Gifts: A Christmas Meditation

When we buy our gifts at Christmas, and indeed at any other time, we often ask ourselves what kind of gift is appropriate for the person? As a general rule, we don't buy after shave for toddlers, neither do we by cuddly toys for middle-aged men. Those gifts are not fitting.

Our sense of what is appropriate for them boils down to what we think will bring them pleasure, or at least be helpful. As mentioned above, we don't buy children's presents for adults or vice versa, but even amongst adults, there is wide variation. I know one middle-aged man, who would be thrilled if I got him a West Ham United season ticket for Christmas, but if I got it for his middle-aged friend, his middle-aged friend (whilst being from the same demographic) would be distraught - considering it an utter waste of money. The gifts that bring pleasure or are helpful to those receiving them are those gifts which resonate most strongly with a sense of who that person thinks they are or what they think they are becoming.

So when the (unknown number of) wise men come to Jesus and present their gifts to him, what do the gifts say about who he is and will become? Well, one helpful way of looking at it is this...

All the way down the Old Testament, the three big jobs (the proper term is "offices") which illustrate best who Messiah would be and what he would do when he came were those of king, priest and prophet. And each of the gifts offered are symbolic of those three offices.

1. Gold: The office of a King - 1 Kings 10:21

Gold is symbolic of power and glory. Power because it is rare and valuable, so to have it, you must be powerful. Glory because it is "solid light" and it shines like the sun.

King Solomon reigned at the height of the Israel's power and glory. In fact, you could almost call Solomon an emperor - not because he took an empire by military force, but because nations from all over the known world were behaving like an emperor's vassals and falling over themselves to send tribute to Solomon in the form of all kinds of precious things. So much gold was around at this time, that silver was considered of no value!!

Moreover, when the Queen of Sheba visits him (1 Kings 10), she can't believe how glorious the kingdom is, not only is the kingdom supremely wealthy, but the ruler of the kingdom is wise and has ordered everything in his kingdom in an understanding way such that his people are the happiest of peoples.

2. Incense: The office of a Priest - 1 Samuel 2:28

Incense was burned by priests in worship, both on its own and mixed in with the various food sacrifices. It symbolised the prayers of the righteous wafting up to God. It was forbidden for kings and prophets to burn incense at the altar.

Priests remained in the presence of God at the tabernacle / temple. They drew near to God on behalf of the people, and to people on behalf of God. They brought God "near" to the people by teaching them everything God had commanded them to do and brought the people near to God by offering prayers up to God on their behalf, but also helping them to offer right sacrifices.

3. Myrrh: The office of a Prophet - Matthew 23:30-39

Myrrh was used amongst other things to anoint the dead and is symbolic of death.

Prophets were not based in the temple, they went out into the world as the conscience of the people - they called wandering people and nations back to God by their words and their lives. The problem was that people would usually rather kill them than hear and receive their message. The likelihood was that in the Old Testament, if you were to be a faithful prophet of God, the best you could hope for was to be considered an utter wacko. More likely, you would be exiled or killed.

So...

What can we say of this Jesus who, as a baby, received these three gifts?

1. That he was a king, but as God, he was a different kind of king.

His kingdom and power were not of this world, and so his definitions of power and glory were not either. He used that power to serve, to heal and to restore. The great glory of this kingdom was not to be seen in gold encrusted temples and palaces, but on a twisted wooden cross where love would find its deepest and fullest expression. The Glory of this king and his kingdom continues to flow into the whole creation, for by the power of an indestructible life, this King Jesus reigns and pours our his Holy Spirit into the world. Glory returns to him, but not in the form of gold, silver and precious stones, but in the form of something greater, the souls of men and women who are captivated by his beauty and swear to him their allegiance.

2. That he was a priest, but as God, he was a different kind of priest.

He lived constantly in the conscious presence of his heavenly Father for he himself was the true temple. He not only brought God near by teaching the people how to obey him, but he himself was God deeply desiring to draw near to his people. He would also draw near to God on behalf of the people offering up prayers to God. However, this priest would not teach people how to make food sacrifices to God, instead, he would become their sacrifice. He would not offer the blood of animals to God, but rather his very own blood, and in so doing, not just make people symbolically clean, but actually and thoroughly clean and righteous before God, enabling them to draw near to him, not just once, but for all time.

