A Seeking Heart gets Revelation

Luke 2:25,26 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel , and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.

Most of us have dreams. No, not the dreams-at-night type of dreams, but dreams of what might be. Sometimes those dreams just lurk there in the background of your consciousness and you’re hardly aware of them – but they’re there. For many people they’re in the form of, “If only….” They may be dreams of winning the lottery (most unlikely to be fulfilled) or they may be dreams of going somewhere or achieving something – perhaps of learning something new. Oh yes, most people have dreams, even if they’re just below the conscious level. Simeon was someone with a ‘dream’.

Simeon lived in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, the place where the Temple of God was. Simeon was a Jew and no doubt well taught. Simeon had been taught the many scriptures, in what we now call the Old Testament, that pointed to One who would come to fulfil God’s purposes of the ages for Israel. He looked at Israel in subservience to the Roman overlords, and he read the scrolls and saw in them the glory that Israel had once been. He saw that the One would come to comfort the people of Israel, and be the consolation of Israel. The teachers had differing views of the sort of person this One would be. Some said a conquering king, other said a suffering servant, because the prophetic scriptures seemed to indicate both, and they couldn’t see how he could be both, so they opted for one or the other. Simeon read these Scriptures and then it was as if someone or something – the Holy Spirit could it be? – seemed to say to him that this One would come in his lifetime. He became absolutely convinced, the more he thought about it, that this was God confirming this to him.

Now, do you see what has happened in what we’ve just described? Yesterday we described again ways that God speaks. Included in the list was through the Scriptures, and also directly by His Holy Spirit. In the text, in the verses we’re reading, the Scriptures aren’t actually mentioned, but being a righteous Jew in Jerusalem, he would certainly have been taught them. There clearly was, in Simeon, a coming together of Word and Spirit. He read it and he heard it in his spirit. That’s how it happens in Christians. This man is a pre-Christian, a Christian in all but name, for he believes in the saviour, even though he’s not there yet! He’s read of him and been spoken to within himself of him. He is utterly convinced about the Coming One.

That’s amazing because it’s more than most people today achieve, who now have all the story of Jesus available to them and yet who don’t bother to read, don’t bother to seek. Jesus was later to say, “Seek and go on seeking, and you will find.” (Mt 7:7 using the ongoing tense that is there). We don’t know quite how it was for Simeon but often there is something in people that starts them looking (God speaking to them?) and so they start searching and as they start searching the search becomes more intense – and as they go on searching they come to a place of decision, a place of realisation.

If you have read through these Advent meditations, welcome to the seekers club. Whether you’re a Christian or a not-yet-Christian, welcome to the Club. Remember what it says at the top of the contents page – in the Introduction. As you read, pray, because as you pray you are seeking God and seekers who go on seeking always find. May this time be a time when you either find and deepen your existing relationship with God, or even perhaps for some, find Him for the first time. We’re only a few days off Christmas now. Have this most wonderful of presents. If need be, go back and reread these meditations, go and read the whole story in a Bible. Seek and find.

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If that’s what God says….

Luke 2:21,22 On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived. When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord

“Well, what I think…” How many times have you heard those words? Somehow we try to assert our individuality or create our uniqueness by opinions, as if what we think is THE all-important thing in life. Anyone who has any public role in life – whether it be a politician, TV pundit, newspaper writer, or even simple manager – constantly faces the great temptation to believe that their view is the right one. Politicians probably hold the most extreme position in this respect, when they have to follow a ‘party line’, but we all do it in a lesser measure; we all hold a particular line. I once heard a group of about fifteen men discussing a particular contentious subject with an amazing degree of unity. It was only after about ten minutes that I realized that they had all watched the same documentary on TV the night before and were now all holding the same view. The only problem with all this is when a contradictory view appears in another ‘documentary’ some months later.

With this in mind it is refreshing to observe the simplicity of Mary and Joseph. They don’t go on their own ideas; they, quite clearly, follow God’s views. God has said, through the two angels, that the child is to be named Jesus – so they name him Jesus. Next, being part of the Jewish race, having the Law of Moses, the Law given by God to Israel through Moses, they go to do what the Law required. The Law required the couple to go to the temple after a prescribed period after the birth and present an offering to the Lord. Now this is not the place (with insufficient space) to explain the sacrificial system for the Jews, simply to reiterate that it had been given to Israel to follow. Mary and Joseph therefore followed the dictum, if that’s what God says then we’ll do it.

