2008: you don't always get what you want!

Well 2008 draws to a speedy close: being in NZ - we'll get there before the majority of the world!


What to say of a year where I've spent more time out of work/away from campus than I have in it?  I guess a few honest reflections -


1. God is good, sovereign and true no matter our experience.
The highs and lows of the last year have been fairly dramatic at times.  It would pure folly to suppose that merely our orbit around God's awesomeness could change the nature of God.  In stress and distress, sometimes personal, familial or health-wise our frailty should point us to God's all sufficient grace revealed in Christ Jesus.  I'm not dismissing the reality of hard times, or diminishing the heights of good times - just suggesting that we do not define God, he has designed and therefore defines us.


2. Being removed from work is profoundly humbling.
Most people fall from their bike and get back on and trundle on home.  I didn't - well I did at first and a week later was trundling along a hospital corridor getting a CAT scan done.  I had a bruise deep in the brain's white matter (i thought it was all grey in the cranium before the scan).  Long and short of it is I've now been off work for seven months awaiting recovery, rehabilitation and the return to work.
I thought I knew where my identity lay - the right answer would come quickly and easily: my identity is in Christ.  But these past few months have made me see how easily we dress other things in 'jesus like' clothing and mistake THEM for HIM.  Ministry among students, leading the men's minsitry at church, even being a husband, father and friend... all of these things can look like we are following Jesus and actually we are carving an idol in our own image.


I'm not 'there' on this one - it' something i'm thinking through - maybe this is one struggle that will be with me (us?) until the day we see him face to face.


3. Sinfulness is so ingrained in the human heart, soul and mind that weakness strengthens it and strength is laid low before it.  
A constant battle is to be fought - the new testament is full of military and agricultural imagery: a battle against a ferocious enemy, the looking to the harvest of the crop as well as putting to death the weeds of sin growing in hearts and communal lives.
Not moving much for nearly 3 months was a real challenge and I often gave in to self pity.  Self has won too often and on too many fronts this year.  I mourn that.  I repent of it and I'm confident of God's grace in Jesus to deal to it in the end. 


4. Seasons change and there is glory in every season.
We returned from wintry Europe into the glorious heat of NZ summer and that sun and warmth lasted right up to autumnal May (I know May and Autumn don't go together in N.Hemisphere heads - but do try!).  I came off the bike and winter started arriving - the worst days were the bleakest of winter, watching through the window and feeling the bleakness in my heart and head. With the coming of Spring and heading into summer my health has improved almost keeping pace with the seasons.
Seasons come and go - but again, God does not shift and change.  Whether, or not, I regain 95%+ of preinjury function (which is what is hoped for) God is in charge.  If I am serious about serving Jesus and not myself it is an 'in season' and 'out of season' service.  Much of this year has felt unseasonally bad. I'm glad that 'Jesus Christ is the same yestrerday, today and forever' (Heb 13:8)!


5. Of all the things to treasure here friendship is of great value.
I've mentioned among others the guys from my men's Bible Study group who have sort to encourage and build up and prayed for healing and been persistent in that. Words of encouragement in emails, chats and cards and knowing (and at times being acutely aware) of prayer support around the world.
In the New Testament God's people are variously referred to as Temple, Army, Family, Priesthood and Church.  I've known God's presence in the company of others this year.  I Have felt the commitment of friends not to abandon me in injury.  Have known the love, warmth and call to the table of fellowship with brothers and sisters.  Have been chided and encouraged as people have prayed when I've found it difficult to pray for myself.  I've known the gathered community of God from our living room bible studies as well as the Sunday morning gathering.


I am grateful to God for this year.  It is not the one I asked for.  I would not have chosen it because of the knock on effects on my family, friends,  colleagues and wider church family.  I would have asked the Lord for another year altogether, and in fact I did.


I still do not know the lessons God would have me learn from this time and there is still a way to go as I look to slowly restart working late January/early February.


