Christmas Day and Christmas 1 (25/29 December 2024)

24 December (Midnight) and 25 December (Morning) - commenting on one set of readings only

Theme                The best news ever       

Sentence             NZPB p. 555

Collect                 

Christmas Eve service: NZ PB p. 555 

Son of God, light that shines in the dark,

child of joy and peace,

help us to come to you

and be born anew this holy night.

                               

Christmas Day service: NZPB p. 556 

Son of God, Child of Mary

born in the stable at Bethlehem,

be born again in us this day

that through us the world may know

the wonder of your love.     

Readings                                             

Isaiah 9:2-7

Psalm 96

Titus 2:11-14

                        Luke 2:1-14

What kind of news drives the shepherds to leave their flocks in the middle of the night to race to a stable to worship a baby? To call the news 'good news' is accurate - that is the meaning of 'gospel' - but not very helpful. A better sense would be to call this news the 'best news ever.' All the good news in the world - the birth of a new baby, a promotion with massive pay rise, the All Blacks winning the World Cup three times in a row ("Come, 2019!!") [that didn't happen, by the way] - falls well short of the news which sets the shepherds racing to the stable. They hear the best news ever. We hear it too in our four readings. 

Isaiah, centuries ahead of the actual birth date of Jesus, celebrates the best king ever. The psalmist celebrates God as the best God ever and sneaks in a preview of God coming to earth. Paul writing to his friend and colleague Titus reminds him that what happened in the birth of Jesus was nothing less than the appearance of the generous, unconstrained love of God which brought salvation for all (v.11).

In Luke's gospel the angel announcing this best news ever says it is of 'great joy for all the people' (v. 10). There is that word 'all' again. What on earth could the best news ever be when it is best news for everyone?

Going back to Titus, Paul lays out this best news ever in terms of our relationship with God. What state is that relationship in for humanity? What state is that relationship in for you and for me? If all were well there would be no need for talk of salvation, for peace and goodwill. But all is not well. The relationship has been broken. Instead of peace there are wars between countries and bitter conflicts between individuals. Instead of prosperity for all there is a growing gap between rich and poor. Instead of sober, pure living we inhabit a world drenched with pornography and awash with liquor and drugs.

It is a wonder God has not washed his hands of us and left us to our own selfish devices. Or even wiped us from the face of the earth. That would be bad news. Instead we have the best news ever,

"For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.'

God is not deterred that we have rejected him and spurned his will for our lives. Instead God has entered our world, hiding his glory, taking on the ordinary life of a baby who will grow to be a man. That man will die on a cross a death which absorbs all the bad stuff so the rift between us and God can be healed. Only with that healing can the world itself be healed.

Each Christmas we pause to celebrate this gift from God full of possibility for a new world. The challenging edge to this message is, 

What we are going to do about it for the next 364 days! Something or nothing? 

Christmas 1 (Sunday 29 December 2024)

This could be celebrated as "St Stephen, the first Christian Martyr" or "Christmas 1". The readings etc below are for the latter.

Theme: I must be in my father's house

Sentence: Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour (Luke 2:52).

Collect:

Heavenly Father, tender and compassionate,
create in us, your family, love so true and deep
that in this broken world
we may be a sign of unity.

Readings:

1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26 Samuel was ministering before the Lord and grew in stature and favour with the Lord and with the people
Psalm 148 Praise the Lord!
Colossians 3:12-17 Clothe yourselves with Love and let the word of Christ dwell in you richly
Luke 2:41-52 Did you not know I must be in my Father's house?

There has never been a child which has not given its parents some moments of anxiety. But few children have caused their parents anxiety by remaining in church longer than their parents! Rather, it is, "Mum and Dad, stop talking to your friends, it's time to go home."

Jesus was clearly precocious. He not only had a striking devotion to being in his (heavenly) Father's house, he had an eager enquiring mind which sought out teachers, listened to what they taught and probed them with many questions.

Samuel, by contrast, took a role in devotion to God in the temple of his day due to his mother's striking commitment to God. In fervent prayer Hannah had pressed God to grant her a child, that prayer being answered, she now gave Samuel to the Lord, to be his temple servant. But something in Samuel's story catches Luke's attention: he draws on the impression Samuel made before God and the people to describe the impression Jesus made on God and the people (1 Samuel 2:26//Luke 2:52).

