People love the decorations and lights of Christmas – especially in cities like New York. They might even enjoy Handel’s Messiah or a Service of Lessons and Carols. But how often do we hear: ‘We know it isn’t true.’ Why then, if it is not true, do we continue to give gifts at Christmas? Is it because it is still the cultural thing to do? And, certainly the economy benefits.
Historicity. Is it all a myth that an angel announced the birth of God’s Messiah, our Savior, to shepherds? In Luke 2:10-12 we read, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you; you will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger”.
GK Chesterton once remarked, ‘Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction; for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it’.
And Dr. Edwin Judge, Emeritus Professor of Ancient History, Macquarie University, NSW, says: ‘An ancient historian has no problem seeing the phenomenon of Jesus as a historical one. His many surprising aspects only help anchor him in history. Myth or legend would have created a more predictable figure. The writings that sprang up about Jesus also reveal to us a movement of thought and an experience of life so unusual that something much more substantial than the imagination is needed to explain it’ (quoted in Paul Barnett, The Truth about Jesus, Aquila: 1994).
Eyewitnesses. We weren’t there that night, but we have the record of the shepherds – who, in response to the supernatural visitation, said: “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger… (Luke 2:15b-16).
Research. Like them we need to find out for ourselves whether this baby is as special as those eyewitnesses declared. It means carrying out our own investigation. It’s also worth encouraging family and friends to do the same. You might consider giving them a gift of Luke’s Gospel to read. Or, if that is too upfront, there’s Paul Barnett’s recent book, A Short Book About Jesus: The Man from Heaven, Aquila: 2015 (Available in e-book at: https://cepstore.co/products/a-short-book-about-jesus-ebook)
As a side-note, the Anglican Connection website has Three Modules entitled, ‘God’s Passion & the Unfinished Task’. They are drawn from seminars I have been giving in cities this year. Here is the link: https://anglicanconnection.com/outreach-christmas-beyond/
Application. To return to my earlier question about why we give gifts at Christmas, Paul the Apostle uses God’s generous gift of His Son to encourage our own generosity towards others. In 2 Corinthians 8:9 we read: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
Paul speaks of the pre-existence of Christ – he was rich. Throughout eternity he enjoyed the majestic glory of heaven. Paul then speaks of the birth of Christ – he became poor. He took to himself something that he had never known: poverty. Third, Paul explains the mystery of Christ’s extraordinary act of grace: ‘that through his poverty we all might become rich’.
The elegant simplicity of Paul’s sentence is profound. It was for our sake that Christ was willing to accept this humiliation. Through his lowly birth in Bethlehem, he came to enrich us forever.
Paul’s one verse lifts our eyes to the sheer generosity of Christ. When we begin to understand that this is what Christmas is about, we cannot help but be generous ourselves. Christmas is a time for giving. For it is a season in the year when together we can emulate, no matter how feebly, the unspeakable generosity of God’s gift.
It is helpful to remind ourselves of the story the 4th-century bishop, Nicholas of Myra, Turkey. One Christmas he looked for a practical way to express his gratitude to God for the gift of Jesus. He went to an impoverished area of the city, carrying a sack on his back. When he knocked on the doors of houses he was often greeted by poorly clad children. Opening his pack he gave them warm clothing before disappearing to his own home. The bishop was Nicholas of Myra.
While the story of Nicholas is thoroughly commercialized today, we can still learn from it. For when we feel in our own hearts the depth of God’s love for us in Jesus, we too will want to express our gratitude in being generous ourselves – and not just at Christmas. But Christmas does give us an opportunity to celebrate this wondrous joy together.
Eternity. Some years ago I made reference to the Sydney-born Arthur Stace. Born in poverty to alcoholic parents, he had little education and became a petty criminal, an alcoholic and homeless. In the aftermath of World War II, he joined the lines outside a church that provided food and shelter for the homeless. But all who were fed also heard a sermon! It was through this ministry that Arthur Stace became a committed Christian.
One night he heard a sermon on the text of Isaiah 57:15: For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits Eternity, whose name is Holy; “I dwell in the high and holy place, with also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
The preacher stressed the point: “Eternity, Eternity, I wish that I could sound or shout that word to everyone in the streets of Sydney. You’ve got to meet it, where will you spend Eternity?”
Compelled by this exhortation, Stace, though almost illiterate, started writing in chalk in the early hours of the morning on the streets of Sydney the one word, ‘Eternity’. Written in a distinctive copperplate script, it is reckoned he wrote Eternity over 500,000 times. Eternitybecame the mystery and fascination of Sydney. My wife and I both remember seeing the word Eternity chalked on the side-walk at street corners in the city.
