The Age of Gold - Advent Day 21

            For lo! the days are hastening on,

            By prophet bards foretold,

            When through the ever circling years

            Comes round the age of gold.

There is a golden age coming. An age where peace shall reign over all the Earth. An age of prosperity, an age of fulfilment, an age of exploration. An age where humankind and God are united as in Eden; an age with no room for pride.

It is an age revealed to the prophets of the Old Testament, an age of which the apostle John saw glimpses of, an age hoped for by all the martyrs of Jesus. It is an age that all believers must long for. The age of the New Jerusalem come down to Earth.

It is the age that the angels proclaimed over Bethlehem that first Christmas, for it was in the birth of Christ that history’s corner was turned and the Earth could once again hope with the awe of a new morning. So let us cast away deafening noise and strife this Christmas time, that we may ‘hear the angels sing’.

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear - words by E. Sears

'O Holy Child of Bethlehem...' - Advent Day 20

            O Holy Child of Bethlehem

            Descend to us, we pray;

            Cast out our sin and enter in,

            Be born in us today.

Nostalgia is, to its core, bittersweet. A longing for something that was, but is not any more. “Do you remember when…”; “What would it have been like to be there when …?” A present detachment from the event is a requisite for true nostalgia. Indeed, we need not have ever experienced that which we long for in order to know nostalgia for it.

The first Christmas seems a prime candidate for such emotions, separated as we are by two millennia from those glorious events. And yet, it cannot be! There are two reasons for this – firstly, the promises of Christ heralded by the first Christmas are still here to be taken today. Secondly, the hope of Bethlehem is still to be perfectly fulfilled in an age to come. Therefore, we are not detached from the first Christmas, nor is it ‘not any more’.

The final verse from ‘O little town of Bethlehem’ recognises our present connection to the first Christmas through earnestly pleading for Jesus to ‘be born is us today’. We need Jesus to cast out our sin, to be present with us and to be preparing us for His final advent. There could not be a better prayer to pray this Christmas time!

O Little Town of Bethlehem - words by Phillips Brooks

'Born to set us free' - Advent Day 19

Soon it will be Christmas morning,
Cards and gifts around the tree;
But will you treasure, will you worship
Jesus born to set us free?

I am a big fan of the giving and receiving of presents. It is an opportunity to give those you love something they like. It is a way of saying to someone ‘I appreciate you’. Our family Christmas day is a great and multi-dimensional day, but the centrepiece for me is undoubtedly the present giving ceremony (yes, even ahead of dinner!)

Yet in buying our gifts, we can easily get weighed down under a sense of burden and duty. And in receiving, more of our emotion can settle on what the gift is rather than the fact someone having given it to us. The corporeal outweighs the symbolic; the actualised trumps the theoretical.

This song reminds us that cherishing material things is not the right path to walk at Christmas. And good as it is to cherish the heart of the giving exchange, the writer exhorts to go further than this still, and adore the One whose birth we give these gifts in remembrance of. And when we remember that Jesus was indeed ‘born to set us free’, why would we not treasure Him above all things this Christmas time?

On a Dark Night (link to lyrics only, sorry no YouTube available) - by Paul Oakley.

'Let Nothing You Dismay' - Advent Day 17

God rest you merry, gentlemen,

Let nothing you dismay,

For Jesus Christ our Saviour

Was born upon this day

Peace and joy. Two words ubiquitous at Christmas time, yet two words I suspect we do not feel as frequently as we hear them, even during a festive season. Yet that is exactly what the (somewhat archaic) first line of this carol bids us to feel – peace and joy from God. And it doesn’t stop there, with freedom from all fear being thrown in also. The reason? The Saviour has been born!

So why the variance in our emotions when this saving birth has most certainly taken place? The fundamental reason is that we are imperfect beings whose emotions are affected by curse just as the rest of our constitution is. Yet we can misuse this sober assessment as an excuse for apathy, fatalism, self-pity or whichever brand of gloom we are most comfortable with. The right course is to take hold of these wonderful truths – to meditate on them, to sing them, to embrace them in our hearts.

God would not have us wallow in despair, and nor will this carol. Its tone is thoroughly pro-active: Seek peace! Rejoice! Do not be afraid! There is indeed great emotional resource to be found in the Christmas message, and it is up to us take hold of it.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - English Traditional.

'Be near me, Lord Jesus...' - Advent Day 10

Be near me, Lord Jesus,
I ask Thee to stay
Close by me forever
And love me I pray.

At their best, Christmas celebrations are a wonderful time for enjoying, cherishing and deepening family relationships. The very nature of a festival and a feast is in its communal dynamic, which is why people being alone on Christmas day is such a saddening spectacle. It is also why those with difficult relationships often feel the tensions more acutely during the festive season.

Yet there is a far deeper relationship at stake at Christmas time, namely our relationship with God – Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit – Himself. For all the hope and joy of Jesus’ Advent is purposed to an end– that we might know God himself. This prayer, taken from ‘Away in a Manger’, is an example of the childlike, humble and heartfelt prayer that God loves to hear from us.

