THINKING ABOUT THE NEW YEAR

Well, the New Year has come! We have welcomed it in, largely with food, fizz and fireworks, and offered good wishes.


January 1st is, however, very much a rootless occasion. That is to say it is not grounded on any substantial event or memory. The date has no inherent message. Christmas is rather different since Christmas is rooted in the celebration of the birth of the Son of God and the offer of human salvation. The Jewish New Year as it is presented in the Old Testament is also full of meaning. The first month of the Jewish calendar (Abib) was set aside by God to mark the deliverance of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt and it included the Feast of Passover. Thus for the Jew the New Year was a memorial of deliverance, of a new freedom and of an assurance that God was their God and would be with them. It spoke of hope.

The Church of England calendar marks January 1st with the Circumcision of Jesus since, as was customary, that ceremony took place eight days after Jesus’ birth. It is not intended as a “New Year” event, and those who are aware of such a festival are an infinitesimal few, even in the church!


The Anglican calendar does not start, however, on January 1st. It actually starts several weeks before Christmas, and it starts with the season of Advent. Advent is the real start of the church year. That can be seen by a quick glance at the Anglican Prayer Book. And when we look at the message of Advent we really do have something substantial with which to begin a New Year!

“Advent” means “Coming” and the message of Advent is simply “Get yourself ready for the coming of the Lord” and “Put your hope in Him”. That is a great attitude, a very positive attitude to adopt as we gather ourselves together and face the uncertainties of the future.

The opening prayer on the first Sunday in Advent goes directly to our fundamental need: “Give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light”. These words are a direct quotation from Romans 13 which is one of the set readings which follow the prayer. Thus we are reminded that at the beginning of the “liturgical” year it is time to take stock of our lifestyle. We dare not go into an unknown future without the cloak of righteousness. If God should come in judgements (as seems all too likely) then only the cloak of righteousness will mark us out and bring us his sparing grace. So “Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but putting on the Lord Jesus Christ”. These are deep, serious resolutions made with a recognition in mind of the enabling grace of God.

The opening prayer of the second Sunday in Advent prays that “we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life” through the diligent reading of the Scriptures. That will be an incredibly important mindset for the increasing numbers of those facing persecution in this coming year, as well as those facing the deepest challenges of life. The foundation of true hope is always in the promises of a faithful God.

It’s all rather more sobering and strengthening than a bottle of Champagne!


Bob



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THE ANGELS’ LOVE SONG

“Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man at war with man hears not
The love song which they bring;
O hush the noise, you men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!”

The verse quoted above comes from the carol, “It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old …” It’s a carol which speaks in every verse about the presence of angels at the birth of Jesus and what they sang, namely a love song. It’s beautiful to read as well as to sing. (if you want carols to come fresh to you, try simply reading them, pondering as you do)

Apart from anything else, I am thrilled with its acceptance of the “full on” testimony of Luke to the major manifestation of angels at the birth of Jesus. It’s inconceivable to me that this tiny baby into which God poured himself would have been born without the glory of the presence of angels. They were there to announce and they were there to protect, exercising their two wonderful ministries to humanity, which humanity the Word had now taken upon himself. No, they could not possibly be missing, and neither could they have been been anything less than a great multitude in number! Heaven itself was giving witness to the Son of God in the manger. This was a stage and a spectacle where heaven must break through and be seen.

This was no fairy story, but a massive revelation of the supernatural world to which we remain too often desperately blind and which we find difficult to grasp. The Christmas story has many challenges but the challenge to press beyond what we see in this world and to recognise a supernatural world is one of its biggest. We really must press through in our spirituality into the glorious things that are just beyond our humanity, yet for which we are bound. A revelation of the supernatural is imperative for the depth and wellbeing of our faith.

The song of the angels was a love song, which the carol makes abundantly clear. Their song enshrines an offer of peace, goodwill and joy to all mankind. The offer is given not just in words, but incarnate in a human person, a Saviour who will give to humanity the peace which it simply cannot find for itself. Here, in Jesus, is the love gift of which the song speaks. It is a song which is still being sung. He and his salvation is a gift for all, free and life-changing.