The word eternity awakens our minds to a larger picture of life and meaning – to a ‘time without end;’ to ‘another world;’ to ‘perfection;’ to ‘God’s Country’. From cover to cover the Bible tells us that the world is going somewhere and that the final outcome will be the coming of the Christ in power and great glory, to establish God’s kingdom and a new heaven and a new earth. Eternity will become a reality.
The Book of Ecclesiastes tells us that God has put the sense of eternity into each one of us (3:11). Indeed, deep down most people throughout the world have a sense there will be life beyond the grave.
In the New Testament Jesus gives us assurance of this. On the night of his betrayal and arrest he comforted his disciples: Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:1-2).
In our troubled, uncertain and divided world where there are so many voices, we easily forget that God’s great plan is to open up the possibility of life with him in all its beauty and joy forever. The Season of Advent reminds us that because Christ has come, has died and been raised to life, we can be assured of his promise that he will come again and take us to be with him.
Scoffers. Amongst the verbal noise of today are the scoffers, who talk down the Christian hope of eternity as nonsense, a fairy tale for children. Such opposition is not new. In 2 Peter 3:2 we read: First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation !”
It seems that in Peter’s day God’s people were regarded as crazy because they believed that Jesus of Nazareth not only died and rose again but would return one day as God’s King. Certainly, the idea of Christ bursting through the skies in a blazing display of power and glory, is not an idea that anyone can easily accept. And if it was hard to believe in the first century, it is much harder for us to believe after some twenty centuries have come and gone.
But consider Peter’s words: This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you; in them I am trying to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you that you should remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken through your apostles (2 Peter 3:1).
In Peter’s day, as today, it was in the interest of the false teachers to ignore the idea of Jesus’ return because they wanted to retain their selfish and licentious lifestyle. If we want to live our lives our way, the last thing we want to think about is God’s coming judgment. But 2 Peter 3 is insistent: the day will come when Jesus will return in all his power and glory as judge of us all.
Peter’s reference to the prophets and apostles is of fundamental importance. Our authority for our response to the skepticism around us is the Bible. Sadly, there are some theologians and church leaders who want to deny the second coming of Christ. But the fact is that the Bible leaves us in no doubt about the return of the Christ.
In the story of Arthur Stace we have a remarkable illustration of the power of God’s gospel to touch and transform lives. It was nothing short of a miracle that his life was changed and that he became committed to getting the essence of God’s gospel out to Sydney. The message from one insignificant man reached the world – for on New Year’s Eve at the start of the 21st century, his one word was emblazoned across Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Will you join me in praying that all of us will use the gospel opportunities we have, especially over the Advent and Christmas seasons?
You may want to check out 3 Modules re ‘Outreach’ on the Anglican Connection website. The Modules have been drawn from seminars I have been giving in various cities this year. Here is the link: https://anglicanconnection.com/outreach-christmas-beyond/
With concerns abounding over governments in the western world – concerns that spring from divisions in the wider community and divisions and disloyalty in the body politic – we might wonder what the future might hold.
Psalm 146:3 says: Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs he returns to the earth;… How appropriate is this warning. Those with influence and power will never have the perfect answers to our deepest concerns, our security and our future.
The psalm speaks of the mortality of princes. A deeper layer of the theme is found in Isaiah 32:5 which says that the fool, one who denies God, will no more be called noble. And there is an even more sombre meaning, drawn from God’s words to Adam in Genesis 3:19: “… You shall return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. It is all rather depressing.
But the warning comes in the context of a big picture about God. For Psalm 146 is the first of the cluster of five psalms that conclude The Book of Psalms. Each of these psalms opens and closes with one Hebrew word: Hallelujah.
Hallelujah brings together two Hebrew words: Hallel a verb meaning praise, and Jah which is a contraction of the word for God – Jehovah or Yahweh. Put together they are a command: ‘Praise the Lord’.
This is the context of Psalm 146’s warning. No matter how powerful or how rich, how impressive or influential someone might be, they are still only human. The paths of human power and glory always lead to the grave. Despite the passing of the centuries Psalm 146 has lost none of its relevance. Only one person is worthy of our unconditional trust: the Lord God Almighty.
Which brings us to the second theme of the Psalm: Blessing.
In verse 5 we read: Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God,… We put our trust in the God of good news.
And as the psalm continues to unfold, the focus is on God as creator, his faithfulness and his justice, his love and his commitment to give life and hope.
The notion of a creator God is aggressively dismissed today on social media and by opinion-shapers. Yet, some of the finest scientific minds are agreed that at the very least, we are not here by chance. The universe is the work of a supreme intelligence.