Goodbye 2008 - you weren't what I asked for, but I'm confident that you are what I needed.

Countdown: 0... The Reality of Christmas

Dreaming of a White Rose Christmas

(written in a Yorkshire shopping mall 1998)

Sweet lord Jesus, plastic saviour,

Lovely in your manger lie,

Your dead eyes and vinyl halo,

Pose no threat, nor question why.

 .

Dearest baby in the manger,

Crying not, nor wanting sleep,

Perfect heaven’s child awaiting

Shepherd’s crook and kindly sheep.

 .

Synthetic Xmas: rushing masses,

On an endless shopping spree;

Shining kings and hapless shepherds,

Bowing down on plastic knee.

 .

Manger filled by smiling Jesus,

Phoney parents smiling too.

Xmas crossed out all that’s holy,

Synthesising all that’s true.

 .

Still, silent night was once broken

An infant’s cry - shrill and real.

God in flesh and not in plastic

Come to save: come to heal.

 .

Bloody and upsetting Christ-birth:

Teenage mother, worried dad,

Smelly shepherds, gazing wise men,

Giving all they’d ever had.

 .

Living Jesus, Lord of Heaven,

See how we do worship here,

Not like shepherd, nor as wise men -

But with credit Christmas cheer.

 .

Do we praise you? Do we love you?

Do we give you all we’ve had?

No, we offer all our earnings

To a plastic-god gone mad.

 .

Not to God in flesh appearing,

Do we come for life at all,

But we spend our Christmas credit -

Worship in the shopping mall.

(c) Andrew Shudall: not to be published in any media/format without permission

The real Christmas:
From John's Gospel chapter 1, verses 1-5, 9-14, 16-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

...The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. ...And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

.

Have a Happy Christmas celebrating Jesus!

Countdown: 1... The baby awakes

Her cervix dilated, Mary would have pushed and the child would have been delivered.  We have no details of the birth, no idea of the length of the labour, we don't know Jesus birth weight or length.  We just know that he was born and it was heralded in the natural realm through an alignment of stars and proclaimed to a few shepherds on a hillside in Bethlehem.  We know that he was laid in an animal feed trough as a make-do bed.  We know that danger lay around the corner at his birth.  We know that the baby in the manger was the Son of God, the Word, come to live in the world so that there would be a day of suffering and death.


Christmas is a peculiar time.  We are rightly joyful over the gift of the Son but that joy is overshadowed by the reality of the cross which in turn is out-shined by the hope and promise of The Resurrection.  The celebration has become lost in hedonism - the northern hemisphere escaping the depths of winter in a feast of rich food and exchanging of gifts; the southern hemisphere abandoning themselves to a festival of fine foods and long nights at the hight of summer.


What is recognisable in the celebration of the neo-natal child who is God?  Often what is most precious is most easily lost.


Treasure The Gift who gave over the glories of the Godhead, for a short time, for the sake of plumbing the depths of our sin and so emptying the breadth and weight of God's justice for men and women like you and me.


Treasure Christ - the greatest of all treasures.  This tiny child opens his eyes and God has entered our world.  We could never look at it in the same way again.

Countdown: 2... Gifts and Murder

There are many perils in infancy and childhood outside the protection of western health systems, with contemporary drugs and surgical precision.  The children of the rich benefit far more than those of the poor.


Apply your imagination then to those perils without the protection of antiseptics, antibiotics and antivirals.  Imagine the dangers posed to a relocated couple in a busy town, stationed in an animal shed and placing the newborn in a feeding trough for the cattle.  This couple finding a home, settling for a short time and maybe even years.


One day there came visitors from the east .  Far off, from lands of long told stories.  God had punished His people by sending them to Babylon in the east.  The father of the whole people, Abraham, had once come from there with his father Terah.


