Month: December 2020

A woman wailed. Family members, their own faces wet with tears, tried to embrace her. She shoved them away, literally and figuratively.

The scene was repeated over and over. This was a horror day which would go down in history as a bleak aside to the Christmas story.

A megalomaniacal ruler had ordered the murder of all boys under the age of two in the area. His reason was that an ancient prophecy pointed to a king’s birth in that area at that time. A baby had been born … a baby who would not be allowed to grow up … or so King Herod intended.

Which is why ALL baby boys there had to die.

The facts

Christmas cards picture three wise men with gifts, paying homage to the newborn king. They never feature distraught mothers whose baby sons have been wrenched from their arms and slaughtered. But that, too, is an integral part of ‘The Christmas Story’.

Matthew didn’t go into details in his record, but simply stated the facts.

When Herod realised that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

Matthew 2:16

The Feast of the Holy Innocents

Today (as I write), churches around the world commemorate ‘The Feast of the Holy Innocents’. It seems strange to call it a ‘feast’, for as long as anybody knows, this ‘feast day’ was actually a day of fasting and mourning. And for good reason.

On this day, we remember that awful day some 2020 years ago when innocent children died a violent and undeserved death.

Yes, this atrocity served to fulfil an ancient prophecy from Jeremiah (according to Matthew). But it seemed so senseless. So wrong.

Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning.
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”

Matthew 2:17-18 NIV

Ramah – a place of pain for mothers

Rachel, of course, was the mother of three of Israel’s tribes – Ephraim and Manasseh (of Joseph’s line) and Benjamin. She died giving birth to Benjamin on the road to Bethlehem (Genesis 35:19-20). Her husband, Jacob, erected a monument there. Traditionally, Rachel’s tomb is recognised as being just outside Bethlehem, though scholars put it a little further north.

Rachel was childless for many years, a source of tremendous pain in itself in that culture, and a grief which she shared with several other notable figures in Israel’s history. Her grandmother-in-law, Sarah, knew what childlessness was like. Hannah, mother of the great prophet Samuel, would later suffer a similar grief for many years right there in Ramah.

Rachel would eventually be given a child … a child of promise … who would find himself whisked away to Egypt when he wasn’t much more than a kid. Joseph’s power-hungry brothers were at fault but God was sovereign and was preparing to save the clan through Joseph’s future position in Egypt. Rachel would then bear one more child, only to lose her own life in the process.

Rachel wept in Ramah. She wept for all that could have been but was not. She wept for shattered hopes and dreams. She wept for her children who were taken from her. And then she died.

But that was not the end.

Ramah – a base for the Babylonian exile

Jeremiah, whose prophecy was fulfilled that horrendous day in Jesus’ time, spent time in Ramah. When the Babylonians came and forcefully exiled the Jews, their base was Ramah. It was actually in the context of imminent exile that Jeremiah pronounced this prophecy:

This is what the LORD says:
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
mourning and great weeping.
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because her children are no more.”

Jeremiah 31:15 NIV

There was a note of hope, however, even in the midst of pain. Read what else the LORD had in store. The prophecy continued:

This is what the LORD says:
“Restrain your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears,
for your work will be rewarded,”
declares the LORD.
“They will return from the land of the enemy.
So there is hope for your future,”
declares the LORD.
“Your children will return to their own land.”

Jeremiah 31:16-17 NIV

Jeremiah himself actually avoided exile, though he had been chained and prepared for an imminent departure. His liberation took place at Ramah, which is why I surmise that the exile began there.

The word came to Jeremiah from the LORD after Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard had released him at Ramah. He had found Jeremiah bound in chains among all the captives from Jerusalem and Judah who were being carried into exile to Babylon.

Jeremiah 40:1NIV

It is significant, surely, that Jesus was sent into exile from Ramah to Egypt. This came about through the angel of the Lord giving instructions in a dream to Joseph, and thus fulfilling another prophecy (Matthew 2:13-15).

The symbolism is thick. Even as the baby was carried to safety, the lives of his young male peers were destroyed in a manner reminiscent of Moses’ story. But that was not the end.