(You may want to read Henry F. Schaefer III, Science and Christianity: Conflict or Coherence (Apollos Trust: 2003) and John C. Lennox, God and Stephen Hawking (Lion, Oxford: 2011).)
Furthermore, God is the God of good news. In verses 7 and 8 we read: …who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free;.. He opens the eyes of the blind. He lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The oppressed, the hungry, the prisoners, the blind, and the righteous, as well as the sojourners or immigrants, the widow and the fatherless (verse 9), are the recipients of God’s help.
The flow of the sentence tells us that these are not different groups of people, but the same people. They are descriptions of the people of God as a whole. The righteous are those who are righteous by faith. They don’t put their trust in princes. They put their trust in the God who is faithful, the God who has good news to offer, the God of the gospel.
Now the psalmist is not saying that there is no place for human agencies. That’s not his point. The question he is asking is this, ‘Where do you put your trust – in human princes or in God?’
As we consider these words today we have even more reason to be confident in the God of whom the Psalm speaks, for we live on the other side of the birth of a baby whose name is Jesus. This baby grew up to reveal the power and authority we normally associate with divinity. He is the man from heaven. And even when he was struck down to die the most unjust of deaths, the chains of death could not hold him. Indeed, through his resurrection, we have the authentication of the words of the Psalm and the Bible as a whole.
When we open our minds and hearts to God, whose beauty and love are now perfectly revealed for us in this Jesus Christ, God’s eternal Son, we will find Hallelujah will rise to our lips, again and again. We will find that whatever our song of experience was in the past, it can now finish with Hallelujah, the heartfelt song of praise, of hope and of joy, to the one true God.
In the words of Psalm 146:10 – The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord!
And now that the Lord Jesus Christ has come we can truly sing: And he shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Tomorrow Americans everywhere celebrate Thanksgiving. The first official Thanksgiving, held in December 1777, followed a Congressional Proclamation that in part reads: “That with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor; and that together with their sincere acknowledgments and offerings, they may join the penitent confession of their manifold sins,…” Thanksgiving and penitence.
‘Thanksgiving’ has a rich meaning within Christianity – not least within the Book of Psalms. In Psalm 107 (the first psalm in Book V) we read: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! God is not just the great sovereign Lord. He is altogether good.
Four scenes dominate the center of the psalm. It is a celebration of the return of God’s people to Jerusalem in the 6th century BC, after the years of exile in Babylon. And while each scene portrays Israel’s experience and God’s intervention, they are analogous to realities experienced by all men and women, and also God’s acts of mercy.
Lostness. In 586BC Nebuchadnezzar’s army had destroyed Jerusalem and razed Solomon’s great temple to the ground. Dazed, wandering and lost, they hungered for the embrace of God’s love. Like the prodigal in Jesus’ parable, they came to their senses and in penitencecried to the Lord.God in his mercy delivered them. Miraculously, against all historical odds, through the decree of Cyrus in 520BC, God opened the way for their return to Jerusalem.
It is analogous for some in the West today who, though they may have rejected the notion of God’s existence, finding themselves in a world that has lost its way, turn to God with a cry for help. Psalm 107 suggests that God in his mercy can use our distress to awaken us to the real cause of the mess the world is in. It’s not simply because one group has used their position and privilege to abuse and oppress others. It is because we all have an evil propensity within us.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote: ‘If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?’
Captivity.Darkness, the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons portray a further aspect of Israel’s exilic experience. It is also a metaphor for our fallen state. Refusing to acknowledge God and learn from him, humanity prides itself in its wisdom and its ways: They had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High (Psalm 107:11).
Malcolm Muggeridge wrote that men and women are …imprisoned in a tiny dark dungeon of the ego, which involves us in the pitiless servitude of the senses. So, imprisoned and enslaved, we are cut off from God and from the light of his love. In our narcissism, hate becomes more dominant than love.
The great news of Psalm 107:14 is: God brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart… The even greater news is that through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we learn that God’s nature is always to have mercy and that his passion is to rescue and restore us. In the words of Psalm 107:15: Let us (them) thank the Lord for his steadfast love, …
Sickness. A further scene portrays a self-inflicted sickness, because perversely, people refused to learn from the wisdom of God. An example today could be drug-addiction. In our foolishness we turn our backs on the God who is there. But again, when men and women turn to God asking him for help, he not only hears but responds: He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction (Psalm 107:20). God is willing to love and to serve the unlovely – even at great cost to himself.
