December 1st - voice

"A voice of one calling:
'In the wilderness prepare
    the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert
    a highway for our God.  Is 40 :3      

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCRmvoM_Eqo  

Tis the season for The Messiah.  Handel that is, as well as Jesus 😉  and one of my favourite parts is ' Every valley' which is a rendition of this scripture from Isaiah . John recognises himself as the ' voice calling in the wilderness'  and therefore a herald to the coming of the Lord.    For quite a while now, on an off, God has been speaking to me about the word ' voice' .  And it just so happens that today I lost my voice almost completely!

On Wednesday I sneezed a couple of times, on Thursday I had a bit of a cough and yesterday my voice just disappeared and all I could manage was a very croaky whisper.  And it is really odd because I haven't got a cold and I don't feel ill.  I just have no voice.  Which is a bit of a pain because this evening I'm supposed to be leading the carol singing and being compere at the Christmas Lights Switch on event in town.

We all have a voice. And it is something we very rarely think about.  Unless something happens to it - or unless we are called upon to use it in a specific way.  But John the Baptist didn't just have a voice ; he WAS a voice.  And I think that is something a bit different.   I don't think John's mission in life was solely to talk and preach about the coming of the Messiah, his mission was to demonstrate that message by the way he lived, what he wore , what he ate, where he lived, in fact his whole life was the message.  

He heralded a Messiah who was The Word of God.  Everything about Jesus spoke the message God wanted His people to understand.  Jesus was a voice.

So perhaps we too are to be a voice.  

Yes, undoubtably we are to speak wisely and kindly and tell people the Good News but I suspect that more than this Jesus asks us to be the message as well as to speak it. 

Friday 30th December. - changing the atmosphere

A few thoughts have collided today to bring about this post.

Firstly I was sitting in the office at work today - I work for a small local charity and we are all getting ready for our annual Christmas Fair on Saturday.   So there were people wrapping presents for the lucky dip and people putting up lights and garlands and all in all there was a pretty festive feeling in the air.  It was nice.  So I put on an instrumental album of christmas songs to play in the background whilst we were all busy.   As the gentle tones of Silent Night were drifting down the corridor a colleague came into my room and sighed and said '  it is so peaceful in here'.   And she was right.  It was.  And it isnt too often peaceful in our crazy mad workplace.

Then this afternoon I saw this post someone had put up on Facebook
                                                    

and it got me thinking about changing the atmosphere. 

I think most of us would agree that the atmosphere which swirls around most of our lives at the moment is a bit depressing.  There is Brexit, there is a mental illness epidemic, there are wars and fires and famines, there is cancer and poverty and insecurity.   It's all a bit doom and gloom and sometimes it can be really really hard to see how little old individual me can make any difference at all to any of it.

But the thing is, I do buy all my clothes from charity shops.  So I am changing the physical atmosphere just a teeny weeny little bit.  And along with everyone else who buys second hand clothes I suppose that little part I play helps to add up to something bigger.   I'm also giving money to good causes rather than to big business.   So my purchases in charity shops don't just change the atmosphere, they change lives.  Intentional behaviours change things

The worship music on in the office today seemed to change the atmosphere.  I think it was because, despite the fact that really nobody was paying that much attention to it, you can't help but sing along in your head to carols.  And the words of carols are Truth.  And Truth changes things.

I am part of a prayer triplet.  When we meet together to pray things happen.   It's odd but I'm pretty convinced that more things happen when three of us are praying than when I just pray myself.  Unity and agreement changes things

If we want to see the atmosphere change in our homes, schools, workplaces, churches, towns and cities and countries, then perhaps we need to act intentionally,  speak Truth, worship more and find those who can agree with us to pray the changes we want to see.   

                             

November 29th - Out of Egypt

Apparently there are approximately 300 prophecies in the OT about Jesus.  What are the chances of one man fulfilling 300 different and specific promises written by dozens of different people over hundreds of years?  Remote?  Improbable?  Impossible?
Well, according to a maths guy who worked it out, the chance of Jesus  fulfilling just EIGHT of those prophecies is...... wait for it...... 10¹⁷    😄   I love stuff like that.  It bends my brain.

SO today's prophecy is this

Prophecy:   "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1).

Fulfillment:    "So he [Joseph] got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: 'Out of Egypt I called my son'" (Matthew 2:14–15).

We know the practical reasons why the infant Jesus was taken to Egypt by His parents in the first place - to escape the mad tyranny of Herod.  But there is a deeper reason as well.  Right from the start, the life of Jesus was always about God re-writing the story of man on earth.  In every way that Adam and Eve fell, Jesus restored.  In every way that Israel rebelled, Jesus submitted.  In every way that God's people wandered off, and fell and were tempted and forgot and grew cold, Jesus was steadfast, righteous, focused and passionate.