Physical events reflect spiritual realities

John’s revelation from Jesus to the early church was given to encourage those early believers to stand firm, despite the dreadful days in which they lived. In chapter 12 of the book of Revelation, we can read a story remarkably similar to the horrendous tale of the slaughter of the innocents.

In Revelation 12, the ultimate megalomaniac – Satan – was desperate to destroy the woman and the child, the one through whom the salvation of all creation would come. The woman and the child were protected by divine intervention. When he realised that the babe had been whisked away from his clutches, Satan went ballistic. The apostle John helpfully, at this point, put in a note of explanation.

Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring – those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

Revelation 12:17

Revelation 12 is rich in symbolism. One thing is clear from this section, at least, and that is that the enemy’s power is real but temporary. Suffering for Jesus’ sake is normal but it is not eternal.

Satan’s fury is not the end of the story.

Pulling it all together

On this day on which the church commemorates ‘The Feast of the Holy Innocents’, we remember a dreadful atrocity.

Many of us Gentiles miss the rich symbolism of this horrendous tale. Let me try to summarise the riches I have glimpsed today as I have spent time in this passage.

First, pain is inevitable. We are part of a bigger story in which a megalomaniac strikes out in fury at Almighty God’s incarnation. That doesn’t excuse the various perpetrators of evil, of course. But it is not the end.

Second, we are encouraged to persevere. God, in his sovereignty, is working in the brokenness and despair of fallen creation. May we cling ever more tightly to the Saviour who was born that first Christmas when we suffer the fury of Satan, the ruler of our world, the one who has already been defeated.

I detest this part of the Christmas story with every maternal fibre of my being. Sin is like that. It’s horrendous. But against that dark backdrop, there is hope.

May we persevere, then, in obedience to the one who was born in a manger and snatched away to safety in Egypt.

For that was not the end of the story.

Here in Melbourne, Australia, the local Jewish community hosted an eight day public event in Federation Square called ‘Chanukah – Pillars of Light’. It finished yesterday (as I write). Each evening, different public figures would put in an appearance. They would sign a lit-up pillar, adding a note of positivity. Performers would delight the (covid-safe) crowds. Jewish games, discussions and more took place. The most significant part of each evening was the lighting of a candle on the menorah (a particular style of candle stick holder – see the screenshot below of the advertising for the event).

What is Hanukkah (Chanukah) about? Why is a non-Jewish Christian woman wishing you ‘Happy Hanukkah’ here? Is it Biblical?

Join me on a trip in our imagination (pretty much the only way to travel during these strange days). Let’s go back in time and across the world. I hope that you, like me, will find it fascinating and hope-engendering.

Time: Second century BC
Place: Israel

Exhilaration and devastation mingled in the community. Against all odds, Jewish guerrilla fighters had expelled the oppressors from their Temple. But at what cost? And what a mess confronted the people as they reclaimed their holy place of worship.

Brave people surveyed the damage. The altar to the Most High God had been defiled. Pigs had been sacrificed on it. It had become an altar to a Greek god, Zeus.

Where was Jehovah God?

Slowly the people began to clean. The menorah (the oil-lamp branched lampstand) was recovered. It was, perhaps, a more recent copy of the one Moses had made as instructed by God himself. (See Exodus 25:31-40.)

They found one small bottle of pure olive oil; oil uncontaminated by the atrocities which had been committed there. It would keep the lamps burning for a day, perhaps. It would take them longer to source what they needed. So much for reinstating what their Scriptures required.

Command the Israelites to bring you clear oil of pressed olives for the light so that the lamps may be kept burning. …. This is to be a lasting ordinance among the Israelites for the generations to come.

God’s instructions to Moses as recorded in Exodus 27:20, 21b NIV

And yet, miraculously, the lamps burned for eight days. EIGHT days. Surely God was with them.

By the eighth day, more oil had been obtained. The Temple was cleansed. It was dedicated afresh to the Lord, the God who was with them, whose light shone in the midst of their community, never going out.

