Author: admin

Collect

God of all ages,
in the birth of Christ
your boundless love for your people
shattered the power of darkness.
Be born in us with that same love and light,
that our song may blend with all the choirs of heaven and earth
to the glory of your holy name. Amen.

Readings

Isaiah 9:2-7

Psalm 96 (sung)

Titus 2:11-14

Luke 2:1-20

Throughout Advent we have been reflecting on the themes of hope, peace, joy and love. They are all the wonderful gifts we are each given at Christmas. God enters our time and space, our bodies, lives and our reality and dwells with us in order to give us these gifts.

We are each one of us the beloved of God.

In Charles Dickens classic, ‘A Christmas Carol’, the character Scrooge is taken on a journey which allows him to see his life through a different lens, in the end although nothing in the world or in Scrooge’s life has actually changed, everything is different. It’s because Scrooge is different and what has changed is how he sees the people and the world around him and even how he sees himself.

This is the gift we receive from Jesus at Christmas, the world around us is still filled with violence, our lives are affected by sickness and death but how we react to the world, how we see it through the lens of Christmas changes everything. Christ coming to us shows us in technicolour beauty and angelic singing that God loves is, is with us through all that happens to us, never has and never will abandon us and that is what our hope is founded on. This is how we can access peace in the midst of turmoil, how we can experience joy even at times of sadness.

We are each one of us the beloved of God. Amen.

Collect

Shepherd of Israel,
may Jesus, Emmanuel and son of Mary,
be more than just a dream in our hearts.
With the apostles, prophets, and saints,
save us, restore us,
and lead us in the way of grace and peace,
that we may bear your promise into the world. Amen.

Readings

Isaiah 7:10-16

Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

Romans 1:1-7

Matthew 1:18-25

What is it like to be asked to do something by God, especially when we have already made a decision on what we are planning to do, which turns out to be against or different from what God is asking of us? Do you hear what God is asking of you; do you ignore it or do you embrace it, possibly with a bit of fear?

This child that Mary was going to have came from the love of God. Love is our fourth candle to be lit this week. I think this is most appropriate to be the last of the four that we light. This love for us, to receive a saviour from God becomes more powerful as each week of Advent goes by. For some of us Christmas can be a rough time, but this power of love can do more than we can ask or imagine.

Our Gospel reading for this week focuses on Joseph and his answer to God when he hears that Mary is with child. When I first looked at this reading from Matthew I looked at the NIV version so that is what I prepared for. One word in particular is added to this reading that is not in the NRSV.

Here is the paragraph from NIV

“This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly”

The word ‘divorce’ confused me. If Mary and Joseph were not yet married, how could they get a divorce? It turns out that the word ‘engagement’ was quite different than it is today. Marriages were arranged by the parents of the bride and groom sometimes even without the couple knowing about it. The families would enter into a binding contract and at that time Mary and Joseph would have been considered married. But the ‘honeymoon’ would not happen for what could be up to a year. This ‘time between’ is where the angels come into play. First for Mary and then Joseph in a dream.

I suppose that the dream each of them had would have been ones that they would have not forgotten when they woke up in the morning, but a dream is just a dream isn’t it? Some of them get so far fetched that you wonder where that came from and just shake it off as a dumb dream. This dream for Joseph meant he had to have faith, that it was true, as far fetched as we all would have thought it to be. (Mary was to have a child and the father of that child was of God). What amount of faith does it take for someone to say yes to this? I can’t imagine someone with just a little faith following through with it. What if Joseph had said no? God gave us free will and allows us to make our own choices, however many of us know how pushy God can be when he really wants us to go down a certain path. What would it have meant for Mary and Jesus if Joseph said no? Mary and Jesus’s life would have been a lot more difficult. Even today, it isn’t easy to be a single mom, but back then things would have been much more challenging and possibly impossible. But then again nothing is impossible with God. I suppose he would have figured out a way to have the answer from Joseph be yes eventually.