These men came with gifts: gold, a precious and useful gift uncommon except in the Palace and the Temple; frankincense, incense of great value and used in worship; myrrh, an anointing ointment for death.  They came speaking of a star which heralded the birth of this child, Jesus, and what is more they worshiped the child.  God had planted seeds of gospel hope in the lands to the east.  This Jewish child was to be a Saviour to all the world.  They saw the signs in the sky and responded in faith, hope and trust.


Herod, a pretender to the Davidic throne, heard of the new born king in Bethlehem through the attentive watching of the eastern wise men.  His response?  Not gifts, though that is what he feigns, but murderous intent. Frustrated by divine intervention this so-called-king orders a slaughter that would reach world headlines today.  Every male child in Bethlehem, EVERY infant to toddler up to two years old was to be put to the sword.


Joseph would once again be roused in the night by an Angel and warned of the coming wickedness dreamed up in the foul heart of a king called Great. He would flee to Egypt and one day return from there.  Jesus would live as his ancestors - fleeing in and through the desert.


Every detail was forseen, the cry of the mothers of Bethlehem would not escape the notice of the God of Justice for it was foreknown in the words of the prophets.  Even in this God is at work.


Christmas is not an easy victory of God in Flesh - it is a rending and a departing in the arriving of the King of kings, the Word made Flesh: God is at work.  There will be no hint of accusation that the Son of God had special treatment or a sheltered life.


There are many privileges as we live in this day.  Every comfort we have should draw our hearts to the fact that at Christmas God, in Jesus, took on the discomforts and dis-ease of a fallen world; in every way but without sin.

Countdown: 3... Unreliable Witnesses

Reason tells us that were you to cement something in history you need reliable witnesses to record and attest to the truth. Not God - He is the most reliable witness: He is His own self-authenticating witness. He calls to the weak and the lowly in a town filled with the descendants of King David's family.  He does not choose those in the best accomodation, the religiously pure, the intellectually gifted or the financially advantaged.


The horde of God's messengers (Angels) break into physically observable reality and speak en mass to shepherds on the hills on the outskirts of Bethlehem.  Fitting really - King David's greatest descendant is announced to those who sit on the hills tending sheep, just as David was when he was called in to be appointed as the Anointed One.


These are unreliable witnesses declaring the most important news in history up to that point.  They heard and saw what few, if ANYONE, had heard or seen before: a multitude of heaven's host declaring the praise of God.  These few men become the first witnesses of the good news. What is more - the Angels tell the lowliest and the least that the Saviour is born 'to you'(Lk2:8-20) - to you the lowliest and the least, the worst and the weakest, the most unreliable of all.


The baby in the manger - the LORD of Heaven - is the Saviour, of David's line, of God's Promise.  And Shepherd's hear it and proclaim it first!

"And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them." Luke 2:16-20

Countdown: 4... Light in the Darkness

Nearly seven hundred years before Joseph took Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem a man of a priestly family stood in the magnificence of the first Temple and spoke God's Word.

Isaiah's words did not make sense much of the time to those who first heard them. He spoke when there were riches and security, when much seemed peaceful, of far off threats and impending doom.

He spoke of God and the terror of His judgement. 

“Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.” Isaiah 8:12-15

How is it that God will be the dread of the people He had called His own?  How will He be both Sanctuary and Judge?  How will He be the one who will make many stumble over Him and thus be broken?  Surely this is too much to understand, too opaque to see clearly!

"Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching among my disciples. I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion. And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward. And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness." Isaiah 8:16-22

By choosing darkness in the face of God's power and light, rejecting Him as Lord the people will lose the ability to see, to walk to live by God's light.  They will be walking in the dark, not even able to perceive the light.  

Darkness without the hope of light is truly terrifying.


God speaks powerfully the truth of gloom and darkness in Isaiah's voice to an unbelieving people.  But the beauty of the hope of dawn also issues forth:

But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined.
You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Isaiah 9:1-7

Imagine - God making plain plain His plan hundreds of years in advance.  