Our psalm overflows with praise to God. We could say it as part of our praise at Christmas time for the gift of Jesus Christ. We could also say it as an example of what constitutes the heart of temple worship, as experienced by Hannah and Samuel in one era and by Mary, Joseph and Jesus in another era: adoration of the Lord God of Israel.

Paul writing to the Christians in Colosse gives us a very rich or 'thick' passage: every verse yields a sermon (or two). Every verse is worth reading followed by a very long reflective pause. Do I understand that I am one of God's chosen ones, holy and beloved? If I understand that, have I clothed myself with compassion, kindness, etc? This is not some spiritual abstraction: with such 'clothing' we will bear with one another, forgive each other, doing so knowing we must because we are a forgiven people.

We could work through the remaining verses of the passage in this kind of slow way. Here we simply ask what connection we might find between this passage and the gospel reading? At least two connections spring to mind.

(1) When we let the word of Christ dwell in us richly (v. 16), that word is the teaching of Christ which is grounded in a deep knowledge of the scriptures of Israel.

(2) For Jesus the temple in Jerusalem was a place of worship and of learning. Praise and preaching go hand in hand. Here in Colossians, Paul's exhortation to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly is a both/and instruction as he goes on in the same verse to write, 'teach and admonish one another in all wisdom and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.'

Sunday 22 December 2024 - Advent 4

Theme                God’s kingdom fulfils all God’s promises              

Sentence             NZPB p. 553 

Collect                NZPB p. 554 

Praise and honour to you living God;

your coming will be like a thief in the night,

like lightning flashing across the sky.

Grant that we may be ready,

and our hearts answer, Come Lord Jesus.

                           

Readings                                             

Micah 5:2-5a

Psalm 80:1-7

Hebrews 10:5-10

                        Luke 1:39-45

There is a 'wow' factor when precise predictions are made which are later fulfilled.

Micah predicts that Bethlehem will be the place of origin of the future shepherd king of Israel. The psalmist, by contrast, is predicting nothing but crying out to God as the shepherd king of Israel, 'Stir up your might, and come to save us!' (v. 2b). His prayer is answered by Micah's prediction coming true according to the gospels of Matthew and Luke: both of which tell us the story of Jesus, the shepherd king of Israel, being born in Bethlehem.

The reading from Hebrews offers a different perspective on the role of Christ.

If Micah and Psalm readings lead us to think of Jesus Christ's role as shepherd king, this reading is about Christ as high priest. 

- As shepherd king, Christ leads Israel to become a great nation, with the twist that this greatness is expressed through a vast international movement of Christians rather than through a restored militarily and politically independent country. 

- As high priest Christ transforms the internal spiritual centre of Israel: no longer is it the Jerusalem Temple and the sacrificial system anchored to it, now it is Jesus Christ himself. The connection point (according to Hebrews 10:10) in this unfolding sequence from prayer to prediction, from prediction to fulfilment, from one way of being God's people to another way is 'God's will.'

God's will would be nothing at all if it were words predicting a future course of events which never came true. Luke's gospel from beginning to end is enthusiastic about God's will coming true, about the promises of God being fulfilled. Sometimes Luke demonstrates for us that Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of ancient prophecies. Other times Luke show us that a promise or forecast at the beginning of Jesus' story is fulfilled later in that story.

The end of our gospel reading takes us straight to this enthusiasm of Luke: Elizabeth, a kinswoman of Mary, herself pregnant with an unexpected yet promised child, celebrates Mary's pregnancy: it is a fulfilment of a promise made to Mary and she is to be blessed because she believed that promise. In these and other ways through the gospel, Luke hammers home to his readers the simple point, What God promises, he fulfils; what God wills, comes to pass.

Our gospel reading stops short of Mary's famous song which we know as the Magnificat. That song is the national anthem (as it were) of the kingdom of God: in this kingdom the shepherd king acts to answer the prayer of the psalmist in Psalm 80, 

'He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy' (1:54). 

But if our eyes continue to read through the whole of the gospel we find that through the coming of the baby born in Bethlehem, this kingdom is the fulfilment of all God's promises.

Sunday 15 December 2024 - Advent 3

Theme(s): Facing judgment through repentance and without anxiety / Judgment / Repentance / Rejoicing in the Lord / The Unsurpassed Peace of God / Sorting the Wheat from the Chaff.