3. That he was a prophet, but as God, he was a different kind of prophet.

As a prophet he went looking for the lost sheep of Israel, speaking words and living a life that demonstrated the message: "Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand!" The Lord is looking for those who will worship him in Spirit and Truth. However, he soon ran into opposition from those who saw his teaching and ways as a threat to their established order and after three years of plotting and a sham trial they crucified him. But the blood of this prophet was of a different order and spoke a better word that the blood of all the Old Testament prophets, for instead of calling our for justice to be executed on those who spilled it, this blood called out for their acquittal. Now, instead of bringing words of jusdgment and death, this prophet, speaking from Heaven, speaks words of eternal life, that through his body, the church, flow into the whole creation.

Through Christ and by the power of his Spirit, God has demonstrated his power and his glory, he has drawn near to us, made a way for us to be fit for his presence and sent his words of eternal life out to the ends of the earth to call all those who will hear him.

He has joyfully made his peace with us. Will we receive that peace and reciprocate that joy?

The Consolation of God: An Advent Meditation

At the beginning of the last chapter in the Old Testament, there is a curious little promise:

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty. Malachi 3:1

If you were a devout Jew, like Simeon, living at the time of Jesus' birth, believing the prophecies that God gave to Daniel in Daniel 9 and half decent at doing your seven times tables, then you would be living state of great expectation, that at some point in your lifetime, Messiah, the one enigmatically referred to here as "the messenger of the covenant" could finally appear.

Of course, we modern, progressive "on the right side of history" types tend to write off that kind of apocalyptic number crunching as ridiculous, fictitious Dan Brown style speculation, but for Simeon and others like him, this was a time of taking God at his Word, fasting, praying, waiting, looking and hoping - and they were not disappointed.

So it's no surprise to him that the Holy Spirit - in accordance with what He had had written down hundreds of years ago by Daniel, tells Simeon in Luke 2 to hurry down to the Temple where he will finally see the Lord's Anointed One. Simeon's heart must have been on the verge of bursting open with joy!!  Exactly how the Holy Spirit pointed out which baby Jesus was the baby Jesus, we don't know, since, on any given day there would have been many (possibly hundreds of) babies being dedicated in the temple as it was the only place of dedication for newborns in the whole nation - and Jesus was a common name at that time as Oliver or Mohammed is in ours.

But there's a twist…

You see, every time The Lord Jesus had come to his temple before, it was in a manifestation of great power and glory.  When Moses and Aaron and all the Israelites finished the Tabernacle, (Exodus 40) the Glory of the Lord (an old testament pseudonym for Jesus) came and lived in it - it was his house and his house was in the midst of the camp.  The Son of God drew near and made his dwelling amongst them.

When Solomon finished building the great temple in 1 Kings 8, the same thing happened, the Glory of the Lord (yes, that's Jesus again) was so excited to be with his people, he barely waited for the priests to get out of the Holy Place before he moved in making his house in the midst of the City of God's people - Jerusalem.

But after years of personal and national apostasy and idolatry by the people, the Glory of the Lord, (Jesus again), left his home, the temple.  And like all empty houses, it soon got plundered, ransacked and eventually flattened by invading powers.

And even though God restored the people back to the land gave them great favour with the ruling empire of the day such that this empire bankrolled the reconstruction of the temple, the Glory of the Lord, (you know who by now) never returned to take up residence in it.

So whilst many in the restored kingdom didn't care, to those who were looking in faith to the coming of the Lord, the words of Malachi 3:1 brought great comfort to an otherwise desolate, and seemingly deserted people.

But now, 400 or so years later as Simeon walks into the temple, he doesn't see a glory cloud above the Holy of Holies, he doesn't hear a Voice booming before which he trembles (e.g. Deut. 18:16).  Jesus had finally turned up at the Temple in the way that he promised he would back in the Garden of Eden, as one born of a woman, born not of natural descent or of a husband's will, but born by the power of God (John 1:13)

Jesus is the Consolation of God - Luke 2:25. The word used in Greek that is rendered 'consolation' in our English Bibles describes the kind of thing a mother does when she finds her runaway child who has been set upon by bullies and left in a heap, as she holds the child in her arms she nurses and heals the wounds and strengthen's the child's spirit with her words. (For another example, see Matt 23:37)

The great hope of Christmas is that in all our misery brought on by our own mad and faithless wandering, the Lord has not just drawn near in a glory cloud as of old, but he has united himself eternally to our humanity by becoming one of us, that he might bear and destroy our curse (a bit like this) and with great compassion pardon, cleanse, heal, strengthen, renew, adopt and glorify so that we might become like him. Truly, Isaiah was right:

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation
and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice
when dividing the plunder Isaiah 9:2-3.