Imagine - God fulfilling His promise in a child.
Imagine - justice and peace coming together in The Great Act in history.

Imagine - the joy, the pain - seeing the Light of Life shining in the Darkness of Justice and Judgement.  

This has all been and will all be.  The child of Bethlehem is THIS SON who is given.  A child who is the Light. Who will be the Stumbling Stone and the Sanctuary; the Ruler and the Saviour:  Judge and King.


At Christmas we ponder: will this Son be the one over which you stumble and so are destroyed, or will He be the one in whom you take shelter and so are saved?  Darkness or Light.  The choice is now before us...

Countdown: 5... The Word in The Boy

When John's gospel was written down the narrative does not begin with birth or genealogy, not the baptism of Jesus: it begins in eternity.


In the beginning... the story starts with God, in God.  The story John tells is God's story. God who spoke, who opened up the possibility of knowledge in the primary moment of self-disclosure: God creates light. God is The Light.  Light that darkness neither overcomes nor understands.


Light brings life - life in all its fullness.  Light and Life live in God. He is both Light and Life. He speaks and light bursts forth and life is given.

And John's narrative narrows down. The Word that God has spoken, creating Light and Life comes to earth on a mission.


The One who spoke Light and Life will learn to talk and walk.  He who gave the breath of life to all creatures and breathed His image into the human soul will emerge from the womb gasping and screaming and crying as the light hits His eyes and the breath inflates his lungs.


This fragile thing, this mortal flesh, this new born babe is He who, in the beginning, spoke and stars and galaxies and sub-atomic nuclei sparked into being and ordered themselves according to His Word.  The LORD of creation will speak again of faith and hope, life and death, religion and relationship.


This child is God The Son who became Flesh so that we might know Life and Light for all eternity.  Listen to The Word in the boy who grows to be the man who dies upon a cross and rises from a tomb and ascends atop a hill in order to rule and reign and come again.


In the Beginning was the Word. 
He'll be there at the End too.
Listen to the cry of the child of Bethlehem:
This is your God.
Listen to the cry of the man of Calvary:
Is He your Saviour?
Listen to the promise of the ascended King:
He is coming soon.

Countdown: 6... Naming the Child

The name of a child says more about the parents and their ideals and ideas.  You can tell a lot about men and women by the choices they make in naming their progeny.


Mary and Joseph did not get the chance to stamp any sense of dreams or aspirations onto the child in Mary's womb.  His name, His Name, was to be Jesus.


Gabriel spoke to Mary and gave the name as a command.  Joseph was also commanded by an angel to give the child the name Jesus.


Jesus means 'Yahweh saves'.


The destiny of this child is set out in His name.

"he will save his people from their sins" Matthew 1:21

"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end" Luke 2:32-33

This child was the fulfillment of all that God had promised.  This unborn pre-named male child is The Anointed One, The Son of God, The Son of David, The Descendant of Jacob, The Son of Abraham.  He is The One who will hold the most ancient of promise alongside the weight of the Law and fulfill them both as King, Saviour and Lord.


When Jacob asked for the name of God he walked away wounded.  When Moses asked for God's Name he was given a cryptic clue "I AM WHO I AM".  When, now at the fulfillment of all the ages, God reveals himself in His Son there is finally a Name to be known.

Jesus.

Countdown: 7... The Emperor Counts

The adopted son of Julius Caesar, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, rose to power at the violent death of his adoptive father: in doing so, he came to be the first Emperor of the Roman Empire.


He became known for many great acheivements, establishing the foundations of an Empire that would rule and subjugate many cultures and peoples; connecting cities through roads and building on a trading and commerce environment that would see routes for travel between northern Europe through to north Africa providing a common language to aid that movement.


He also initiated several 'counts' across his empire - knowing over whom he ruled and how much he could expect in revenue.  Within the strip of land along the eastern end of the Mediterranean sea a tract of land inhabited by a people of bizarre deity resided.  They were organised by family clan into tribes.