Sentence: Bear fruits worthy of repentance (Luke 3:8)

Collect:

God our strength and our hope,
grant us the courage of John the Baptist,
constantly to speak the truth,
boldly to rebuke vice
and patiently to suffer for the truth's sake;
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Readings:

Zephaniah 3:14-20
Psalm = Isaiah 12:2-6
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18

Comments:

Zephaniah 3:14-20

We are not often in Zephaniah in the three year RCL so let's make the most of it!

Background: Zephaniah is the 9th of 12 "minor prophets", the last twelve books of the Hebrew Old Testament.

Zephaniah prophesies in the time of the reign of Josiah, reforming king of Judah (d. 609 BCE), in the period between the exile by the Assyrians of the northern kingdom of ISrael/Samaria/Ephraim and the exile by the Babylonians of the southern kingdom of Judah.

Zephaniah accuses Judah of idolatry (1:4-7) and its officials and princes of dressing themselves "in foreign attire" (1:8). The "day of the Lord is at hand" (1:7) so Judah should listen and act accordingly.

Our passage, 3:14-20, looks beyond the day of judgment (15) to the salvation of "daughter Zion ... daughter Jerusalem" (3:14). This salvation includes the turning away of enemies (15), a renewed love relationship with the Lord (17), removal of disaster (18), dealing with oppressors (19), transformation of the lame and outcast (19) and restoration from exile (20). This last expectation may reflect a final editing of Zephaniah after the Exile of Judah (597/587 BC).

From our perspective, i.e. today's gospel Luke 3:7-18, prophecies of this kind lie in the background to John's prophetic call to repentance in order to be ready for the Day of the Lord, a repentance which means a new way of living which anticipates the new situation of God's people as God brings salvation through Christ.

Psalm = Isaiah 12:2-6

In these weeks of Advent we are making our way through Isaianic visions of restoration (here: see references to "salvation", 2, 3) at the end of all things ("in that day", 3).

The mood is one of peace or calmness that comes from knowing all will be well: "Surely, God is my salvation; I will trust and will not be afraid ... With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation", 2-3).

The action is giving thanks and praise: this God who can be trusted, who brings salvation, therefore let us "make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted", 3).

Philippians 4:4-7

In keeping with the thoughts expressed above about the Isaiah reading, Paul expresses sentiments of joy ("Rejoice ... Rejoice",4), non-anxiety (6), and confidence in God's unsurpassed peace (7).

We could also say, in keeping with thoughts expressed through these Advent readings, of trials and tribulation before the Second Coming of Christ, of preparation for the coming of Christ in the ministry of John, and (today) of preparation for judgment through repentance and change, that Paul says some things which encourage us, especially if we are tempted to be anxious and fearful.

Do not be afraid, implies Paul, as he encourages us to "Rejoice in the Lord always" (note this is not generally "grin and bear it" but "confident of who the Lord is, and of the Lord's love for us, rejoice!"). Further, we are to live in gentleness (and not the anger which comes from insecurity), to not worry about anything (again, not a "stiff upper lip, grin and bear, nothing worries me" but an "I am not worried because I have taken all possible concerns to the Lord in prayer").

Above all, Paul says, when we are aligned with God through our prayers, we will find the Lord gives his peace, unsurpassed peace and that, most importantly, as we face the future "will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus".

Luke 3:7-18

If we read this passage feeling comfortable and self-satisfied then perhaps we have not actually understood the passage! 

John attacks the crowd who have come to hear him speak. He strays a long way from the guidance I would give in a Preaching 101 class on congregational rapport between preacher and people.

"You brood of vipers" is not a chapter heading in How to Win Friends and Influence People. This vigorous message actually has a positive effect. After slam-dunking the crowd with a "You must repent NOW to avoid imminent judgment and, by the way, do not rely on your ancestry to see you through" message, they respond, "What then should we do?" (10, also 12, 14)

(That question, incidentally, is one every sermon should lead a congregation to ask of the God who speaks to them through their preacher.)

What the hearers should do is change their lifestyle. 

Sharing garments and food (11) is a new, communitarian way of life (as repeatedly encouraged through Luke and Acts). 

Tax collectors collecting tax (but no more than tax as prescribed by regulation) is a very new way of life for such agents of the Roman empire (13). 

Soldiers, seemingly underpaid, should stop extortion and learn contentment with what they have (14). 

What changes might we make to our lifestyles which demonstrate our readiness for judgment?