Anna: An Advent Meditation

In Luke's gospel we're told (chapter 2) that there was a lady called Anna who was a prophetess. Luke goes on:

she was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

Now, why should Luke bother to include a mention of this elderly lady? Honestly, what does this add that we don't already get from what Simeon said? Back then ink, paper and copying was an expensive and time consuming business. Is this merely a frivolous little cameo of life in first century Jerusalem? One that makes charismatics go "Hurrah!" and everyone else go "Well she was a bit intense!" Is he ticking his diversity box, making sure every sub-group gets a mention?

No!

Anna's life tells a story that echoes the great story of history. Her story brings that great story into sharper focus and helps us to feel it more keenly. She's a symbol of the Old Testament Church. She is a matured (elderly) Eve.

Back at Eden, in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve rebelled against God, Eve, symbolically became a widow. If you read what the LORD says towards the end of the chapter, He has no promises for Adam, all his promise of redemption is addressed to Eve. It is the seed of the woman who will crush the Serpent's head. Adam will not contribute anything. All he gets is judgments. Whilst Adam carries on living, and he will bring forth biological life, his ability to give spiritual life to Eve and through Eve to creation is gone. He is dead and buried as far as Salvation's story goes. (Notice that in Genesis 4. Eve get's all the airtime of the two, Adam is just a detail.)

Eve will hold on to that promise of a serpent crusher miraculously going forth from her womb as she ventures out into the wilderness beyond the temple mountain garden of Eden. Though Adam and Eve were never let back into the garden, they would come to the entrance to offer sacrifice. It's most likely where Cain and Abel offered their famous sacrifices of Genesis 4.

Fast forward a few thousand years, and we see the echo of Eve in the face of Anna the prophetess. Anna was married seven years to a man who then died, echoing the seven days of creation that culminated with Eve's marriage to Adam. He then spiritually died.

Anna, no longer the soft and tight-skinned fresh-faced virgin of Eden, but a tired, wrinkly worn out pensioner, who despite all the trials and temptations, all the joys and sorrows, all the false starts and hopes of life, held fast to God's promise of Messiah all her life long. And even though her eyes were failing and her strength fading, she finally saw the hope that she had long been waiting for when she looked into the face of that baby Jesus.

The Serpent Crusher of her youth was finally here.

True Israel, the Eves, Noahs, Abrahams, Sarahs, Jacobs, Josephs, Moseses, Samuels, Davids and others of the Old Testament who had waited and hoped through times of flood, famine, wealth, slavery, apostasy, warfare and anything else you care to mention, who had seen so many false starts in their people's history, finally in the face of this little baby, saw all their hope culminated.

The Serpent Crusher of their youth was finally here.

This widow would be married once again to a truly life giving husband.

#trending 6: Identity - Sermon Notes

In this final sermon on identity, we aren't looking at the best of what our culture has to offer in helping us to understand ourselves, rather, at a handful of the, sometimes unspoken, assumptions and slogans that fly around in the mainstream of popular culture. Here are a few to get you thinking:

Identity in Popular Culture

• I have no essential identity – bodies are accidental - Our culture's story of evolution is one which tells us that nothing is fixed - we can become whatever we want.
• My desires and their fulfillment are my highest duty - How often have you heard the phrase, "Whatever floats your boat…" "Whatever makes you happy…" This is fine when it comes to the colour we want to paint our living room, but as a compass for making moral decisions, it is deeply flawed.
• I express myself through consumption - Think about the way you dress, and the way you decorate your home - it's all about expressing to the world what you want them to see of you. We are all about image management.
• My achievements are the definition of my success and self worth - Whereas in other parts of the world, people define themselves by their ethnic / tribal ties - in our culture we define ourselves by what we do. If you haven't "achieved" anything much, you're written off as a nobody.
• Public responsibility is dead, long live me - whilst we talk a good game about how concerned we are about the environment or human trafficking or other such causes, how many of us have done anything significant about it for any significant length of time.
• Judgmentalism is the new unforgivable sin - clearly there are some very unloving, ignorant and plain stupid things said by people who have never (or not for a long time) experienced a particular way of life / circumstance, but to then say that we are never allowed to pass any kind of judgment on the choices and / or actions of each other will only serve to further lock us all up in the prisons of our own self-righteousness, suspicion, fear and prejudice.
• Self-esteem is the new moral currency - Right and wrong is less and less rule based and more and more located in what helps me to feel good about who I am and what I am doing.
• Government exists to enable my rights & choices - we expect them not to rule over us, but to help us fix our problems and realise our dreams - the obvious destination of this philosophy is anarchy.