The command to count the empire in 8BC reached that land sometime around 7-4BC. The country must move to their ancestral houses.  The upheaval and transition was not an easy time. But it took a man from the northern region and moved him south.  He took his soon to be bride, who was heavily pregnant with the Son of God, on the arduous journey.  They came to the tribal town: insignificant and uninteresting - except maybe that Israel's greatest king had once been born there.


They came. One couple, moved by the political mashinations of the Emperor of Rome. It all looks so random. It feels so unsafe and unplanned.  In it all God is Sovereign and at work as His word displays:

"But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace." Micah 5:2-5

 The Emperor counts, but God rules!

Countdown: 8... The Carpenter and The Angel

Joseph was a Nazareth carpenter, turning his hand to turning wood, making and mending.  The daily reality of work and life.  Sabbath came and went, marking the end of labour once a week and the reminders of the God of the covenant in everyday life and work.


His wife-to-be returns from seeing her kinswoman, staying there to help with the birth of a baby to a woman SO old that the whole of the district seemed to be talking of it.  Mary arrives back and is obviously now carrying a child of her own.  Not, Joseph knows, his child.


He did not want to shame Mary, did not want to hand her over to the religious to be stoned. Her unfaithfulness and her illigitimate child would be the shame she could bare for the rest of her life. He would quietly divorce her - undo the promise of marriage that the betrothal had enforced but which had not been sealed in sexual relationship.


The thoughts filled his mind and into that troubled mind came an angel with words of command to ease and direct the man of integrity:

"Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus." Matthew 1:20-24

Joseph is as a father to this child of The Promise.  He will encounter at least two more angelic dreams, meet shepherds and travelers from the east, escape danger and lead his family home to Nazareth.  As the boy reaches toward adulthood he will search for the child whom he called son, only to be chided by the soon-to-be-man for not understanding.


He falls from history without explanation or note. This enigmatic man has a walk-on role at the fulcrum of history. He calls us to faithfulness and obedience in his example - even when we are asked to swallow pride, risk integrity in the eyes of the world and to be humbled by the designs of God for our lives and in our world.

Countdown: 9... The Faith of the Virgin

Forget religious art, that casts a pale skinned unworldly woman as the mother of Jesus.  Forget shining halo's and super-serene smiles.  Think of a teenage girl, betrothed but not yet married to a local man.  Think of the real Mary (Miriam in the original language) living a real life in a real place.  Think of her and then think of her faith and obedience - it's far more compelling than religious traditions, Roman Catholic imaginings or Protestant reactions fashion for us.  Look at Mary, the girl who would be the mother of Jesus, and be challenged to your core.


Confronted with the Angel's message this Galilean girl is full of fear and in hearing the spoken Word hears in the words a call, a command, to obedience.  She is to be the mother of God's chosen King, the Anointed One (Messiah), who will fulfill the hope of long ages past: what is more this one is to be the eternally reigning Son of God.

"Behold, I am the servant of the Lord,

Let it be to me according to your word." Luke 1:38

What depth of faith, what understanding of the Scriptures, what hope in the God of the Promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, could and would stir this teenager to such a statement.  There is no plea for a sign as Gideon had asked, no request for another to take her place as Moses had issued - there is obedience that would put many of the ancestors of faith in their place.


She asks for an explanation - for she was a virgin. If this angel were to ask her to forsake the sexual purity of the covenant community it would be no messenger of God.  The answer is by miraculous power - the brooding presence of the Holy Spirit doing what cannot ordinarily be done.


Gabriel dubs Mary "favoured one" and maybe this is why it is her own version of Hannah's song (Hannah exactly means "favoured one") that springs from her lips as she approaches the mother of John the Baptist and praises God.