As we look back over the story so far, we can see that this couple received their guidance from God through direct heavenly communication (the angels), through circumstances (the emperor), through other people (the shepherds), and now through the written word of God (the Law). Similarly today we receive our guidance through heavenly communication (the Holy Spirit – see Gal 5:25 ), through circumstances, through other people (see esp. Eph 4:11 for ministries and 2 Pet 5:1,2 – shepherds!) and through the Scriptures (see 2 Tim 3:16 ,17). What a wealth of guidance available to us! I wonder if we avail ourselves of it, or do we only go by what we think, our opinion, our ideas? Such people frequently go astray.

So here is this beautiful couple being led of God. The truth is that it is probably Joseph taking the lead and his capability for following dreams, as we’ll yet see before the story finishes, suggests that he is particularly good at following God’s guidance. Mary, we suggest, simply follows – she’s probably a bit younger than him as well, and following your man was the teaching of the day – and because he’s won the right to call her to follow his headship by first having laid down his life for her. See Paul’s teaching on this (Eph 5:22 -25) which is beautifully epitomized in this couple. So for Mary, she has the additional form of guidance, so alien a concept in the modern Western world, of a life-giving husband, winning her love and submission by his attentiveness to God’s voice and God’s will. Amazing! Is that not beautiful?

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A Sign for You?

Luke 2:12-14 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

There is a desire in most of us that says, “Show me, give me a sign.” We feel sufficiently insecure that we desire to be able to see, to have our way ahead lit by a sign that says, this way, it’s all right. The strange thing though, when we come to the Bible, is that God isn’t very good with signs. The shepherds were offered a sign: a baby in a manger – but that meant they had to go down to the town first to find the sign: act then get the sign.

We come to God asking for clarity, light on the path ahead, and He tells us that we are to live by faith not by sight (2 Cor 5:7). Faith in the Bible is responding to what God says, so our light is His word and that becomes a lamp to our feet (Psa 119:105), that’s why we need to read it more and more. We’re also called to be led by His Spirit (Gal 5:16,25) which again is something that happens within us, not through our eyes.

When Moses was talking with God at the burning bush, the Lord gave him a sign to prove He was with him – the promise that when he had led Israel out of Egypt, they would worship at this mountain (Sinai). In others words, when you’ve done it you’ll know it was me with you! When God speaks words of prophecy it is so often like that: He says it, you look for it, but don’t find it, He then does it and you look back and realize that it was Him. So often, it seems, God’s ‘signs’ require us to move first.

John in his Gospel speaks of the miracles that Jesus did as ‘signs’ (Jn 2:11, 4:54 etc.), but of course they were only recognized as such by those whose hearts were open and seeking. Others simply criticized and asked for more ‘signs’ (e.g. Jn 2:18). It seems again and again the Lord wants us to respond to what He says and then, and only then, it becomes clear. It’s when we step forward trusting, that a voice comes from behind us saying, “This is the way walk in it” (Isa 30:21). So if you’re looking for a sign from God, in His graciousness He may just give you one (e.g. to Gideon – Judges 6:36-40), but more often than not, He waits for you to act in faith before the sign comes.

So the angel tells them about the baby who will be God’s Chosen One, the Christ or Messiah (v.11). The fact that he’s there, as I said, will be sufficient for you to believe what I’ve said is true, is what the angel is saying. When you look, you will find – but you need to look first. That’s how it works with God – then and now!

Then it’s as if heaven couldn’t contain itself for suddenly there is a great company – very many – angels, all singing of God’s greatness. The Christmas story is littered with angelic appearances. It’s as if heaven is coming to earth to accompany the coming of the Son. Of course it wasn’t until much later that Jesus himself spoke about how he had always existed and had come down to earth from heaven (Jn 6:33,38,41,51,58). The glory that had been in heaven, now somehow compressed, was now on the earth (Phil 2:6-8). The presence of the singing angels is not the incredible thing; it’s the presence of the very Son of God who is the incredible thing, God on earth. This presence on earth of the Son was evidence of the wonder (glory) of God’s plans for mankind, peace that will be brought between God and man, through this Son. The angels are singing of the wonder that is possible for you and me – peace with God!