Popular Culture in the Church

• Genie Jesus - God has a beautiful plan for my life - In the survey I did most people said that the one thing that would significantly improve their life right now was money, a partner or a change of job, suggesting that God's "beautiful" plan is to bolster our sense of who we think we are rather than seeing that when he says beautiful, he means sacrificial - in the sense of soldiers at the D-Day landings.
• Greasy Grace - Biblical commands diluted down into encouragements - We often pick and choose which commands we listen to and ignore the others saying they don't matter or God didn't really mean it.
• Our public voice is lost – we retreat to the shadows for fear of being labeled - No one who wants to be part of civilised society wants to be labelled a bigot. So we either shut up or retreat to the irrelevant shadows.
• Success & technique trump faithfulness - Christian bookshops are full of techniques on how to be a better…[fill in the blanks]. We have many manuals about how to be a better spouse, parent, leader, how to grow a ministry or church successfully, but not so many about how to be faithful. In his closing address in the Bible, Jesus in Rev 2-3 says he's not interested in success, but in faithfulness.
• The world can go to Hell so long as I and my loved ones are alright - Through a twisted desire for self-preservation we have a shrivelled sense of our calling to the world.

The Bible and Identity

The Bible talks about our identity, not as a set of "truth statements" but as a story. The True Story in which all our little stories take place (see Genesis 1-4):

• Wonderfully made - God carefully made man out of the dust, and breathed life into him. He then went one better - he made woman. Woman is man glorified.
• A Reflection onto Eternity - Through the family unit (diversity in unity) multiplying and spreading out across the earth, the human race would reflect the joyful, abundant, spreading, outgoing love of the Father, Son and Spirit.
• The Dark Exchange - But rather than God, Adam and Eve chose to listen to a different voice. Rather than reflecting God, they chose to reflect the serpent, they still wanted all God's benefits, just none of the loyalty those benefits entailed. They wanted to be their own gods.
• The Irreparable Loss - After that Dark Exchange, Adam and Eve don't repent, they blame everyone else and lock themselves into a place where before God they don't, can't and won't do what is right.
• The Orphaned Wandering - Adam and Eve, and the human race that would flow from them are exiled from fellowship with God to wander over the face of the earth - as a covering for their shame they build great civilisations over history, with great cultures, but at the centre of all these manifestations are dark, orphaned and rebellious hearts.
• But…

In Christ, Our Identity is Transformed and Glorified - 1 Cor. 15

• The Man From Above - Jesus stepped into history 2000 years ago. He was a miracle birth, not born with the same orphaned, corrupted heart that you and I have.
• Jesus is True Humanity - We are ghosts of our former selves alienated from everything and everyone, but Jesus was and is the true human - relating perfectly to God his Father and all creation. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, but Jesus is the reality of God.
• The Death that Swallowed Death - Eternally - In Christ's crucifixion, God takes into himself all the effects of the curse that we brought upon ourselves when we locked ourselves into our orphaned and rebellious hearts and threw away the key. God has made his peace with us for all the offence we caused him, the question is, will we make our peace with him?
• The Life that Pours out Life - Eternally - Jesus, now ascended to the right hand of his Father pours our his life and likeness to all who respond to the call to make their peace with him.
• True Life is found in Death - True life is when we give up trying to be the controller of the universe - when we die to the way of life which puts us at the centre and instead, puts us in submission to God. We then receive his life to blossom as he intended.
• Transformed Sameness - Christians may not look any different on the outside, but their whole reality changes when they put their trust in Jesus, in a similar way to the way life changes when you get married, have kids, turn 18 etc. In one sense everything is the same and yet, everything is different.

Some of the "Identity" Survey Results.

Here some results from the recent Identity survey I did for a sermon of mine:

Setting that in context, according to our membership directory we are about 45% men and 55% women and, currently, on average, we gather a bit more than twice our number of members across our three Sunday meetings.

I think that the following two are fairly self-explanatory, but if you have any interesting observations, do mention them in the comments.

This last one is interesting and if I was better at writing surveys (hindsight is a wonderful thing) I would have framed the question differently. Instead of saying "rank the following in order of which stresses you out the most" I think I should have said "rank the following in order of which you think about the most."