This child that Mary was going to have came from the love of God. Love is our fourth candle to be lit this week. I think this is most appropriate to be the last of the four that we light. This love for us, to receive a saviour from God becomes more powerful as each week of Advent goes by. For some of us Christmas can be a rough time, but this power of love can do more than we can ask or imagine.

Sometimes for me a certain line in a hymn, a prayer or even a story can jump out at me and stay with me for a long time. There are 14 words that we have heard on Sunday mornings recently that are so important for me.

“God could not love you more than God loves you at this very moment.” When I hear these words on Sunday morning that are said with compassion, I am filled with Peace, Hope, Joy and Love.

Blessings to all of you this Christmas and always.

Collect

O God of Isaiah and John the Baptist,
through all such faithful ones
you proclaim the unfolding of future joy
and renewed life.
Strengthen our hearts to believe your advent promise
that one day we will walk in the holy way of Christ,
where sorrow and sighing will be no more
and the journey of God’s people will be joy. Amen.

Readings

Isaiah 35:1-10

Luke 1 46b-55

James 5:7-10

Matthew 11:2-11

John to Jesus

All four gospels begin the story of Jesus with reference to the prophet John the Baptiser; indeed, the gospel of John refers to him almost immediately in the familiar, beautiful opening hymn: “There was a man sent from God whose name was John.” The entire opening chapter of Luke is all about the birth of John; the birth of Jesus happens in chapter two. The season of Advent focuses much on John and his mission.

Advent is about readiness to acknowledge, receive, and participate in the revolution that clusters around Jesus. As followers of the way of John and Jesus, our discipleship is to call the prodigal home, to call all God’s children to return from their exile, to call all mankind to turn around, to radically centre their lives in God’s love and to reach out with compassion to their brothers and sisters, that they might all know they are beloved of God.

This introduction of John the Baptist helps us to understand Jesus more clearly. John was an important first century prophet acting in the tradition of OT prophets; indeed, his appearance is compared to Elijah. He echoes the OT in his call for repentance: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his path straight.” He comes offering “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”; in doing so he openly challenges the temple authorities who saw themselves as the only authority to mediate between God and mankind. He pronounces judgment on the rulers of his time, and this opposition lands him in jail and eventually costs him his life. This anti-temple prophet, in the OT tradition, has a tremendous influence on Jesus of Nazareth.

If John and Jesus were indeed cousins, as implied, they may have played together as children, grown up together. In any case, Jesus was obviously attracted to John the Baptist; he must have heard John’s “crying in the wilderness,” and came to join him, to learn from him. We have no idea how long Jesus sat at John’s feet as a disciple, but it is logical to assume it was a good length of time for Jesus to learn from interaction with John. At some point John must have realized that his student surpassed him in wisdom and stature, for John after a time points his own disciples toward Jesus; in the first chapter of the gospel of John, Jesus’ first two disciples are plainly identified as John’s disciples. In Matthew’s gospel Jesus begins his ministry “when he heard that John had been put in prison.” From that moment Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” the very same words the writer of Matthew placed in John’s mouth: “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Jesus picks up where John leaves off.

The gospels have John announcing clearly that Jesus is the “coming one,” echoing the language of the prophet Malachi, the last book of the Jewish Bible in Jesus’ time. The gospel writers, writing several decades after the events of Easter, portray John as the forerunner of Jesus. However, when John the Baptist is imprisoned by Herod, he sends messengers to Jesus asking, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John is obviously unsure at that point. Both the gospel of Matthew and Luke have allowed considerable time to pass before this incident, several chapters in fact, during which the reader has seen Jesus in action, preaching, teaching and healing. And Jesus answers John’s question in the language of the OT: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them.” Jesus answers John in the metaphoric language used to describe the kingdom of God, taken primarily from the book of Isaiah, chapter 35, and also echoed in psalm 146. Jesus is not so much giving a literal summary of his ministry, as he is announcing, in his imagery, that the kingdom of God is near. The gospels of Matthew and Luke present Jesus as the fulfilment of OT messianic prophecy, as the new Moses through whom God will save his people. The OT references remind us that the gospels were written to make theological points, to interpret the experience of Jesus in light of OT understandings of God. Jesus’ actions declare the kingdom of God is at hand and he is telling John in code, through the Biblical imagery he recites, that the kingdom of God is here, that he is “the one who was to come.” Jesus reassures his teacher that he has learned his lessons well, that he is a prophet in John’s tradition, that he will build on John’s foundation.