The life of Jesus is an undoing of all that has gone before.  And part of what had gone before in the life of God's people was a long and tragic captivity in Egypt.   (Even today that period of the history of God's people is massively significant to the Jews.)   Just as God in ancient history had released His people from slavery and brought them to a promised land, so Jesus was to embody another, far deeper, eternal release from slavery and into promise.    The words' Out of Egypt I called my son'  seem so insignificant in the whole sweep of scripture.  But they speak volumes.   Egypt represents all that is worldly and sinful and corrupt and anti-God.   And this time Jesus - God Himself - has been there.  Not just His representative Aaron.  Not just a great leader Moses.  But God Himself has come to a world that is corrupt and evil and which has made slaves out of children and used people as capital.   As He comes out from that world and come into the promised land of Israel as a small boy He is doing what God originally intended for the people of Israel to do all those generations before.   He is beginning a journey of radical obedience to, and love of, God.    And this time, in this man, it would work.

28th November - Incarnation

Prophecy: "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14).

Fulfilment: "The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35)

These words are so so familiar to us - we hear them every year at this time and we know them inside out. They epitomise the very heart of the Christmas story but I wonder how often we stop to think about what these words really mean.

' come upon you' in the Greek has the meaning of attacking, landing on, influencing'

the word for power in the Greek is the same root as our word for dynamite.

The translated ' overshadow' can also be translated ' to envelop in haze of brilliancy'

So what the angel actually said to Mary might have sounded something like this

' The Holy Spirit is going to land on you like a tonne of bricks and His dynamite power is going to completely blow you away. So the child you will bear, set apart by and for God, will be called the Son of God.'

Yesterday Ben asked me a question. He said ' Mum, apart from getting married and having babies and all that stuff, what has been the most amazing day of your life?' Hmmm. Good question. That made me stop and think. And the day that came back to my mind was the day in my life when the Holy Spirit landed on me like a tonne of bricks and His dynamite power completely blew me away. I have had four or five of those moments in my life. The first was my very first experience of the Holy Spirit when I was knocked off my feet and hit the floor in what felt like extremely slow motion and started to speak in tongues. The second ( and the one which came to mind when Ben asked the question) was when The Spirit visited our church in the days of the ' Toronto Blessing' the weekend John and Carol Arnott were visiting speakers. The third was an experience of deliverance. The other two were powerful encounters with the dynamite of God when I felt as though He was literally going to blow apart every cell in my body, but at the same time knew that I was being powerfully cleansed and cleaned from the inside out.

I know from these experiences that The Holy Spirit is not always
( or even often) a gentle breath or a bubbling stream. He is power and light and holy and pure. He is loud and disruptive and miraculous and scary. I think perhaps we have no idea when we read about Mary and the angel just exactly was about to happen to her. I don't think that the Spirit gently wafted around her and smiled the baby Jesus into existence as so many of the paintings of the annunciation suggest.   I suspect that when power from on high landed on her, and light and life and power and holiness surged through her body Mary was radically and permanently transformed. From that moment on she must have known that something extraordinary and undeniable and true had happened.

God is not a nice idea, or a way of living or a moral code.   God is a powerful, creative, involved, committed, omnipotent Spirit who can and will reach down and touch us with dynamite if we are willing.  Can we, with Mary, say  ' I am utterly at your disposal.  Whatever you say, however it looks, whatever it might mean for my present and my future, Im all in'  ?

Nov 27th - ancestry

For much of my life I have lived in places with alot of history associated with them.  I spent my childhood living in a 17th century coaching inn.  I went to University in St Andrews - the university there was established in 1413.  So I have often had cause to think about those who went before.  The people who lived and worked and studied in the same streets where I lived and worked and studied over the course of hundreds of years.   When you stop to think about it you realise that there isn't that much distance between the scholars of 1413 and those of 2013.  Six hundred years seems like a very long time in some ways, but really it is only six lifetimes  ( ok so I suppose not many of us will live to be 100, but you know what I mean)


Today's promises are about genealogy

"Prophecy to Jacob : "Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring" (Genesis 28:14).

Fulfillment: Jacob is part of Jesus’ genealogy.  "the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor" (Luke 3:34)

Prophecy to Judah  "The scepter will not depart from Judah,  nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his" (Genesis 49:10).

