Still Quarrying: Emmanuel.

 

My first Christmas as the minister of St Paul’s took place in the shadow of the Lockerbie bombing.  On 21 December 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb that had been planted with the loss of 270 lives on board and on the ground.   It affected our congregation since we had a number of police officers whose Christmas leave was cancelled as every resource available was channelled to the stricken town.   

As I was preparing for the Watchnight service I was sure that the atrocity would be much in the minds of those who gathered.  In those days we could depend on a pack-out.  The challenge then was to speak some Biblical truth into the horror that had cast such a shadow on our Christmas preparations.  The cry was often heard that this was just the worst time of year for something like this to happen.  But if we focus on the truth that lies at the heart of Christmas then there is encouragement and hope.  People celebrate Christmas in their own way and they should be free to do so.  But if it is a celebration of the birth of the Son of God then that powerful truth can speak to us in the midst of our worst experiences.  

We need to take time to revisit this devotionally.  If Christmas is to mean anything to me then it is an opportunity to reflect on a God who became one of us and in His human life and death experienced physical pain as well as psychological disturbance, spiritual abandonment and the annihilation of death.  His life among us is the fulfilment of the ancient prophesy which said that he would be ‘Emmanuel’, God is with us.   With us to the end.  Not that it was the end.  His resurrection showed that the darkness of pain and death does not have the last word.   Paul was to say that the resurrection is ‘the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised.’  (1 Corinthians 15: 20 GNB).   It is in light of the resurrection that we have to view everything in our experience that threatens to take us apart physically, psychologically and spiritually.   In that light we can view the birth of Jesus as a new beginning for humanity, showing that God is with us, and even in the midst of the worst human tragedy is working towards the day when nothing that has ever made us cry will be part of our experience.  

This is not an easy message to preach.  I have always been conscious of the view that it is easy to stand in a pulpit and say things but not so easy to live it out.  (Actually, it is never easy to stand in a pulpit!)   But in the end a preacher has to preach the God he or she knows, the God the apostles knew, the God who was not defeated by the worst that humanity could throw at Him, but continued to move towards the final redemption of Creation, evacuated of everything that was an affront to Him and a source of pain to the humankind He loved.  

This is what Paul was given to understand as he unpacked the truth of God with us.  In Romans 8: 31-37 he reflects on the worst things that could ever break into human experience, much of it he himself had gone through.  He recognises the power of these worst things.  They threaten to separate us from the love of Christ.  But the reality of his coming amongst us, God in a human personality, is the ultimate assurance that his love is not extinguished by ‘trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or  danger or sword.’  (Romans 8: 35).   

It was a tradition in the St Paul’s Watchnight service that the lights were dimmed before the Word was preached.  That in itself was a powerful symbol on Christmas Eve 1988.  Light in the darkness.  And a spotlight lit up the cross behind the Lord’s Table.  A reminder of the purpose of Jesus’ coming, to give Himself to show that in the eyes of God humankind had a future where sins could be forgiven, where lives could be shaped according to the pattern of His life, where a Kingdom awaited its time when the Risen Jesus would announce ‘I am making everything new!’  (Revelation 21: 5). 

There is hope that can be preached in the face of every human tragedy if we preach the reality of God with us.  But it doesn’t stop there.  The apostles held out the love of Christ as a comfort, encouragement and inspiration but also as a human aspiration.   As we reflect on the meaning of the Season it falls to every believer to reach out in compassion to those who feel consumed by the darkness of human experience.  Paul’s hymn of praise to the Son of God ‘who made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant’ and became ‘obedient to death - even death on a cross’  - begins with the challenge: ‘In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.’  (Philippians 2: 5-11.). 

‘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.’ 

Still Quarrying: When Faith Wobbles.

Reading Christian biographies can sometimes be an intimidating experience.  The impression can be given that there is a group of people within he Church for whom spiritual weakness and moral failure are alien experiences.  Their depth of faith highlights our shallowness.  Their use of time exposes how much we waste.  Their patience, kindness, compassion and tolerance reveals how far we fall short.  There are exceptions to this.  There are Christian biographies  that are honest enough to show that in the life of their subject there were struggles, failure, perhaps even loss of faith but in the grace of God the burden was carried and the cause of the Kingdom progressed.  An example of this is Winn Collier’s biography of Eugene Petersen,  A Burning In My Bones.  But we don’t have to look too far in the Bible to see that even the best witnesses to the faith have their worst of times.  