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Why Shepherds?

Luke 2:8,9 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

Being of a limited mind, there are a variety of things I would like to ask the Lord when I see Him. For instance, why the Shepherds? Why did an angel come to a bunch of shepherds on a hillside outside of Bethlehem?  I’ve got various ideas but the Bible doesn’t actually tell us why shepherds. You’ve probably taken them for granted in the Christmas story, most of us have. But why do they get included?

Is it that God is just so happy that He’ll send His angels to whoever happens to be around? Was it because they were the only ones awake at the time the baby was born? Was it that God saw this bunch of social outcasts – because that’s what scholars tell us they probably were – and just take pity on them and so laid on an angelic visitation? I mean, those sort of things are typical of God. Rejoicing overflows from heaven, and the Lord is concerned for the poor.

Perhaps it is an object lesson for the world, as if the Lord is saying, see here, look, my Son is available to be seen by anyone. You don’t have to be rich; you don’t have to be religious. You can even be an outcast, and he’s there for you. That would certainly be true of Him.

Perhaps it is a symbolic gesture, sending shepherds to go and check out the latest birth of a sheep, or rather of a lamb to be more precise, one who would later be referred to as the Lamb of God (Jn 1:29) who was slain in the place of sinners.

So how do those suggestions resonate with you? Do you know the God who is so full of joy that it overflows to His world (see Prov 8:30,31) or is the God you think about a miserable, vindictive old man in the sky who you do well to avoid? If He’s that latter, it’s time you readjusted your thinking about God because He’s far more like the former picture (see Isa 62:5, Lk 15:7,10). Oh yes, heaven is not a miserable place!

Do you still think you have to earn God’s love by being good or by being religious? Oh no, these shepherds challenge that, if nothing else in Scriptures didn’t – but it does! No you don’t have to earn the right to come into the presence of the Son who is now seated at his Father’s right hand in heaven reigning; you just have to acknowledge that you’re on the same level of these shepherds.

Do you still think you have to try and appease God and make up for the wrong things you do? You’ve never taken in the truth about the Lamb of God then, who died in your place to take your punishment, so all you have to do is come to the Father with gratefulness. If this story tells us nothing else, it tells us that God is the One who takes the initiative in coming to men, and He’s not put off by anyone – shepherds, you or me! God doesn’t look for good people, just receptive people – and we’ll soon see how receptive these men were!

But at the end of it, we still don’t know exactly why the shepherds, but that’s typical of God as well. He leaves some questions unanswered until we see Him face to face in eternity. Can you live with that? Have you that assurance? This is a very reassuring story, so if you’re not completely sure of your place in eternity with God, go back and reread some of the things above. They are true. The way is open for you. Rejoice with the shepherds.

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Difficult Times in God’s Will

Luke 2:5-7 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

We thought yesterday about the feeling of being trapped in a machine, the machine of circumstances beyond our control. Mary and Joseph are in that machine and it requires them to leave the place where they were living and go to Bethlehem , for no reason apart from the whim of the emperor!

Now the only problem about all this, is that everybody else is doing this as well, and so Bethlehem, being the home town of King David, was the home town of lots of people descended from this family line. There are lots of people travelling back to Bethlehem! And yes, you can guess it, it’s always the same, the authorities hadn’t thought about this, or hadn’t cared about it, but where was everyone to stay? Go to the Inn. Right! But unfortunately several dozen other people got there before us and so there’s no room.

Fortunately a kindly innkeeper, or more likely inn-keeper’s wife, sees Mary’s state and allows them to bed down in the stable round the back. It’s pretty awful, but it’s better than nothing. And then, Oh Joseph, there was a pain, and another, I’m having the baby. Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse! A young girl and it’s her first child. How would you have felt? A husband with a young wife who’s having a baby that isn’t yours; how would you have felt? This is not a good day!

Have you caught something of the picture? This is not a fun day! Looked on from a purely human standpoint, from the standpoint of Mary and Joseph, there have definitely been better days!!! We tend to forget all this when we see the children acting it out in the school nativity play. From a human standpoint, what has just happened? Another baby has just arrived in the world. Goodness knows how many other babies arrived in the world on that day or night. Ah, but that’s the point; this isn’t just another baby. What we have missed in the awfulness of these circumstances is that God has just appeared in the world in human form for the very first time ever.