The saddest and most poignant part of the carol is the verse I quoted at the beginning. It tells us that “man at war with man hears not the love song ….”. E.H. Shears, the author, wrote that verse about a century and a half ago, and the sentiment remains true today. One can feel his aching heart beat as he pens the words, “O hush the noise you men of strife and hear the angels song”; a sad heart beat, but one we need to take up at Christmas in prayer.

Yet in the midst of our dismay at so much human futility, I pray that the reality of the peace and joy and the wonderful supernatural power of our God in Jesus may bring you that same sense of deep wonder which the angels’ song brought all those years ago. That’s what Christmas should bring us – a deep sense of spiritual wonder.


Bob



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CHRISTMAS and THE POWER OF PROPHECY

Advent and Christmas are seasons which are magnificently full of prophecy. The prophet was literally a “mouthpiece”, a mouthpiece for the voice of God, and, as Amos so pointedly stated, his importance lies in the fact that “Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). Thus the purposes and plans of God are to be found in the prophecies of Scripture, and nowhere is this truth more evident than in prophecies of the coming of Jesus.

I have little doubt that virtually every church this Christmas will hear the prophetic words, “For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given … And he will called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his rule and peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:6-7). These words were written several centuries before Jesus was born, words drawn out of the heart of Isaiah the prophet by the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit and looking to a future long off. Though so few in number these words encapsulate precisely what was to happen in the birth of Jesus. A child would be born by the normal birth process, he would become a ruler and he would carry the names and descriptions that belonged to God himself, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. Prophecy frequently merges with the poetic and here in an extraordinary poetic way the vital truth of incarnation is captured. I think myself that the poetic capture of so profound a mystery is worth considerably more than overmuch theological dissection. Certainly the Christian church did not have to invent the idea of incarnation – it’s there, loud and clear, in the prophets, announced centuries before it happened.

This prophetic utterance, magnificent in itself, nevertheless gains from the verses in Isaiah which precede it and which are also normally read at Christmas though not so readily understood; “In the future he will honour Galilee of the Gentiles…. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned … You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy.” It is a prophecy which speaks of the future of Galilee of the Gentiles. It describes that land as one of darkness and distress. This was certainly to be the case in Isaiah’s own era when it was overrun and destroyed by the merciless Assyrian armies and largely repopulated by gentiles, and it was to remain like that right up to the birth of Jesus, always looked down on by the Jews of Jerusalem as a place of spiritual darkness. But the prophecy does not stop there and goes on to say that Galilee would see a great light and resound to great joy.

Even more significant is the fact that the emergence of this great light and subsequent joy was directly connected with the human/divine child who was to be born since the exact words of Isaiah are, “the people who lived in darkness will see a great light FOR (because, on account of) to us a child is born”. The child would bring the light. What an extraordinary fulfilment of that prophecy took place when Jesus grew up and actually became that great light to (of all places) Galilee in his earthly ministry. If the land had been spiritually dark over several centuries it ceased to be so when Jesus walked its towns and villages with his preaching and miracles, and leaving in his wake profound joy and hope among so many people. The light of the kingdom had never shone so brightly before in such a needy place. How astonishing that Jesus actually had his home in Galilee (first Nazareth and then Capernaum) and that not a few of his apostles were Galileans. What a devastatingly accurate prophecy of God’s intentions.

I say that this earlier part of Isaiah adds to the prophecy of the birth simply because of the fact that if we should be tempted to believe that the idea of a human/divine incarnation might be a bit of poetic and imaginative fancy then the accuracy of the prophecy about the great light in Galilee brings us up sharply to recognise that this passage (which is one piece) is moving in the realms of provable reality. The very light shone by his teaching and his power, authority and miracle demand one who is uniquely from above even if he was born so humbly below.

We need always to remember with prophecy that it is given precisely so that our faith and understanding might be strengthened as we see it fulfilled. God speaks, and then he fulfils his words so that we might respond from our depths, “He really is there, and the whole world and its direction are in his hands”. So let's rejoice in the prophetic at this time of the year.


Bob




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