And that foundation, as all the gospel writers make clear, is the OT prophetic voice. “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his path straight” (Luke 3:4): the gospel writers put into John’s mouth the call for repentance used at the start of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year. Repentance means to turn around, to alter one’s direction, to align one’s life along the righteous path that God desires. It is a call for the exile to return, for the wandering one to come home. Furthermore, John the Baptist’s words in the fourth gospel apply the imagery of the exodus to Jesus: “Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.” The reference is from the feast of Yom Kippur which ends the ten days of fasting during Rosh Hashana, when the sacrificial lamb was slaughtered and eaten. It also refers to the Lamb of the exodus which was killed and roasted, the blood smeared over the lintel to protect the inhabitants from the angel of death; however, it is important to remember that the rest of the lamb, the cooked lamb, was packed away as food for the coming journey out of exile toward the promised land. The Lamb of God as food for the journey: the emphasis can be placed not so much on the blood of the lamb to avoid death, as on the feast of the lamb to bring life. The Lamb of God travels with us, to nourish us on our way. Emmanuel: God with us. Following Jesus is about following the way—a commitment to a path of personal transformation and of confrontation with social systems which dominate and suppress people: “Make straight the way of the Lord.” Jesus learns this way from John. John the Baptist’s ministry connects Jesus to a rich OT prophetic tradition, and Jesus models himself very much after his mentor. The parallels between them are striking: both men call for repentance, both challenge the temple authorities, both pose a threat to the secular powers, and both are executed. The disciples of Jesus follow this example and they too are all executed.

The background in the introductory material of all four gospels is the mission and fate of John the Baptist. We encounter during Advent the story of the hopes around John’s birth and his proclamation: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” No one in that time had seen anyone quite like this man John with his wild wilderness garb, his diet of locusts and honey, his language, his fierce and unaccommodating judgement and condemnation: “Oh you brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” The gospels show how John dared to challenge the way things worked at every level–religious, personal, economic, political and social; he told all these people how to change the way they lived in light of what God was about to do. His message was so powerful and convincing and inspiring (if also fearsome!) that the people, which here implies not just those who came out to see him, but people in the region generally, started considering the possibility that John might be the Messiah. We cannot understand the way of our Lord revealed in these passages apart from the context of challenge and threat—and good news, too–posed by the message and ministry of John the Baptist. To do so is to distort what Matthew and Luke want us to hear clearly. The birth and ministry of Jesus constitute a social revolution that keeps reverberating through every time and place.

Advent is about readiness to acknowledge, receive, and participate in the revolution that clusters around Jesus. As followers of the way of John and Jesus, our discipleship is to call the prodigal home, to call all God’s children to return from their exile, to call all mankind to turn around, to radically centre their lives in God’s love and to reach out with compassion to their brothers and sisters, that they might all know they are beloved of God.

Collect

Labouring God,
with axe and winnowing fork
you clear a holy space
where hurt and destruction have no place,
and a little child holds sway.
Clear our lives of hatred and despair,
sow seeds of joy and peace,
that shoots of hope may spring forth
and we may live in harmony
with one another. Amen.

Readings

Isaiah 11:1-10

Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

Romans 15:4-13

Matthew 3:1-12

ADVENT 2—Today’s Gospel reading is from Luke 3: 1-6

Simply, John the Baptist arrives on the scene—administering a baptism in the Jordan calling people to repent—to turn from their current path to faithfulness to God. John grew up with Jesus and thus had a firm idea of what Jesus’ prophetic ministry was about.