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

Luke 1:46-55

Hear this teenage mother-to-be compare her ready faith and deep insight into the work and plan of God, hear her response to the angel and compare her to Zechariah, the priest.  See how she quotes Scripture, how she sees her life in the light of God's plan - how she knows that what she does and where she stands is but the crossroads of the salvation plan God had begun to enact thousands of years before!


Follow the months and years ahead of her.  Walk through her life at the various points that the New Testament narrative give us contact with her.  She is no sinless caricature, a shell of a person, filled by human imagination and religious devotion.  She is human and flawed; she fears as a mother for her lost child , is anxious about the sanity of her son and is broken by grief at his death as well as among those who received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.


As the hope of the ages approaches the world; it is the womb of a teenage girl who hopes in the Promise of God that will carry Him and deliver Him into the squalor of a sinful world.  This world in which He will live and die and rise again to offer the splendour of Heaven's Grace and Favour to all who believe in Him.


Faith just like that teenage girl. "let it be to me, according to your word."

Countdown: 10... The Turning of the Tide

The age of the prophets had gone, long gone. The Temple was being rebuilt and refurbished.  Herod 'the Great' a semi-descendant of David was proving his greatness in the building of a new temple in Jerusalem.  He wanted to outshine even the the greatness of the Temple built under Solomon's reign and to David's design.  Bigger and better.


Herod was no Davidic king, he was a puppet on a Roman string. The temple was full of activity and yet it was empty of the ark of the covenant, the box which held the stone tablets of the 10 commandments, a jar of manna and Aaron's staff. The box on which God said he would settle his presence and where blood would be spilt once a year to atone for the sins of the people, satisfying God's justice and his wrath until the next year and so on for many generations.  There had been no real satisfaction for 600 years but temple business went on and on and on and on.


A tradition had grown of drawing lots among the clan of Levi, for they made up the priests who served in the temple. They drew lots to determine who might go up infront of the place that would have been most holy (if the ark of the covenant had been there) to burn incense, in accordance with God's blueprint and plan.


Zechariah was chosen, maybe it was a once in a lifetime honour.  Zechariah had a lifetime full of service but one of the wounds he bore was that his wife had borne no child.  The son they might have had would have been his honour, his heir - a true priest, father and mother both descended directly from the family of Aaron, maybe their son could have been the High Priest. He was old too old now.  She too was too old.  His age prevented fertility and her age sealed the matter.  God had withheld a child from them.  


His aged frame and infertile frame entering that place, burning incense like the thousands before him.  Approaching God in fear and trembling.  Approaching God in religion and rite.  Approaching God in the routine of their people as the crowd waited outside.


For Zechariah there would be no run of the mill religious rite.  God had decided now was the time to end the 400 year old silence.


An angel appeared at the place of incense burning and he spoke. He spoke to Zechariah.  God had sent a messenger to an old man.  God had spoken and His first words to His people in 400 years and it was about a baby being born to a man and woman who were too old to conceive - just as the Old Covenant had begun so now it was being brought to an end.


A childless couple being promised a child. Zechariah and Elizabeth would not be shamed any more.  Zechariah's response if fear and confusion.  The response of Gabriel - the messenger of God - is to stop Zechariah's tongue until the child is born and named. (Luke 1:5-24; 57-66)


The child would not simply be a relief from infertility, he would be the herald of the New Covenant - like the prophets before him only unlike them.  He would echo Elijah's ministry and speak of judgment to an idolatrous and morally bankrupt ruler, calling people to repentance and faithfulness.  But John, who would be called John the Baptist, would set his eyes of Him who the Old Covenant pointed toward, Him in whom it met it's fulfillment and its end.


John would lay his hands on Jesus and baptise Him but long before that, within the womb the one who would be the baptiser recognises the one who is God enfleshed.  The last prophet of the old covenant was in the womb; the turning of the tide of history had begun.


God enjoys signposting to the People of Promise, history echoes itself from Abraham to Zechariah, from Sarah to Elizabeth, from Isaac to John.