Every year since that time, whenever possible, people celebrated this miracle. The festival culminated with the Day of Dedication, on the eighth day. God was with them. How good was that?!

Time: First century AD
Place: Israel

It was the Feast of Dedication again … perhaps the 194th such feast since the custom had begun, give or take a few years. The Jewish name for this feast literally comes from Hebrew word meaning ‘to dedicate’ and is pronounced something like ‘Hanukkah’.

It was winter in more senses than one. Life was hard. Oppression was severe. But the oil-filled lamps burned, symbolising God’s presence.

A man arrived on the scene. A crowd of Jews gathered around that man, demanding the truth.

Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Jews gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

John 10:22-24 NIV

In the weeks preceding this event, Jesus had had a lot to say about ‘light’. He had claimed to be ‘the light of the world’ (John 8:12). He had healed a blind man, insinuating that the religious leaders were, in fact, the blind ones (John 9:40-41). That didn’t go down well.

Now he stood there at the climax of the Feast of Dedication (Hannukah). For the first time, as requested by the mob, he made his position crystal clear.

I and the Father are one.

… the Father is in me and I in the Father.

John 10:30, 38b NIV

Surrounded by lamps and celebratory lights, the people picked up stones, intending to snuff out the Light of the World. They tried to seize him, but he slipped away.

He would not return to the city until Passover.

Time: Twenty-first century
Places: Varied

Bright lights decorate trees, shop windows, street, buildings and more. Light is an important part of Christmas celebrations the world over. They’re cheerful, lifting our spirits, and appreciated more than ever after a year like 2020.

The lights remind us of the birth of Jesus, the Light of the World, prophesied from ancient times. I wrote at length about light and Christmas in a recent blog post.

Yet there is so much more. Consider the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah and Jesus’ bold proclamation at that very festival of his divine nature. As followers of Jesus Christ (Christians), this Jewish festival is even richer in meaning than I, at least, had realised.

Think back to the broken, contaminated, filthy Temple of the second century BC. The people found a little bottle of oil. They lit the wicks on the oil lamp. Light broke into the dark and gloom, symbolising God’s presence. Miraculously, the oil lamps burnt for eight days, until a generous supply could be sourced. God was present, despite the mess.

Think back to the first Christmas. Mary gave birth to a little scrap of humanity, a helpless baby boy. Eight days later, she submitted him to a minor medical procedure, marking him clearly as one of God’s own.

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.

Luke 2:21 NIV

Jesus – the name means ‘Saviour’. (See Matthew 1:21 and Luke 2:11.) God was present in a very real and tangible way, despite the mess into which he was born.

Hanukkah – the feast of dedication. Jesus, God incarnate, was dedicated afresh on the eighth day after his birth. Years later, at the festival of dedication – Hannukah, he would publicly claim to be God incarnate.

String up those lights! God is with us! Celebrate!

Time: Now and then and in the time to come
Place: Wherever God’s church exists

Life was tough for those early followers of Christ. It can be tough for us today too. Throughout the centuries, it has not been easy.

Jesus gave an early church leader a very special vision. He wanted to encourage his people to persevere. Here are a couple of images, as valid for us now as they were for the seven churches spoken about in the vision.

… I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man”…. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance….

… he said, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades….

“… the seven lampstands are the seven churches.”

Revelation 1:12b-13a, 16b-18, 20b

The oil-filled lamps are us! I find myself singing the old chorus, ‘Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning; give me oil in my lamp, I pray; give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning; keep me burning till the break of day’. (Though perhaps the ‘me’ and ‘my’ in the song would be better sung as ‘us’ and ‘our’.)

Jesus remains amongst us now. He walks among his lampstands. His very Spirit indwells us, just as the olive oil once filled and fueled the Temple lampstands.

But wait … there is more.

After chapters and chapters of highly symbolic, terrifying scenes of conflict in both the physical and spiritual realms in the book of Revelation, we find victory.