Storm-tossed. The fourth scene portraying the plight of God’s ancient people, and humanity’s, shows our smallness in the face of the huge forces of nature – the power of the winds and seas, and the seismological shifts of the earth. Derek Kidner comments: ‘we live by permission, not by good management’ (Psalms, 73-150, p.386). Once more the people of Psalm 107(:28-29) cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. Furthermore, he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Reading these words we share the astonishment of Jesus’ disciples when, at a word, he stilled the wind and the tempest of the waters on Lake Galilee. ‘Who then is this?’ they asked (Luke 8:24-25).
Psalm 107 concludes with illustrations highlighting God’s majestic power and justice. The desert and the farmland (vv.33-38), point us metaphorically to God’s inward and outward blessing – and our need for a humble and contrite heart. The psalm concludes focusing our attention on God. It is he who raises up the needy out of affliction and makes their families like flocks. The upright see it and are glad, and all wickedness shuts its mouth. Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord (Psalm 107:41-43).
Thanksgiving calls for our repentance and our heartfelt gratitude to the wonderful God who in his love claims us. Karl Barth said: Grace evokes gratitude like the voice of an echo. Gratitude follows grace like thunder lightning.
You may want to pray – A General Thanksgiving:Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give humble and hearty thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all people. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life. But above all for your amazing love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And we pray, give us that due sense of all your mercies, that our hearts may be truly thankful and that we may declare your praise not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving ourselves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen. (AAPB, 1978)
It is often said that there are two certainties in life – death and taxes. Psalm 90 speaks of a far greater certainty that Western society is rapidly overlooking – the everlasting God. Lord, you have been our dwelling placein all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God, the Psalm begins (90:1-2).
In the same way that Isaiah 40 paints a big picture of a majestic God, so in broad brush strokes verse 2 of the Psalm speaks of the magnificence of the Lord God: He is the everlasting One. Unlike his creation which is subject to constant change, God’s very being, his essence, remains the same throughout eternity.
Written by Moses, who is spoken of as ‘the Man of God’, Psalm 90 is possibly the oldest Psalm. A prayer for wisdom, the opening lines express an assurance that God has been the dwelling place for his people throughout all generations because he himself exists in eternity – he is from everlasting. As the psalm unfolds the significance of God being our dwelling place becomes clear: without God, we are truly without a sure home.
But God’s majestic eternal nature opens up three themes we need to consider: our transience, the depth of our broken relationship with God, and our need for mercy.
Transient. You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers (90:3-6).
Compared with God, from whose perspective a millennium is but a day, our life is brief. Like new grass we flourish one day and are gone the next. Yet ironically, we tend to live as though we will live for a thousand years.
John Calvin comments: ‘Although we are convinced from experience that men and women… are taken out of this world,… yet the knowledge of this frailty fails in making a deep impression upon our hearts , because we do not lift our eyes above the world’ (Calvin, Psalms).
Broken. The psalm seems to move abruptly to the theme of God’s justice and anger. But there is a logical flow – from the theme of God’s eternity to our all too brief life-span. Drawing from Genesis 2 and 3 Moses refers to the way we were designed as the glory of God’s handiwork and yet we became the shame of his creation. The shadow of death now hovers over us all (Genesis 3:19).
Verses 7 and 8 tell us: For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. Again, this is not said out of bitterness or anger: it is the reality. We have justly brought God’s condemnation upon us. So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom, must be our prayer (verse 12).
Within us all, there is an awareness of eternity. Augustine, the 5th C Bishop of Hippo said, “God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.”
Mercy. The concluding verses become a prayer for God’s mercy. With a boldness that reflects the opening line of the Psalm, Lord, you have been our dwelling placein all generations, Moses prays that God will reverse our situation. In verse 3 he had echoed God’s words to humanity: You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” Now his prayer is that God will turn back (return) in mercy towards us so that we might live (verses 13-17).
Acknowledging the reality that life is not easy for anyone, Moses boldly prays for a reversal of life’s experience in verses 14 and 15: Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.
The New Testament reveals how God has opened a further dimension in answer to this prayer. In 2 Corinthians 4:17 we read: …This slight momentary affliction is preparing us for aneternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17). Outwardly we experience pain and suffering now, but inwardly, through the Holy Spirit working within us, we begin to taste the glory and joy of eternal life.
The unbelieving world whose eyes are glued to the material things of life, will not understand how God’s people cope with life. But God’s people press on because we have the power of Jesus’ resurrection at work within us. We see that the troubles of this world are like a drop in the bucket compared with the greatness of the glory to be revealed.
Moses’ prayer concludes: Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands! (Psalm 90:16-17). Certainty. We have it in Christ the Lord.