Now water cleansing for the forgiveness of sins had its roots in the OT and a long tradition with the people of Israel—but the word baptism came to us from the Greek in the NT baptizo, to dip and described the physical act not the underlying spirituality.

For Jesus, God was immanent, present, now in our midst. The term that might describe this is ***Godness***, where we find the presence of God.

This was an adult rite, a believer’s baptism, a tradition carried on in many Christian communities. Most of us and our children were baptized as infants (a topic for another day). One thought I had was that there is no evidence in the NT of a repeated act of repentance such as one might find in the church’s practice of weekly and or daily confession of sins (also a topic for another day).

The Gospel is the Good News brought by Jesus and that Good News is that the presence of God is at hand, or in language from the OT the Kingdom of God is at hand.

That is the Good News taught and practised by Jesus that God is with us and that loving neighbour is loving God. We need to take care that we listen to and follow the faith of Jesus; what did Jesus say and do? and what did he teach about God?

Unfortunately Christianity has been and continues to be more focussed on belief in Jesus and interpreting his death as a substitution for the sins of humanity, developing doctrine and liturgy with that sole focus and losing sight of that Gospel. Or presenting the Good News only as Jesus death and resurrection.

The Gospel or Good News is about the presence of God in our everyday lives, this is what Jesus taught and lived.

So where is God? When we think of war, poverty, oppression and injustice, we call on God but it is my firm belief that God will not selectively intervene in the laws of nature or the free will of humanity. Up until Jesus taught that the presence of God is in our midst, scripture described a transcendent God, a God coming from up there or out there and many people still think about God as separate and above.

For Jesus, God was immanent, present, now in our midst. The term that might describe this is Godness, where we find the presence of God.

God, that presence, is in the earth, the sky, and the sea, and in all living things. All things, the earth, the sky, the planets, the cosmos are made of God. They flow from God and this means they are made of God, not our familiar ‘made by God’.

We, humans, are not separate creations but part of the continuum of God creating we are items of Godness just as the earth, sea, sky, and all living things. Thus somewhere in our heart/brain/soul is the creative spark of divine life. All the great religions of the world, Hebrew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist given credence to humanity’s quest to be open to oneness with divine life.

Much of humanity might live in blindness about that divine spark, about who we are and where we are going, how we can find hope, peace, and justice when the powers of evil and death rage about us.

The task or challenge for us during this season of waiting and hoping is to find that spark, nurture it, and share it, in our quest to follow the Way of Jesus.

Collect

Unexpected God,
your advent alarms us.
Wake us from drowsy worship,
from the sleep that neglects love,
and the sedative of misdirected frenzy.
Awaken us now to your coming,
and bend our angers into your peace. Amen.

Readings

Isaiah 2:1-5

Psalm 122

Romans 13:11-14

Matthew 24:36-44

Many of us belonged to Girl Guides/Boy Scouts in our youth. The motto of both these groups is, “Be Prepared.” This mostly refers to being prepared in terms of life-saving resources, and staying one step ahead in case of an emergency, but it can certainly pertain to emotional readiness as well.

The first candle this year represents peace, peace during the difficult times in our lives, the happy and even mundane times, and especially during the difficult period of waiting.

During this time in the Bible, God was speaking through his Prophets, instructing them to tell the whole world that they needed to “be prepared” for God. How can we do that? One way we prepare during Advent is to light four candles on our Advent Wreath, while praying for the arrival of our Messiah. The first candle this year represents peace, peace during the difficult times in our lives, the happy and even mundane times, and especially during the difficult period of waiting. Waiting for our Messiah is hard, but it is also exciting.

Yet there are many periods in our life where we are waiting for something that we long for, cry out for, and aren’t even quite sure whether or not we will receive it. May God reward us for our patience and faithfulness. May we ask him to remind us that his timing is always perfect, and that the reward is always worth the wait. Especially this reward, the birth of a sweet baby, the Saviour of us, and of our world. Amen!