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

Revelation 21:22-23 NIV (my emphasis)

Remember the Jewish Temple lamps that were never to have gone out? For a time they did, but not forever. It may have felt like God was absent, but he had not forgotten them.

It began small, but with God’s divine intervention, light broke into the darkness. What is the ‘it’ which began small but ended up brilliantly radiant?

‘It’ is the light from the lamps in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem after it was reclaimed from oppressors in the second century before Christ. And ‘it’ is the Light of the World who was born as a helpless little baby that first Christmas morning and who went on redeem creation. And ‘it’ is God’s people, the church, and his kingdom who struggle still but whose future is secure.

Happy Hanukkah!

On Wednesday afternoons, several women in my neighbourhood sit in front of our computers doing an online simple English Bible study. We are allowed meet face-to-face now, but zoom has suited us well. We began during lockdown.

The other ladies in the group are mothers of international students at a local high school. They are happy to study the Bible if they can get English language lessons at the same time. I’m happy to teach English language lessons if I can introduce truths from the Bible at the same time. We all give and take a bit, but I think I speak for us all when I say that we are all getting so much more from the lessons than we had anticipated.

Last week’s lessons was, not surprisingly, from Luke 2. It was the story of Jesus’ birth. For me it is ‘old hat’, but for these ladies, it was fresh.

One of their questions stumped me. Let me explain.

An English lesson

I usually introduce vocabulary that they mightn’t know and any background to the passage which they need in order to understand it. Then we go through it section by section, reading and discussing it.

Luke 2:1-21 actually required quite a lot of pre-teaching. First there was the historical and geographical setting of the passage.

The ladies hadn’t learnt about the Roman Empire back when they were in school. They knew about the Mongolian Kingdom from the 13th century though. It spanned from Eastern Europe all the way across Asia and down into parts of the Middle East. In a similar way, I explained, the Roman Empire covered many parts of the world in the 1st century, including Europe and North Africa, parts of the Middle East and West Asia. I had maps ready to share through zoom and we located the various places mentioned in the Luke 2, including Syria and Israel, as well as Rome, Nazareth and Bethlehem.

Second, I taught a couple of unusual vocabulary items which they needed if they were to understand the passage. We use the New International Reader’s Version (NIRV) of the Bible because the language tends to be less specialised than some other versions. Nevertheless, the NIRV translators have left the relatively uncommon word ‘manger’ in this tale. (The other tricky word was ‘circumcised’.)

“Don’t worry about memorising the word ‘manger’,” I told them. “It’s enough to just recognise it. It’s not common in modern English except for when we tell the Christmas story. It’s old English, coming from a French word meaning ‘to eat’ – ‘manger’. In other settings, we would call that thing a ‘feeding trough’.”

We then worked through the wondrous story, one paragraph at a time. The climax of the lesson was a carol, ‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night.’

The question

“Why did Mary put the newborn baby in a manger?” A thoughtful woman in the group who is not over-familiar with the Christmas story asked this question.

It just so happened that I have recently re-read a chapter on the culture and history of that area, how mangers featured in homes and how that related to the Christmas story. If you’re interested in reading more about this, check out the book ‘Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes’ by Kenneth Bailey, published by Intervarsity Press.

So, in response to this quite reasonable question, I explained that a manger was just the right size for a baby. It was like a cot. The straw would almost certainly have been clean and comfortable. The new mother and those with her were making the best of what was at hand.

The lady looked puzzled. She continued, “But Mary must have been lying somewhere. Why would she need a special bed for the baby? Even if she was lying on the floor, wouldn’t it have been better for the baby to lie on her or next to her?”

She has a point. A manger is an odd choice for a baby’s bed. And what about mother-child bonding?

The significance of the manger

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that this lady was onto something. The manger is a significant element of the Christmas story. Kenneth Bailey, in the book recommended above, thinks so too.