As the passage continues we get a sense that the crowd were as curious as to the (real) identity of John as they were to hear his invigorating message: 

"all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah" (15).

John, however,  denies that he is the Messiah and clarifies that his role is to be a signpost to the Messiah. John baptizes with water, the Messiah will baptize with the Holy Spirit (16).

Yet the Messiah will also be - relative to John and his message of judgment - a prophetic agent of God, sorting the wheat from the chaff (17). What a hearer of John would not have guessed from John's message about the Messiah sorting the wheat from the chaff is that this would not be through "action" so much as through "speech." Jesus will teach and preach a divisive message - divisive in the sense that people will accept/follow him or reject/conspire to kill him - and in this way the "wheat" (those who love God faithfully) will be separated from the "chaff" (those who are unfaithful to God).

Sunday 8 Decmber 2024 - Advent 2

Theme(s): John the Baptist / Purification / Completion of God's Work in Us

Sentence: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God (Isaiah 40:3)

Collect:

Praise and honour to you living God for John the Baptist,
and for all those voices crying in the wilderness
who prepare your way.
May we listen when a prophet speaks your word,
and obey with the strength of Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Readings:

Malachi 3:1-4
Psalm = Luke 1:68-79
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6

Comments:

The focus on "coming" this Sunday in Advent is on John the Baptist, the one who prepared for the coming of Jesus Christ to minister in Israel and to the world.

We have to be chronologically imaginative through these weeks. Last Sunday we focused on Christ's Second Coming (still in our future). This Sunday (Luke 3:1-6) and next (Luke 3:7-18) we are not so much preparing for the coming of Christ at his birth but for his coming (into adult ministry and mission) at his baptism (Luke 3:21).

Malachi 3:1-4

Malachi (which, incidentally, means "my messenger") foresees the Lord sending his messenger "to prepare the way before me [i.e. the Lord]" (1).

In the Gospel of Mark (noted below) this messenger is identified as John the Baptist. Later in Malachi, 4:5-6 this messenger is identified as Elijah, an identification unsurprisingly made also in the gospels (Matthew 11:10; Luke 1:17; 7:27). A little confusingly some also think that Jesus is Elijah come again (e.g. Matthew 16:14). But that sense of multiple identification is a tribute to both Elijah as a "refining" prophet par excellence and to the "refining" work of both John and Jesus.

Malachi sees the one who prepares the way of the Lord as "like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; ... and purifier of silver" (2b-3). John's message (as we will see next Sunday) was a no holds barred, get your life sorted out message. Jesus was no less compromising when he preached. "Fullers' soap" refers to an agent used in the making of cloth which cleansed and whitening the material.

For Malachi this purification of Israel ("the descendants of Levi", 3; "Judah and Jerusalem", 4) will enable righteous offerings which are (finally) pleasing to the Lord (3-4). Later, Christians will understand that the (so to speak) combined efforts of John the Baptist and of Jesus result in the one pure and final offering, made by Jesus when crucified at the hands of the kingdoms his kingdom came to supplant.

Psalm = Luke 1:68-79

Zechariah bursts into song after a period of muteness (1:20-22; 64). He blesses God (68) for raising up his child as a special prophet (76). A great theme of this song is mercy: God looks "favourably" on his people (68), by raising up a mighty saviour (69) he has "shown the mercy promised to our ancestors (72), thus sins will be forgiven (77) and "By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us" (78).

Philippians 1:3-11

I am going to focus on just one element in this reading and relate that element to our other readings.
In those other readings there is a very strong sense of God working out a "plan of salvation." Through Isaiah and Malachi a future day of preparation for a saviour is seen as well as the future salvation through that saviour. Zechariah foresees the impact and outcome of his new son's future prophetic ministry. Across centuries God's plan is being worked out, towards an outcome in which light supplants darkness, justice reverses injustice, impurity is purified and sins are forgiven (i.e. restoration of the sinner takes place).

In this reading, Paul, rejoicing constantly because of the progress of the Philippian Christians, offers them an encouragement, flowing from his own convictions, and it's an encouragement which will also inspire and motivate his continuing prayers for them (1:3-4, 9-11):

"I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ" (6).

For Paul, the God who has worked a good work of saving the world, through centuries of human history, is the same God at work in each Philippian Christian (and, by extension, in you and me). Just as God is bringing that "global" work to completion, so (Paul is utterly confident) God will bring that "individual" work to completion.

