the third point, what this child would become. Gabriel goes on in verses 32-33: He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; his kingdom will never end. What exactly does he mean by this? Very simply, that Jesus will be given authority by God over every creature in heaven and earth. Not by setting up another physical kingdom, where the rich and the powerful have the top jobs and the positions of authority. But by setting up a spiritual kingdom which is open to all by faith, particularly and including the lost, the lonely, the poor. More about that next week.

This baby Jesus shows the miracle of God becoming one of us; the mission of God in securing our salvation; and the purpose of God in establishing His authority over all people everywhere. So I hope you can start to see that this story is not something we can read and then simply forget again. If it is true, and the evidence is fairly overwhelming, then it demands a response. We have to decide whether we will allow these great truths to affect our life, or whether we simply try to ignore them and pack them away again round about January 6th.

Now if you here last week, you will know we looked at an earlier appearance of the angel Gabriel, to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. We saw how Zechariah was a righteous and religious man, who was known for living a good life. And so you might have thought that when Zechariah was told that his wife Elizabeth was going to bear a son in her old age he would welcomed the news with great joy. Not a bit of it. Luke 1:18 gives us his response: “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well on in years.” It seems that despite all his religion and his respectability, Zechariah still doubted, still refused to believe God could make a difference to His situation.

What about Mary? On the surface her response to the visit of the angel Gabriel might sound rather similar. Verse 34: How will this be…since I am a virgin? But if you probe a little deeper, you can see there is in fact a world of difference between the two questions. When Zechariah asked: How can I be sure of this? he was revealing the fact his heart remained fundamentally unmoved by the wonderful good news he had been given. Never mind the fact an angel appeared to him in the holiest place, or the fact he was told something he had been waiting his whole life to hear. He wanted more proof from God before he was even willing to consider trusting Him.

But Mary – she was prepared to take God at His word. Of course she had questions. One moment she was are a young teenage girl preparing for marriage, the next she suddenly found herself bearing the Saviour of the world. But her question reveals a very different attitude. Yes, God I believe that you can do this. But I need to find out more. I can’t quite get my head round this at the moment. How will this be…since I am a virgin? Please just give me a little more information.

And the fact the angel Gabriel answers her questions so graciously shows us a very important point. God is not looking for us to fully understand. He knows that we may well want to find out more, and indeed I believe He loves us asking questions. All He wants us to do is to take the first step of faith and be willing to learn. Mary had that faith, Mary learnt and she submitted to God’s will. Verse 38: I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Not because she fully grasped what was going to happen – how could she? – or the true cost of what was involved. But because she knew that God was good and could be trusted, whatever lay ahead, however much or little she understood what was going on.

So the question I want each of us to think about this morning is this: how do we respond to the wonderful good news of Jesus Christ? Are we like Zechariah, unwilling even to entertain the notion that Jesus has come among us, died for us and now reigns as King? Or are we like Mary still perhaps with questions, not necessarily sure what it would involve following Jesus, but willing to take the first step of faith?

We have just finished this week a course at St Michael’s called Christianity Explored. Not Christianity rammed down your throat or Christianity made muddled and confused. It was a simple and beautifully presented course designed specifically for people who want to find out more about the Christian faith but have questions. I think everyone who went on that course would agree that if you can in any way identify with Mary, this course is for you, and I have always said I would run it again next year.

But there’s action each of us can take now. Take time to reflect on the Christmas story. Read it for what it is, not a piece of fiction, but a real life event that has turned history on its head. And think what it means for you. Because the Christmas story is not simply about Jesus being born for mankind in general. It’s about Jesus wanting to be born in your heart, to give you His salvation, to become your king. What is, then, that is stopping you from putting your faith and trust in Him? Will you remain a Zechariah or become a Mary, a servant of the Lord? That is the choice you face, and it’s one all of us need to make.

Rev Tim