So amidst the throng of our Christmas relational experience - present giving, TV watching, ‘heated debates’ over Monopoly, tussling over the stuffing – let us take time out to seek sanctuary and joy in that most precious relationship of all.

Away in a Manger

'Soon comes the cross...' - Advent Day 9

Sing lullaby!
Hush, do not wake the infant King.
Soon comes the cross, the nails, the piercing,
then in the grave at last reposing;
Sing lullaby!

Could there be a more shocking contrast? The hopeful birth of the long awaited Saviour-King, and the brutal execution of a condemned man through crucifixion. They don’t cohere, and it feels almost offensive considering them together, for we do not ponder the birth of criminals nor the death of newborns. Yet this traditional Basque lullaby makes us confront this most sobering of fact: the baby Jesus of our Christmas carols died a horrendous death at Calvary just 33 years later.

But the most shocking thing about Jesus’ death wasn’t that the hope of Emmanuel appeared over (for we all know the reality of disappointment). Rather, it was that this death was the means of fulfilling that very hope. For God’s plan of redeeming humankind and reversing the tyranny of curse rested on Jesus receiving, in our place, the wrath of God that was justly set upon all humans. In Jesus’ death, God’s perfect love and perfect justice toward humankind were reconciled. Jesus’ death unlocked God’s good countenance and so fulfilled, rather than ruined, the promise of the Saviour-King.

While we focus on the incarnation of Jesus at Christmas time, we should never forget that His birth was only the beginning of Jesus’ mission. It was not the end of the story of God’s grace, but the start. Easter follows Christmas, and their hope cannot be separated.

Sing Lullaby (The Infant King) - Basque traditional, arr. David Wilcocks

'The gift of God, come down to man...' - Advent Day 8

But the skies were filled, with the praise of heav'n,
Shepherds listen as the angels tell
Of the Gift of God, come down to man
At the dawning of Immanuel

A popular and tragic theme of many romances is that of the lover who will never yield themselves.  They will treat their other half with respect and shower them with a myriad of presents, but there is always something held back. Over time, this absence becomes a crushing sorrow upon the other, until they finally let out that cry – ‘I don’t want your gifts…I want you!'

What if God was to treat us like that? What if He gave all the things we can often think He should give to us – a comfortable life, a stable society, an end to suffering – but withheld Himself? We’d be spiritually empty, and ultimately no better off than in our struggles, for God Himself is our greatest need. The great news of Christmas is that God has given Himself in Jesus Christ! His name is Immanuel – God with us. The tragedy of separation from God is over, and the angels cannot but proclaim it to those wandering shepherds.

We give presents at Christmas time in replication of the gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh bought as homage to Jesus by the wise men. But they speak of a deeper gift – ‘the Gift of God, come down to man’. So there is no place for living like the wilted lover before God, for He has offered Himself to us all. The question is, will we accept Him?  

From the squalor of a borrowed stable - Stuart Townend

'Heaven was filled with His praises' - Advent Day 7 reflection

                                    One day when heaven was filled with His praises,

                                    One day when sin was as black as could be –

                                    Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin.

What was life like for Jesus before his virgin birth? Scripture tells us that Jesus had always been with the Father, that all things were created through Him and that all heaven indeed was filled with his praises. Any serious meditation on this point leads swiftly to the heart of Trinitarian thought – that Jesus was forever the second person of the Godhead, and thus truly God Himself. This brings into sharp focus the colossal gap between Jesus’ station in Heaven and His remote, lowly birth on Earth.

The one who was worshipped by angels humbled himself to dwell in a human womb, to walk for 33 years on the Earth and to submit himself to crucifixion, all for the sake of bringing humans back to God. Today’s song – an epic contemporary reworking of a classic American hymn – dwells on the wonder of these truths, and also what followed, namely Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and His future advent as our glorious king.

It can be easy at Christmas time to think of Jesus only as a baby, but in doing this we rob ourselves of much of the wonder of the advent message. For it was God himself who came to Earth over 2000 years ago, a truth that demands to be reckoned with by us all.

One Day When Heaven (Glorious Day) - words by J Wilbur Chapman, additional words and music by Casting Crowns

'He, whom angels worship...': Advent day 6 reflection

I cannot tell why He, whom angels worship,
Should set His love upon the sons of men.

Consider again that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was incarnated as a human in the womb of Mary that first Christmas time. What do we make of such a thing? We could be amazed that such a thing ever happened. We could overflow with hope that the Messiah has come. We could be filled with confidence that God came to be with us. Or we could simply be without words at the wonder of it all – ‘I cannot tell…’

Yet the writer of these lines tells us two very important things to hold onto when considering the Christmas story: not to forget the great glory of Jesus before he came to Earth (‘whom angels worship’), and that his incarnation was an incredible act of love towards humans. And not merely sentimental love, but a love that said ‘I will give up all of this glory, dwell in the womb of a virgin and be born in a filthy stable for the sake of those who rejected God, to bring them back again’.

In our festivities, let us not miss out on the richness of Jesus’ love for us that the Christmas story displays.

