Posts
Christmas Day: Luke 2: 1-14 (15-20): The Birth of Jesus
The ordinary and the extraordinary
Luke is sets his birth story about Jesus into a real world/context:
The birth of Jesus was as ordinary as it could be given the circumstances, and read v 7 again; there is real tenderness here.
The world is still very ordinary: shepherds are doing what shepherds do.
Then the extraordinary breaks in:
Bright lights, angelic voices, a proclamation: a first hand experience fortrhe shepherds and a second hand (story told) experiences for Mary and Joseph and ‘all who heard it’ (v19).
And responses to this extraordinary.
The shepherds feel compelled to follow up the revelation. They are impulsive. We are not told of any arrangements they made for the security of the sheep, we can only speculate as to how they knew to go to find a particular manger in Bethlehem. They knew it was ‘of God’.
‘All who heard’ were amazed. You are told about something that has happened, your imagination is captured, but you don’t really understand it. The words ‘awe and wonder’ spring to mind!
Mary treasured and pondered! She kept her thoughts to herself. How many times would she call that moment to mind as ‘her little boy’ matured, ministered and was unjustly put to death on a cross.
Dec 28: Luke 2: 22-40 Jesus Is Presented in the Temple
According to the law:
The ordinariness continues. Mary and Joseph do what is expected of them: the child is to be ‘designated as holy before the Lord’, named and circumcised; the mother is to be purified and sacrifices are to be offered.
This story combined with last week’s story resonates with Jesus own words in response to a trick question about paying taxes: “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to god the things that are God’s.” The registration of the family in Bethlehem is according to the civil law of the occupying forces, this registration in the temple at Jerusalem is according to the religious law of the people of God. For people of faith, there is often a tension between what they must do according to the law and what their faith response demands of them. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of ‘this world’ are often in tension one with another.
There were two significant others in the temple, and they are both prophetic voices:
Simeon was ‘guided by the spirit to be there’. Doesn’t that open up a whole subject? Are we in the right place at the right time because we just happen to be there, or is there some divine hand guiding and directing?
Anna was there because she was always there!
Both Simeon and Anna responded to the scene of this young couple and baby doing what was customary in their own particular way. The way Luke tells it Simeon comes first. This is ‘just what I have been waiting for’ he says. And in two verses of blessing (34 and 35) he summarises the future life of Jesus. Did Mary add these words to her ponderings? Did she, at the foot of the cross, remember this piece of prophecy? Anna, an old woman, just seems to know something! That often happens to people, they get a sort of feeling about things and seem to know that there is something special going on that they don’t fully understand, and they just have to say what is in their minds.
Two extraordinary responses within an ordinary scene!
Jan 4 Matt 2: 1-12 The Visit of the Wise Men
Following a star
The star in this story has two functions
The sign was that ‘king of the Jews’ had been born. There is no more natural thing for these wise men to do than to go to Jerusalem expecting to pay homage to him at the court of King Herod. There was no new king in Jerusalem, and clearly the city in general and Herod in particular are unsettled by the suggestion. Herod seems to guess what is going on because he specifically enquires about ‘the Messiah’.
Now Herod conceives a plan and attempts to make the wise men complicit in carrying out the plan which is set out in its dreadful detail in the verses that follow this passage. The star enables them to complete their journey and fulfil the purpose of the visit before deceiving the one who had tried to manipulate them.
It is the diligence of the Magi that stands out from the story:
They are diligent in
Jan 11: Mark 1: 4-11 The Baptism of Jesus
The age of grace begins
In the hymn that begins “When Jesus came to Jordan…” Frederick Pratt Green writes: “So when the Dove descended on him, the Son of Man, the hidden years had ended, the age of grace began.”
In ‘the hidden years’, God had been understood as law giver and law administrator. In how many stories in the Old Testament do we discover that God is understood as the one who applies the law: discerning behaviour as right or wrong, making a judgement, pronouncing sentence and executing punishment? Then, when time has been served, there is the act of restoration. The hidden is now to be unhidden in Jesus Christ; God’s nature is to be revealed as one of grace. John the Baptist is to be the messenger that Isaiah had described, the bringer of good news! The good news is ‘repentance for the forgiveness of sins’
This phrase can be examined in two ways:
Does repentance bring about the forgiveness of sins? This is mercy!
Is repentance a response to the forgiveness of sins? This is grace!
Psalm 103 says ‘God is merciful and gracious’; one of our hymns (The Kingdom of God is justice and joy) includes a verse that begins with ‘The kingdom of God is mercy and grace’. We can explore mercy and grace with the technique of ‘compare and contrast’ and somewhere in the answer, we may find ourselves saying: Mercy is about God responding to our repentance by granting forgiveness. Grace is about us responding to God’s love by determining to live in his way. There isn’t much in it, or is there? Of course it doesn’t have to be an ‘either/or’, but we can test the difference between the two by asking the question: is it easier to be merciful (to respond kindly to someone saying ‘sorry’ to us) than to be gracious (to assure the other person that our love towards them does not depend on them saying ‘sorry’).
Look at our services of baptism and confirmation: they begin with the gifts of grace, then a profession of faith, then the act of baptism and finally the response of promises.
Jan 18: John 1: 43-51: Jesus Calls Philip and Nathanael
First impressions
This encounter between Nathanael and Jesus draws a contrast between the first impressions each makes on the other.
Jesus’ response, based on his discernment, challenges and defeats Nathanael’s prejudice!
When people are asked for their judgement on a subject they respond in two ways:
There seem to be many who have misconceptions about the life of faith and/or about ‘the church’ that crystallise into prejudice against the call to discipleship. There is plenty of material in the public domain to feed that prejudice. The challenge to every Christian is to live in a way that provides evidence of the loving, caring, reconciliatory way of living that Christ himself advocates. This is how prejudice is confronted and reflection is encouraged, and the work of the Holy Spirit is fed.
Jan 25: Mark 1: 14-20 The Beginning of the Galilean Ministry
Responding to the call
Jesus carries on where John left off! In Matthew and Luke the ministry of John and Jesus have some overlap. In Mark, the story is set out in discrete steps: John preaches, Jesus is baptised, Jesus goes into the wilderness, John is arrested, Jesus ministry starts and followers are recruited.
People don’t just leave their place of work, their families and their security on an impulse; or do they? We don’t know how little or how much exposure those first four disciples had to Jesus and his teaching. We don’t know how much or how little heart searching they had or whether they had discussed this vocation with the family. What we do know is that they responded to the call to repent and to believe the good news. The telling of the story makes the response decisive, they walked away from their past. Is this what ‘repent’ means?
The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near: we’re back with the Frederick Pratt Green Hymn (from Jan 11): The age of grace has begun.
This is the good news: God loves you with a ‘ceaseless unexhausted love’; believe it!
As the disciples engage with Jesus, they can begin to understand what ‘the kingdom has come near’ is about. Back to hymns again: “The kingdom of God is mercy and grace, the lepers are cleansed and sinners find place, the outcasts are welcomed God’s banquet to share and hope is awakened in the place of despair;” the ministry and message of Jesus in a nutshell! In this Ebola epidemic in West Africa, volunteers are putting themselves at risk to care for the dying, to nurse the sick, to contain the virus. (Is there something about saving the world in here?) Wherever a hungry child is fed, a lonely person comforted, a homeless individual given a bed for the night, the kingdom of God is come near.
Repentance has a lot to do with change. Humankind is challenged to envision a world which is changed: a world that embraces the nature of God as revealed in Jesus Christ; then’ here and hereafter the Kingdom will grow’.