The Covenant which had begun with an aging infertile couple naming their God-given child, 'laughter' would begin it's completion with an aging infertile couple naming their God-given child 'the Lord is gracious'.  Both names were given to them by God.  Both children heralded and embodied the Promise of God. Isaac saw it's beginning. John would stand on the doorsteps of it's completion.

Countdown: 11... The Most Ancient Promise

Before the prophets and the kings, before the judges, Moses, Joseph, Jacob (a.k.a. Israel), Isaac and Abraham: long ages past there was a catastrophic fall and a cosmic cataclysm.


Man and Woman lived with God in His creation. The World was new. (What we see now is but a dim reflection, a discordant echo, of what was there and even now the magnificence of its beauty can be guessed at in a still autumnal day, or a crisp wintry morning, or the bright glory of summer heat or the audacity of new life in spring.)  Man and Woman, Adam and Eve, lived truly and meaningfully without shame or pain or toil.  A life lived in joyful reverence, meeting God face to face unfettered and free.


One rule, just one, do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Just ONE rule.  Into this scene slithers the deceiver and accuser, a blot on the landscape and the defiler of truth.  Half truths whispered, ploughing the soil of doubt and seeds of dissent sown, the fruit of sin is born in the rebellion against the Ruler of the one rule. Grasping at greatness, Eve and Adam are cast into the depths of frustration and despair, labour for food and pain in labour, toil and sadness and loss and Death.


Even is this adamant resolution to cast them out and never to allow them back, God, the Ruler of the rule, gives a promise of a descendant who would undo their doing; crush the accusing deceiver and justly remake a way to know God in reverent joy.

"I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

and you shall bruise his heel.” Gen 3:15

The child of Bethlehem, son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Anointed Prophet, Priest, King and Saving Judge is the fulfillment of this most ancient promise. He will be bruised by the Serpent, and fatally so, but death will not hold Him. He will rise, never to lie down in death again, undoing all that was done in Adam and Eve, fulfilling all that had been promised since.


The frail and weak flesh of a child born in Bethlehem - the irony of it all - contains the God of the Universe come to save for all eternity a People of Promise for Himself.  


Long ages had passed and God had not forgotten His most ancient of Promises: finally His Plan was coming to fruition.

Countdown: 12... Cryptic Clues

There had been prophets among the children of Abraham, from time to time, speaking into the corporate and individual lives of the people and their rulers. Then, around 650 years before Jesus is born there is an 'explosion' of prophetic voices.


God spoke through many voices and in various ways - He spoke of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of His holiness in the Law, of their relationship to Him and their unfaithfulness to it. He spoke of coming and imminent judgement and of his compassion to a people who had lost themselves in their own sinfulness.


The prophets spoke with a contemporary power which cut to the heart and lifted the eyes of the unwilling and unhearing to the God who had rescued them.  They also spoke of a time of change to come.  Of a New Covenant, one born in blood and lasting for eternity: a covenant of Spirit and Truth; a relationship according to God's steadfast and unchanging love.


In a period of 200 years a clear, composite but cryptic picture emerged - the New Covenant would be instigated by God Himself, in a man who would be a servant and would save the People of God's promise and draw them from all nations and peoples.  This New Covenant would succeed the Old Covenant, emptying it of it's power to condemn, repealing its authority in relating to God. This New Covenant man would be the Saviour, Judge, King, Priest and Prophet. In Him God would reconcile the world to Himself: according to His Promise, always according to His Promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.


Then there would be silence - a devastating and persistant silence for 400 years. And then, God's plan would begin to unfold: even in His birth, Jesus, would fill and fulfill the cryptic clues to His true identity. This child is born to be the Man of the New Covenant. Jesus IS the New Covenant and His perfection all is made real: the whole of the promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the Law given through Moses; the great son promised to the Davidic line and the serving judging saviour of whom the voices of the prophets spoke...

"Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power." Heb 1:1-3