As a consequence, with God's expectations ranked 4th overall in the stress stakes, I don't know if this means that we have a mature understanding of our identity in Christ e.g. Matt 11:28-29 or if it means that we are far too worldly in our thinking e.g. 2 Cor. 10:12 and don't really care about his expectations.

Hmmm…

Once again, many thanks to all who filled in the survey. It's also great to get little messages like these two:

I hope, with God's help, to measure up to the expectation that I have created. :-)

RFC Bible School 2015 - Open for Registration

2015 will see us running our Bible School for the second time. It's open to anyone at RFC who wants to know the WHOLE BIBLE better, but has either always felt daunted by the task or could never quite mobilise themselves to do it alone.

The nine session course will take place at the RFC Offices on the third Monday of the month (not including July, August or December). We'll start each evening with a pizza buffet at 7pm followed by two taught sessions delivered by one of the Bible School teaching team and finish around 9:30pm.

Whilst we, the team, plan to cover a lot of material, and there are some hard bits, we aim as best we can to pitch that material academically at GCSE / O-level standard. The sessions are as follows:

19th Jan: Approaching the Bible - What do we need to know about this book before we open it?
16th Feb: What's the point of the Bible? How the whole Bible points to the supremacy of Jesus Christ
16th Mar: Starting out - How Genesis 1-4 sets the scene for everything that follows
20th Apr: Leviticus - How the Law brings God near for both death and life
18th May: The Psalms and their Friends: How to learn wisdom from music and poetry
15th June: How the Prophets called the people back to Christ, their first love
21st Sept: How the gospels show us the glory of Jesus from different angles
19th Oct: Reading the New Testament letters in the shadow of Acts
16th Nov: Understanding Revelation - The Last Word, The New World and the Triumphant Love of the Living God

To whet your appetite, here is one of the sessions we (I) taught last year.

There are no formal written assignments in this course, but anyone who wishes to write something to consolidate / build on what they have learned is welcome to do so and will get feedback on it. But it goes without saying that the best way to understand the Bible beyond this course is to read it.

The cost of the course is £70, which is to cover the cost of our food, drink and course handouts over the nine sessions. However, we don't want cost to stop anyone from attending, so if you would like to participate, but finances are tight, bursaries are available - more information on request from the church office.

Book in via Eventbrite http://rfcbibleschool.eventbrite.com, but payment needs to be made via the church office.

Ideally we would like at least 20 people to sign up (it feels like a "proper" class size then), but will happily run it for whoever we get. Due to space issues, the maximum number we can take is 35.

Would love to see many of you there.

Jesus prayed the Psalms, what did that look like? What does it look like for us when we do the same?

Down history, the church across the world has prayed the Psalms of the Bible. Not in a sugar-coated, fridge magnet Genie Jesus give me nice things way, but in the same way that Jesus used them - to strengthen their hearts.

As a good Jewish lad, he would have learned the Psalms, but when it comes to Jesus, there's more to it. He is the focus of that Psalm's fulfilment. The Psalms are a prophetic echo of Jesus prayer life.

So the next time you pick up a Psalm, ask yourself:

• What would have been going through Jesus' mind as he read and prayed the Psalms? 
• At what point was he in his ministry when Psalm [insert no. btw 1 & 150 here] would have come to mind?

So if we applied that principle to Psalm 3, what does it look like? No doubt, Jesus saw A LOT more depth and life than I do, but here's a starter for 10.

Firstly, Jesus tells his Father that he is falsely accused by his enemies.

Lord, how many are my foes!
How many rise up against me!
Many are saying of me,“God will not deliver him.”

Then, he entrusts himself to his heavenly Father  to protect, sustain and vindicate him.  He also looks to the Father as his glory - Jesus was not interested in promoting himself, but that everything he was and did in life would honour the Father and he looked to the Father to order his steps and deliver him from evil.

But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
I call out to the Lord,
and he answers me from his holy mountain.
I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
I will not fear though tens of thousands
assail me on every side.
Arise, Lord!
Deliver me, my God!
Strike all my enemies on the jaw;
break the teeth of the wicked.
From the Lord comes deliverance.
May your blessing be on your people.

So then, those who are united to Christ, who are in Christ and are now his hands and feet on the earth can pray these words with the same confidence that Jesus did when he prayed them, knowing that Jesus and his Father, through the Spirit will be just as faithful as the Father and the Spirit were to Jesus, for it is their heart to share all they have and are with us.