Now that is such a staggering statement that it leaves most of us spluttering over the impossibility of it, or over our incapability to grasp it, but that, the Bible very clearly tells us, is what happened! In a way that totally denies our intellect, somehow, this tiny defenceless baby lying wrapped up in a manger, in the straw, is God. Is he totally God? Well yes he is, but somehow not, because God is all-powerful, all knowing, all-everything and this tiny baby – for the moment at least – isn’t, or certainly doesn’t appear to be! That’s what makes this a mystery, because this little baby that is God in human form, is going to grow up and show himself to be very different from us, is going to provide us with so much evidence that, for any open, thinking person, there is no room for doubt – this is God! But he doesn’t look like it at the moment. The lesson? When God leads you into apparently small and ordinary events, even seemingly bad-news-day events, be careful, they may have earth shattering consequences – you just don’t know with God! What may seem a nightmare may turn out to be the most staggeringly wonderful day of your life!

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Trapped by Circumstances

Luke 2:1-4 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria .) And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea , to Bethlehem the town of David , because he belonged to the house and line of David.

Throughout history there have been groups of people who have decided that life, the world, is like a great clockwork machine and that everything is interlinked and no one and nothing is free from it. It’s like one great machine and you can’t affect it. Some have even gone as far as to say everything we say or do is determined by what has been. We are locked into a great machine, slaves to yesterday!

Now why do we sometimes feel that? Because governments and authorities decide the rules, the media portrays life as being a series of incidents where so much of it goes wrong and we feel we have little or no say in the destiny of the world. Joseph and Mary could have felt like that. They are part of a small nation, Israel , which has been taken over and ruled by Rome . Rome is all-powerful and so, because the Roman emperor has decided he would like to know exactly who he is ruling over, everyone has to be counted, and they are to be counted at the place of their birth. So, all over the country, people were moving to go to their home town to make sure on census day they were there. There were no doubt severe penalties for those who didn’t! In the case of a married couple, they were to go to the husband’s home town.

So here they are, expecting a baby – which Joseph, no doubt, isn’t feeling too sure about on a bad day – and now they have to travel from Nazareth in the south to Bethlehem in the north, because that’s the town of his family. Cogs in a machine, being driven by forces beyond them! Why Bethlehem? What’s special about Bethlehem? That will become clear later, but for the moment it seems there is little point in it, except the emperor requires it. Isn’t that just how life is so much of the time? We seem carried along by the winds of circumstance and we don’t know why. We wish we could win a million pounds, say, and break free from the daily drudgery and not have to work, perhaps, for work can seem such a part of the ‘machine’ which holds us in place. In such a framework of thinking, it is so easy to feel depressed. What’s the point? Why am I here? Why is this happening? If only I hadn’t… If only I had…. Yes, there are days when it seems that that is all there is.

It’s like what we were thinking about, in respect of Elizabeth and Zechariah, a little while back. She’s pregnant and it’s going to be nine months before anything is going to happen, so it’s a waiting time. We’ve just got to get on with life and wait for the next significant thing to happen. For Mary and Joseph, it’s having to be at Bethlehem. Get the census out of the way and we can get on with life again. Oh really? You don’t know some of the things that are going to happen there, because one thing we’ve forgotten about here, is that God has a plan and God is on the move. That’s so easy to forget in what seems the ordinary mundane day to day working out of life. Oh yes, it may seem that ‘big people’ are moving us around like pawns on a chess board, but actually God is the One who is ruling over it all. Don’t lose sight of that today, or tomorrow, or any other day! Look for Him in it. Remind yourself what He has said or done to get you to today. Get perspective! Get a God perspective, and that will change everything!

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Grounded in God’s Declared Will

Matt 1:22 -25 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”–which means, “God with us.” When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

There is a bizarre phenomenon in the West in the twenty first century. If is of people declaring their freedom from God, from religion, from ritual and from rules, and who yet are, increasingly, slaves to upsetting and destructive lifestyles from which they cannot escape. Psalm 2 is a psalm that speaks of people who think that they are in chains and fetters because of God’s requirements and plot against God (Psa 2:1-3). It is pure folly, the psalm reveals, because God is all-powerful and He is Lord and He rules over the affairs of men. But there is another reason that it is folly, and that is because all God intends for mankind is good, and any restrictive laws are purely to protect man and maintain the good.

