Address at Douglas Academy Christmas Service: 22/12/15.
The new Star Wars movie is called ‘The Force Awakens’. I haven’t seen it yet but there was an Imax screening last Wednesday at the Science Centre and my son was there. He bought his ticket sometime in October about five minutes after they went on sale. And for all that time he lived with all the hype, the promise that this was going to be the greatest cinematic experience of his life. The verdict was it was pretty close. Everything that was promised was delivered.
It’s great when things work out like that. There are few things worse than living with a promise not delivered, especially when it touches the more serious side of life. For instance there is a Christian minister who was recently in prison in Iran. His name is Farshid Fathi. He hasn’t done anything that we would regard as criminal. It’s just that certain Christian activities are unlawful in Iran and regarded as a threat to the state. He was arrested on Boxing Day 2010 and sentenced to 6 years. There was good news, however, in July of this year when he was promised early release and was given a date, 10 December this year. But that day came and went and he was still in prison. It must be so hard living with a promise of freedom that has not been delivered. Thankfully I just heard last night that he has been released, hopefully free to join his wife and family in Canada.
Christmas is about the most important promise ever made and how that was delivered. God promised the ancient people of Israel that a special person would be born in their midst who would be the most important person ever. He would not only make an impact on Israel but on the whole world. His coming would be like a light shining in the darkness.
When he came, though, he wasn’t quite what was expected. He was born in an ordinary family and worked as a village carpenter. Things changed when he became a traveling preacher. He spoke about God and how people could get close to Him. He spoke about hope for this life if people could learn to put others first. He spoke about the renewal that God was seeking to bring to the whole earth.
It wasn’t the most spectacular life on the face of it but after he had been nailed to a cross and rose from the dead it was as if a force awakened that changed the whole face of human history. He had promised that the Spirit of God would come and live in all his followers. He had promised that a day would come when his love and justice and peace would triumph over the darkness in human experience.
I call this God’s Great Project. It is sometimes hard to believe that it is going forward when you see the cruelty and injustice that bites into people’s experience. The world can be a dark place. But one of Jesus’ followers once wrote: ‘The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never overcome it.’ I believe we can go forward with that great hope in our hearts.