Fulfillment: Judah is part of Jesus'’ genealogy. "the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah" (Luke 3:33)

Isnt it amazing that hundreds of years before Jesus was born, God is making promises to people who will be Jesus's great great great great grandparents?   Do you ever wonder if hundreds of years ago God was speaking to your great great great grandparents about you?   What if God wants to give you promises for your own great great grandchildren?    God seems to love dealing with generations in families and rest assured at some point in your distant past there was someone who loved Jesus and followed Him, accepting His covenant of love of which you are now the beneficiary.   Isnt that a wonderful thought?

Lord Jesus today I want to thank you for the people in my family line about whom I know nothing, but who believed in You.  Thank you for Your promise which reaches forward to a thousand generations of those who love You and keep Your commands.   As I seek to love You and follow You would you bless all those who come after me - be they my physical or spiritual children and grandchildren.  Let us not forget the stories of faith which deserve to be passed down to the next generation.  Let us leave a legacy of steadfastness and devotion in our wake.   Amen

Nov 26th A beginning - a blessing

I have it in mind that this year I want to bring more scripture into the Advent Blogs, and so I thought I might take a look at some of the prophecies about the coming of Jesus which are peppered all through the old Testament and have their fulfilment in the New.  Right from the very start God had a plan. From the moment of the fall when He promised Adam and Eve that there would be an eternal struggle between man and the devil the course was set.  ( In fact it was set before that in eternity - but for the purposes of this little chat we shall take it from Genesis 😊 )

One verse that has always been an anchor and a key for me has been the words God speaks to Abram when He calls him to leave his people and promises him an inheritance.

The LORD had said to Abram, "Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."  Gen 12 1-3

When people have asked me over the years about what it means to be  Christian - is it all about saving souls and evangelising and being ' churchy' - this verse always springs to mind.  And I tell them that no, my job is simply to love Jesus and be a blessing.   

Which somewhat takes the pressure off doesn't it?  :)

So what exactly is blessing?   Funny word, isn't it when you stop to think about it.  A word we use often but perhaps don't fully grasp.

According to Strong's Concordance  the words ' you will be a blessing'  are translated from Hebrew as

בְּרָכָֽה׃ (bə·rā·ḵāh)
Noun - feminine singularStrong's Hebrew 1293: 1) blessing 2) (source of) blessing 3) blessing, prosperity 4) blessing, praise of God 5) a gift, present 6) treaty of peace

If the promise God made to Abraham was fulfilled in Jesus, the ultimate blessing,  and if WE are now the body of Christ, then God says that He will make US to be a source of blessing, bringing prosperity, causing praise of God and making treaties of peace.    Oh how this world needs peace.  Peace between man and God and peace between brothers and nations.

Abram didn't have a long list of things he needed to do in order to be a blessing.  God makes it clear that He will be the source and the blessing will come from Him through Abram. ( I will make your name great and you will be a blessing)  But there is one thing Abram needs to do first...... he needs to leave.  Everything.

Abram is asked to leave behind his national identity, his culture, his property and possessions, his family and his friends and go he knows not where.  Jesus too asks His followers to leave their worlds, businesses, backgrounds, traditions, cultures, prejudices, families, even their dead, to follow Him.   God wants a clean page.  A new start.  So that He can write blessing over and through lives and that blessing can flow out and over into the lives of all we meet.

Lord, this year in the run up to Christmas I long to be a blessing.  Make me a blessing to my family and friends, my work colleagues and acquaintances.  Make me a blessing to complete strangers.  Bless your church that we might be a blessing to our towns and cities, communities and counties.  Bless me with the fullness of all that You are, that my life might overflow with light and life and joy and power and peace.  Amen

November 25th Welcome to the blog

Welcome to this year's Advent Blog.  If you have been following for a few years then welcome back and thanks for your faithful support.  If you are new here then I'm really excited that you found me and that we can share the next few weeks together in the run up to Christmas.

I started the Advent Blog several years ago as an attempt just to try to keep myself focused on the real meaning of Christmas in the midst of all the hype and nonsense and busyness. Over the years I've tried various approaches, but seem to have landed on one which is really all about seeing God in the everyday and listening for Him more.  So these blog posts will just be my thoughts on the things God is speaking to me about each day.  They might be a bit random.... but then I have discovered that God can be a bit random sometimes  😊  Never quite does what you think He is going to do or says what you think He is going to say.

This year has seen a change in my life - I've started working for a charity which looks after the poor, marginalised and broken.  A small local concern working with volunteers to meet as many needs as possible.  This will doubtless have an impact on what I write as in the run up to Christmas I get to see the effects of poverty at work: sadly our foodbank gets really busy at this time of year and the requests for help increase.  Christmas is a hugely stressful and difficult and lonely time for many.

So to begin a month of reflection on the goodness of God in the sending of a Saviour, lets pray that He will open our eyes and hearts so that we see what He sees and respond in the way that He responds