Joseph, in his dream is being confronted with a course of action that is in direct opposition to all that he had felt before he went to bed. He is confronted by an angel who tells him that what is happening to Mary is God’s will. It is part of God’s previously declared will and has now come about by the power of God. As we considered yesterday, the questions before Joseph now are, is this really God speaking and will I do what is being said? He clearly decides in the affirmative to both questions. He reverses his previous plans and instead proceeds with his betrothal, marries Mary and looks after her, even though he’s had nothing to do with the baby! This is a major step of faith.

But let’s consider further just what it is that he has done. He has basically said, I will trust this is God and therefore, even though I do not fully understand it, I will put myself fully into God’s declared will and do that which has been asked of me. This means that he takes on some possible comments of the onlookers who will soon realize that Mary is pregnant and that conception came before the marriage and, even more, he’s going to have to learn to live with the fact that he’s going to be father to a child that is not his, and he’s going to continually have to remind himself that this child is by an act of God, else he may have bad feelings about Mary. However many other children they may have in the future (and they had at least six more – Mk 6:3), the eldest one would always have a question mark over him. Yes, this was a major step for him to take.

We will see from later on in the story that God’s choice of this man was well-founded because his ability to receive guidance from God made him a good protector of the baby. At the time we may not be able to see why God is instructing us to move in a particular way, but we need to realize that God’s plans for our individual lives are part of His bigger plan and He will always provide all we need to comply with His wishes. It is only, in fact, when we put ourselves into God’s declared will, that we find blessing and fulfillment. Only with the sense of walking in the path He has for us, do we find true satisfaction. We may not fully understand it, but we will receive peace and we will receive blessing. Are you aware of His calling? Can you let go your fears and step into that calling?

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The Challenge of Revelation

Matt 1:20 -21 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Ignorance of the Law, they say, is no excuse. What they mean is that everyone is expected to have a reasonable understanding of the laws of the country. It gets worse though, because if it can be shown that you definitely knew about a law and blatantly disregarded it, you are doubly guilty. Jesus said, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (Lk 12:48) I simply remind us of this, because an interesting challenge arises behind what was happening here.

The challenge is, if God has spoken to me, dare I disregard what He has said? You see, here is Joseph who, as we said yesterday, is a good man, a righteous man, who desires to do the right thing before God, and now he’s being told to take Mary as his wife. Does he have to do this? No, there are choices before him, because he does have a free will. Will he disregard this dream when he wakes in the morning, putting it down to a guilty conscience over Mary, or even the cheese he ate last night? Or will he simply do what he was told in the dream by God.

Ah! Now there’s another question that might arise in his mind. Was that really God speaking through that dream? Does God speak through dreams? Does God ask me to do things that I feel uncomfortable about? Does God speak? There’s a whole issue here about the possibility of God speaking. Well, the Old Testament gives hundreds of examples of God speaking to people, so the last question is answered. Does God speak through dreams? Well, why shouldn’t he?

The truth is that God speaks through a whole variety of ways. He can speak through dreams, He can speak through the circumstances of your life, He can speak through the words of the Bible as you read it, He can speak through other people to you, He can speak through your conscience, and He can speak by a quiet whisper in your mind. Nevertheless the question so often arises in us, was this really God speaking? One check is to ask, does it conform to what we learn of Him and His will in the Bible, but that does mean we need to know it quite well. We can also ask about the fruit or the effect of it: does it bring, love or peace to us, does it draw us closer to God? Are we left with a sense of God’s love for us and does it leave us in a closer walk with Him? Having answered all those questions positively, we’re still left with a response of faith. We can’t be one hundred per cent sure, and so we have to step out, trusting it was God. That is faith.

That’s what confronts Joseph here. This is the challenge of revelation. Is this really God and will I trust Him and respond positively to it? For Joseph it was a major life turn around if he was going to do that. This wasn’t just a quiet intellectual assent; this meant a total change in life, but then that’s what God’s after for us. When we step out like this we find we’re plugged in to a completely new world, the world of God, the world of goodness, the world of blessing. That’s what is at stake here!

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