Three times, the author Luke emphasised the manger in the section we studied a few days ago. In Luke 2:7, we read that Mary laid him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them. In Luke 2:12 an angel, in blazing light, gave terrified shepherds a sign to attest to the incredible incarnation. The sign was this: the newborn Saviour, Messiah and Lord would be found wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. In Luke 2:16, the shepherds did indeed find the baby lying in a manger. After witnessing this miracle, they praised God and spread the word about what they had been told and what they had indeed seen … the Lord Jesus lying in a manger (Luke 2:17,19).

Humility

I tried again to answer this insightful lady’s question about the significance of baby Jesus lying in a manger in a satisfactory manner.

“The manger shows us how humble Jesus was. He went from powerfully sitting on a throne to helplessing lying in a feeding trough for animals. After all, Mary couldn’t hold him all the time, right? It would have been safer for the baby to be off the floor when Mary was up and about, don’t you think?”

This response isn’t as random as it might seem. Just a few weeks ago, we studied a passage from Philippians 2 in which Jesus is portrayed as having come from a position of equality with God to taking on the form of a servant. In fact, Jesus took on the form of not just a servant, but also a homeless waif whose parents had been forced from the security of ‘home’ by an edict of an oppressive government. In fact, the situation would get worse before it would get better. The horror of Herod’s jealousy was not covered in Luke’s tale.

The more I ponder the image of the baby Jesus lying in a manger, the more I appreciate the tremendous wonder of the incarnation.

Count the cost

These thoughts made me think me of something else related to humility, and that is the cost involved in following Jesus. I didn’t go there in our class last week, though. The elements of the Christmas story as recorded in the first part of Luke 2 would be enough for one day.

Philippians 2 contains that early church hymn which our group studied a few weeks back. But there is more.

A sobering injunction directly follows the hymn of Philippians 2:6-11. The writer clearly links the two with the word ‘Therefore’.

“Therefore, …. continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” .

Philippians 2:12a, 12c-13

Jesus counted the cost when he descended from a throne to a manger. The cross was yet to come.

Perhaps the manger of his infancy also hinted at the homelessness that would be his lot in adulthood. Decades later, Jesus would explain to someone who asked to follow him, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Luke 9:58).

I find this passage sobering because I thoroughly enjoy having a place to call ‘home’. Just the same, as a follower of Jesus, I have to be ready to relinquish it, as I have done before. It was easier when I was younger, though.

It is my hope and prayer that these ladies will, in time, choose to follow Jesus. There are some good people in their lives, of whom I am just one. We are quick to hold out the good news of Jesus’ incarnation, but the reality is that there will be costs in following him as well. May the God who took on frail human form strengthen them to persevere when that time comes.

A feast

A manger is a feeding trough. Animals gladly come to feeding troughs after farmers have been because they are usually filled with good food.

That the baby Jesus was laid in a manger was no coincidence.

The image of a baby in a manger has become a well-accepted image of Christmas. Many people have beautifully carved nativity sets which they set out at this time of year. The animals look adoringly at the newborn baby … at least, that is what we like to imagine they are admiring. Could it also be the fresh hay?

The picture of a ‘feast’ and a ‘table’ laden with good food is woven throughout Scripture. “You have laid a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (Psalm 23:5) is one such picture with which we are familiar. The theme continues through most Christian denominations even today as we ‘come to the Lord’s table’ to celebrate communion. Consider these words of Jesus, spoken near the end of his life:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’
Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my father’s kingdom.’

Matthew 26:26-29

Is it coincidental that the newborn Messiah should be laid in a ‘manger’ – a feeding trough? Jesus himself was the feast that God had prepared for his people. In a very literal way, the one who would call himself ‘The Bread of Life’ (John 6) spent his first hours in a manger, a feeding trough.

A Christmas greeting for 2020

At the end of 2020, I hesitate to greet people with the phrase ‘Merry Christmas’. It’s been a shocking year for many of us. ‘Making merry’ is actively discouraged in many parts of the world this year. No, ‘Merry’ is not the right greeting for Christmas 2020.

Yet Christmas remains special. On that first Christmas, God incarnate physically entered our broken, hurting, contaminated world.