I Cannot Tell Why He, Whom Angels Worship - words by William Young Fullerton

'Emmanuel shall come to ye...' - Advent Day 5 reflection

                        Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

                        Shall come to ye, O Israel.

Enduring an unwanted separation from a person – be it a child, a partner or a friend – is hard load to bear. And when we ourselves are partially or wholly responsible for that separation, this intensifies to often oppressive levels of sorrow. This was the prevailing spiritual climate in Israel in the years leading up to the birth of Jesus.

Israel, a nation chosen out of obscurity to bear the light of God to the world, had strayed far from their purpose. The knowledge of God’s presence with them had almost vanished. Those looking for something better were deeply troubled by this, and needed to hear the promise of Emmanuel – a name that means ‘God with us’. In the coming of Jesus, this promise was fulfilled.

Jesus, our Emmanuel, came to the Earth so that all people could know God with them. Jesus is with those people who seek him now. Jesus shall come again, and dwell forever with His people.  Emmanuel has come to us and healed that greatest and most devastating separation, the separation of God and man. Rejoice indeed!

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

'A day of freedom...' : Advent day 4 reflection

There is a day that all creation's waiting for;
A day of freedom and liberation for the Earth.

Longing. Perhaps there is no more commonly shared feeling amongst humans than longing. And perhaps there is no emotion harder to get a handle on – our longings are often indescribable, irrational and untraceable…yet undeniably real. What are we to do with this powerful force within, that so often seems unfulfilled? To keep us from turmoil, the sensible thing would be to subject such longings to a stoic realism, to lower our sights and board a carefully balanced craft of scepticism and light entertainment to pilot us through life. 

Yet Christmas refuses to allow such thoughts; the scrooge and the Grinch are lionised, decorations erupt with colour and light, and the festive spirit flows in abundance. The authentic root of this joy?  The stunning news of the Advent message that there is something better coming and our longings can be met. Indeed the Bible tells that not just human longings, but the longings of the whole universe will be met on the day of Jesus’ Second Advent. It will truly be ‘a day of freedom and liberation for the Earth’.

This song, by contemporary band Phatfish, extols us not to sacrifice our longings on the altar of ‘getting by’, but rather to ‘lift our eyes to the things yet unseen’. May it be so with us this Christmas time.

There is a day - words by Nathan Fellingham.

'God appears on Earth to reign': Advent day 3 reflection

‘God appears on earth to reign’

We’ve considered a little already the remarkable facts of Jesus’ first advent, his mission to overturn ‘curse’ and that his birth on Earth was announced as a great blessing to humans. But how? Through what means was God going to achieve these things? The answer is quite simple – God was going to re-establish His reign on Earth through Jesus.

Did it work? That we still see so much suffering, distress, faction and discord over 2,000 years after Jesus’ advent can tempt us to dismiss God out of hand, and certainly any notion of ‘success’ in overturning the curse of this world. But that is to have too small a vision, for ‘God’s appearing on Earth to reign’ is not yet fully complete, which is why today’s carol – Charles Wesley’s masterful ‘Lo! He comes with clouds descending’ – focuses unashamedly on Jesus’ return to Earth in the future. This will complete the work of restoration began in Bethlehem all those years ago.

But where does that leave us today? The good news is that the project is not ‘on hold’. Jesus is the Lord today, and God calls all humans to believe on Jesus as Lord and our lives to be a genuine response to this. Amidst the sorrows and evils of today, there is still much blessing being countenanced to us through Jesus. So are we prepared this Christmas season– like Mary – to humble our hearts to receive our Lord and his blessings?

Lo! He comes with clouds descending - words by Charles Wesley. The lyrics can be found if you click on the 'show more' button under the video description.

'To children's children...' : advent day 2 reflection

                        Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord

                        to children’s children and forever more!

These are the closing lines to Timothy Dudley-Smith’s working of the Magnificat. The Magnificat is the adopted name of a song recorded in the Bible (Luke 1:46-56), sung by Mary as she learned she would, as a virgin, bear the one who would be called Jesus, the Son of God. The contrast between the proclamations about Jesus – “He shall be great, and shall be called Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David” – and the lowly station of Mary is astonishing. For Mary was a young girl without children in a social, cultural and spiritual backwater, about as far from fame as one could get. Yet God, in his wisdom, chose her to be the bearer of the Lord Jesus. Incredible as it seems, the hope of all humans took up home in a virgin’s womb. It tells of the wider wonder of the incarnation – that the Son of God would take on flesh and live upon the Earth. Great is the Lord indeed that such things are so!

Christmas is a great season for story telling. Family stories, funny stories, heart warming stories. The films and the sitcoms go to town, and the tap of festive entertainment never runs dry. This reflects that there is an old, deep and true Christmas story to be told ‘to children’s children and forever more’. Let us make it our goal this Advent season to tell of that first Noel, the hope that it brings still today and the greatness of the Lord in effecting such wonders.

"Tell out, my soul" - words by Timothy Dudley-Smith, after Luke 1:46-56.