'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.

Advent Day 1 Reflection - Joy to the world!

This advent season I’m going to write a short, daily reflection on a line or verse from an Advent or Christmas carol. I hope you find them helpful and inspirational. A few notes before I commence:

1.      Despite what the chocolate calendar says, in the western Christian cycle Advent does not necessarily begin on December 1^st; rather it commences four Sundays before Christmas day, and finished on Christmas Eve. This means it can start as early as the 27^th November (if Christmas day is a Sunday) and as late as December 3^rd (if Christmas day is a Monday).  With Christmas day falling on a Tuesday this year, it means that Advent commenced on December 2^nd (yesterday).

2.      I won’t say too much about the meaning of Advent at this point, for that is what I will explore in the reflections.  However, as a summary, one need look no further than verse one of this popular Advent carol:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let Earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare him room,

And Heaven and nature sing.

Advent is about the joyful news that the Lord Jesus was incarnated upon Earth over 2,000 years ago. It is about Jesus being our Lord now – the Lord is come.  And it is about anticipating that the Lord Jesus will come again to the Earth. It is about a challenge to all peoples to receive Jesus as their king and to let him enter their hearts. It is a call throughout heaven and Earth to celebrate the Lord of all.

3.      It was not at all difficult to find enough carols that I cherish to fill up the days, perhaps telling of the richness of the theme of advent that so much poetry and music has been devoted to it.

4.      I use the term ‘carol’ broadly to mean a song that is used primarily for corporate Christian singing, and do not exclude contemporary works from the list. Thus I include a song by Casting Crowns, but I do not include ‘Let it Snow’ or ‘She came home for Christmas’, for example.

5.      Accommodating the multi-natured reflection of Advent, the traditional focus of celebration tends to move from the second coming of Jesus at the start of the season to the first coming of Jesus towards the end. I present the carols in an order that broadly reflects this.

6.      Wherever possible, I provide a YouTube link to the carol of the day. If you want to find out more about the carols – for example, their origin or the full text – I encourage you to research that yourself, as I don’t want to clog up the posts with history or preamble (apart from this one, of course).

7.      I’m aware I have started a day late – I will cheat by posting two posts today!

So, here we go! My excerpt for today sticks with ‘Joy to the world’:

                        He comes to make His blessings flow

                        Far as the curse is found.

‘Curse’. An uncomfortable word, and an abrupt interruption of the growing festive spirit, yet a word we would be wise to deal with. Before the joys of advent were the woes of a world that had turned away from God. A once perfect world, without evil, was subjected to curse because of this rejection of God. A harsh act on God’s part? I would suggest not. For in rejecting God, we humans rejected the fullness of life and love that God had in mind for us. If this came with no consequence, we would never feel our need to turn back to God to experience the true joy of community with Him and our fellow humans that we were made for. And while this curse has bought a previously unknown burden of distress, God left in us longings for something better. He did not take away His image from us, nor were our consciences or capacity for love fully paralysed.

But what hope for freedom from this curse? The hope indeed is the Lord Jesus. He came to Earth to reverse the effects of this curse; his life showed His passion and purpose in realising this aim. His death was the decisive act in winning this epic battle. And His resurrection and ascension confirm that the work of restoration continues to this very day, and will continue until He comes again.

That we live in a deeply burdened world is undeniably; and if we are truly honest it is undeniable that we ourselves are not as we ought or long to be. Praise be to God that he sent the Lord Jesus to ‘make his blessings known wherever curse is found’!

"Joy to the World" - words by Isaac Watts.

Government EU defeat, Lance Armstrong and storm Sandy

In a shocking departure from recent form, high level British politics became interesting last night as the House of Commons supported an amendment to demand a reduction in the European Union’s budget. Not only was this a strong show of British political muscle against the excesses of the EU, it also marked a defeat of the government in a whipped vote, as Tory backbench rebels joined forces with Labour, the SNP and the DUP. It is a result warmly welcomed by all sceptical of the growing federal behemoth of Brussels, but as it is not binding on the Prime Minister it is but a small skirmish in the battle. Whether this will catalyse Parliament into ‘sorting out’ the European question (which, given the widespread and growing public disquiet on the issue must surely include a referendum on the UK’s relationship with the EU) remains to be seen. But regardless, it’s good to see things getting exciting in the Commons once again.

I don’t wish to add too much ink to the Lance Armstrong case, so I offer only this -  putting aside the ethics, deception, methods and outcomes of the scandal, two great sadnesses emerge: firstly, we will never know how good Armstrong truly was. Many say that without EPO you drop from the front of the peloton to the middle; although I have no doubt he wouldn’t have achieved the success he did without EPO, I would be surprised if he hadn’t experienced some success and been competitive at the front end without it. But this is the point – these questions can never be answered, they will forever be speculative and will forever be worthless, for Armstrong the sportsman is now worthless. The second sadness is that there is no inspiration left for fans and riders of an era of cycling already largely discredited, for the success of Armstrong was one of the few lights – and certainly the brightest – that remained. I’m just thankful that my own interest in the sport was only birthed two seasons ago.

Returning to politics while hopping across the Atlantic, the American presidential elections have been thrown to the back stage in light of storm Sandy. This is quite proper in light of the tragedy that the storm has wreaked. Yet a scene from The West Wing comes to mind when Zoe Bartlett has been kidnapped and President Bartlett is unable to focus on the politics of the situation. Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman speaks up and says ‘that’s why I have to’. It is entirely right that political calculation doesn’t show a public face in these times, but no doubt in the background many campaigners on both sides of this election will be calculating the political ramifications of the storm. This is not hateful when their goal is to respond rightly and responsibly to the tragedy; it would be hateful if either side tried to use the storm to their political advantage.