The third Sunday in Advent is traditionally a time to focus on the life and ministry of John the Baptist.  His whole life was geared towards preparing Israel for the coming of the Messiah.  As he baptised Jesus he was given insight into His life and ministry.  (John 1: 32-34).  He proclaimed Jesus as the ‘lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’  (John 1: 29).  He encouraged his own followers to become part of the community that was gathering around Jesus.  (John 3: 27-31).  And yet there was a moment when spiritually John the Baptist hit the wall.  

John was imprisoned for criticising King Herod and his departure from God’s ways. The future looked bad for him so it would not be going too far to say that a darkness may have decended on his soul.  In the loneliness of his cell with all the opportunity for reflection this afforded he began to have doubts.  Was this the way things were meant to be when the Messiah came?  The Messiah was supposed to bring in the Kingdom of God as the ancient prophets foretold.  It was difficult to see this in the low moral temperature of the nation and the way he was being treated for standing up for the values of the Kingdom.  The Kingdom seemed as far away as ever.  Was Jesus really the Messiah? John had to know so a group of his followers were sent to confront Jesus and to ask him: ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’  (Matthew 11: 3)

Jesus reply is reassuring to John but also challenging.  There may be moral darkness in the land.  Good people are being made to suffer for living according to God’s values but:

‘The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.’   (Matthew 11: 4-5)

To paraphrase Karl Barth,  little lights are reflecting the Great Light.  There is evidence of the Kingdom in the ministry of Jesus.  The Kingdom is happening.  But Jesus doesn’t leave it there.  His final word to John is:

‘Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.’  (Matthew 11: 6)

Jesus takes time to reassure John but makes it clear that the way forward for him is not doubt but faith.  This was always Jesus emphasis to those who would follow Him.  They are called to believe in Him.  Doubt may come but it is not an end in itself.  This is why Jesus does not give up on John as his faith shows the strain.  Indeed Jesus uses this moment to declare John the model citizen of the Kingdom to whose humility we are all called to aspire:

‘Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.’  (Matthew 11: 11)

John’s story tells us that while faith has its wobbles that should never be the end.   Advent, if it has any meaning, is a time for self-reflection.  As Jesus once came to the earth as a baby so in God’s plan He will come again as the Lord of the Universe.  It will be a day of judgement when all will be called to account for their lives.  That inevitably drives us to consider the many ways that we have fallen short of the pattern of Jesus’ life.  But what the Gospels reveal is that more than anything else the life of the believer is shaped by how deeply he/she trusts in Him.  Is He who He claimed to be?  What is the effect on my life of His death on the cross?  Is His resurrection the guarantee that all those who sleep in death will also be raised?  Do we believe that despite the pains that wrack the Universe Jesus will come again to deliver a New Creation?

Let our prayer be that by the end of Advent 2022 there will be a people renewed in their faith, closer to Jesus, confident in His promises, clear with regard to our destiny in Him.

Still Quarrying: Sharing The Word.

People are called ‘prophets’  these days when they speak out about things they believe are wrong and need to be changed.  Stand-up comedians are sometimes draped with the mantel and so you will find people like Russell Brand appearing on ‘Question Time.’   In his latest book Keep Talking David Dimbleby, former chairman of QT,  avers that this in general is a good thing because it shows that significant opinion does not belong exclusively to an elite group of politicians, economists and pundits.   

Fair enough.  But this term ‘prophet’ as popularly  used is a bit different from the prophets we encounter in Scripture.  They were people who in times of crisis in the nation of Israel received a message from God which they in turn shared with the nation.  This was based on God’s blueprint for living as received in the Law supremely revealed in the Ten Commandments, the departure from which had caused crisis in the nation.   There can be no turning away from eternal values and expect no consequences.  The prophets received the Word of God in different circumstances but were confident enough of the message to introduce it with the words: ‘Thus says the Lord . . .’  What follows is not something dreamed up by the prophet or the offering of an opinion.  This was a message from God.

It is these people we remember in the second Sunday in Advent and the days following.  We began Advent remembering the community of Israel and their faithful waiting for the Messiah to be revealed.  Emerging from that community the prophets pointed forward to that day and the impact this would have on Israel and the world.  The apostles experienced signs of the Kingdom in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus They preached  His promise of the fulfilment of His Kingdom when he came again, not this time as a baby in a small town in a small nation but as the Lord of the Universe.  

Advent is a reminder to us that what sets the Church apart is not philanthropy or political engagement but her message.  The Word faithfully preached has Jesus at the centre, the Way, the Truth and the Life, who was, and is, and is to come.