In other words, the gospel is both universal and local (or, perhaps, better, personal), it is about what God is doing in and for the whole world (see, e.g. Ephesians 1:9-10) and what God is doing in you and me. And what God is doing, we may be, we should be confident is a sure and certain work which will be completed. God is not finished with any of us and we should not be discouraged if we feel incomplete.

In the season of Advent we notice the twice mentioned "day of (Jesus) Christ" (6, 10). The Second Coming of Christ will result in a definitive moment in time when the world as we experience it will be brought to an end and the work of God in the world will be seen. For each Christian our hope is that on that day God's work within each of us will be complete and we will be found "pure and blameless" (10).

Luke 3:1-6

In his first two chapters, Luke tells us in his gospel about both the birth of Jesus and John the Baptist (not even Matthew's Gospel tells us the latter). So when "John son of Zechariah" is mentioned in 3:2 we feel that we know all about John, and Zechariah already.

In verses 1 and 2 Luke is consciously historical. When the events in Jesus' life took place, they could be cross-matched to other events and to other 'lords'. Interestingly, Luke is fairly general about dates prior to these verses. Zechariah and Elizabeth conceive John "In the days of King Herod of Judea" (1:5) and Jesus is born during a time of "registration" which was "taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria" (2:2). But here in our passage there is great precision about the beginning of John the Baptist's ministry: "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, etc" (3:1). 

[Note: However, from our calendrical point of view, there are different ways of reckoning what this "fifteenth year" indicated, so we are talking about a year between 26 AD and 29 AD]. 

We also see Luke being historical about geography and rulership: "Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of ..." (1) as well as about Jewish religious leadership, "during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas" (2a). The ministry of Jesus inaugurating the kingdom of God occurs within history, marked by reference to rival "kingdoms", political and religious.

But God intervenes in this historical account: "the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness" (2b). This is in keeping with prophets of former days in Israel when the prophet's call and/or initiation of ministry was referenced to rulers of their day (e.g. Isaiah 6:1-8).

We are not told but presumably a word from God has already sent him into the "wilderness" where Luke placed him at the end of his growing years (1:80). This word of God sets John on the move, "into all the region around the Jordan", and gives him a message to preach, "proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (3).

Noting (above) a possible intended parallel between John the Baptist's initial ministry and Isaiah's initial ministry as a prophet, we also note that Luke sees John the Baptist fulfilling words in the Book of Isaiah, 4-6 = Isaiah 40:3-5 (see also Matthew 3:3= Luke 3:4 thus Luke extends his citation from Isaiah; also Mark 1:2 who combines Malachi 3:1 with Isaiah 40:3). On multiple occasions New Testament scriptures witness to a very strong interest in the Book of Isaiah as forecasting key moments in the coming of Christ and concerning his ministry and final events of his life.

So, John is the "preparer" for the coming of Christ as "the salvation of God" (3:6).

But talk of salvation presupposes a problem from which people need saving. There have been hints of this already in Luke's history of Jesus and the kingdom (e.g. in both the Song of Mary (Magnificat), 1:46-55; in the Song of Zechariah, 1:68-79; and in the Song of Simeon (Nunc Dimittis), 2:30, 32): a dark world will be enlightened (1:79; 2:32) and an unequal world will be made just (1:51-53).

In other words, the kingdoms of this world, whether the Roman empire (see mention of Tiberias and his governor Pontius Pilate), or the local kingdoms with delegated authority (see mention of Herod, Philip, etc), or the religio-political-cultural authority vested in Annas and Caiaphas, are not capable of saving the world. Indeed as the gospel story proceeds and we see the forces which oppose and eventually kill Jesus, these kingdoms are part of the problem.

Finally, note that John's preparational work, according to Isaiah is to enable "all flesh [to] see the salvation of God" (3:6).

Luke's Gospel and its sequel in Acts is always telling us that the kingdom of Jesus is a kingdom for all, for Jews and Gentiles. A continuing challenge for God's church - in the sense of the people who belong to God and who hold the gospel message through time - is to keep facing outwards, to continue to live for the sake of the world which is not yet in the kingdom of God.

This Advent that challenge is as sharp as ever, as violent persecution against Christians in some places and general cultural sidelining of Christians in other places (such as NZ) could nudge us to turn inwards and look only on ourselves. Can we look outside of ourselves? 

An outstanding blogpost on the Luke passage is at Psephizo.