And so, as we, too, contemplate the wonder of Christmas, I shall finish this blog post with this Christmas wish for each of us – you, me, and the many (including the ladies in my neighbourhood) who have come to the Christmas story with fresh eyes this month.

“May the wonder of Christmas be ours.”

For our Saviour was laid in a manger.

Life was hopeless … literally without hope. It was as if they were under a great weight – a breath-of-life-extinguishing darkness.

That was how the people of Israel felt around the time that Isaiah prophesied almost three millennia ago. Their northern enemy was oppressing them and threatening to take over their land. It was just a matter of time before they succeeded. The potential ally to the south would eventually prove inadequate too.

Their land … the land of God’s own people … the promised land … was soon to be stripped away. Almighty God, the One and Only Jehovah, would do nothing to stop the enemy, for he was angry. They were his people, yet they put their trust elsewhere. His was a righteous, zealous jealousy.

Right smack bang in the middle of some magnificent Christmas prophecies which we sing and print on cards today (sections of Isaiah 7 and 9), come these chilling words in Isaiah 8:

Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. They they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.

Isaiah 8:21-22

Pinpricks of light

Isaiah 8 is a dark and gloomy chapter. And yet, throughout, flecks of hope – Christmas hope – prick the inky blackness.

With imagery of torrential flooding and bloody war, Isaiah depicts God as being not absent, but present. God was there in the very midst of the horror. (See Isaiah 8 verses 8 and 10).

The prophet calls on his listeners to fear the LORD Almighty (verses 12-15). In the thick of judgement, he describes God as a sanctuary, even though in almost the same breath he also describes him as a stone that makes men stumble and a rock that makes them fall. This ‘stumbling stone’ imagery harked back to King David’s prophecy of Psalm 118:22-23 and would be directly applied to Jesus some eight centuries later. (Check out Matthew 21:42-44 and 1 Peter 2:4-8.)

And then, in the darkness, Isaiah declared his faith. He declared not only his own faith but that of the children whose very names were, in themselves, prophecy (see Isaiah 7:3 and 8:3)

Bind up the testimony
and seal up the law among my disciples.
I will wait for the LORD,
who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob.
I will put my trust in him.

Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.

Isaiah 8:16-18

The final section of Isaiah 8 is somewhat of a mystery to Westerners like myself who barely understand the spirit world, though likely not to people whose daily lives revolve around appeasing the spirit world. In it, Isaiah spoke of the blackness of mediums, spiritists and those they consult (Isaiah 8:19-20). They have ‘no light of dawn,’ he stated. Then he finished with the desperate and distressing verses quoted earlier, in which humans and spirits were ‘thrust into utter darkness’.

Then and now

That was then. This is now. 2020 … a year of dismay.

I watched an hour of world news on TV the other day. War in the Middle East, pillage in Africa, plague in Europe and the Americas, fractured families fleeing violence and oppression all over the world, chaos at all levels of society … the only relief was the sports report at the end.

Tonight, as I edited this piece, I switched on the TV for ‘a break’. On a programme which is usually a light-hearted look at current affairs, I heard the story of a serial murderer. The reporter focused particularly on the pain of those whose lives were destroyed by him either directly or indirectly. At the end of the segment, of course, the television station broadcast telephone numbers for crisis help because the segment may well have stirred up memories of some viewers’ own horror stories.

Where is God in our broken and hurting world?

Isaiah 8 speaks to us today just as it did to the Israelites back then. In the chaos, God is present. Immanuel – God with us. Trust in him and wait. Trust and wait…….

Nevertheless….

Throughout 2020, our ‘annus horribulus’ (as the Queen might say), we have been encouraged ‘to pivot’. Thank God, quite literally, for a welcome ‘pivot’ in the book of Isaiah, initiated not by us through any cleverness or strength of character but by God himself. The first word in Isaiah 9 is a glorious transition word: ‘nevertheless’.

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress….

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

Isaiah 9:1a, 2

In Isaiah 9, we are finally getting back into Christmas-card-quotable verses. This chapter contains magnificent words of hope that have been sung in multiple languages throughout the centuries.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders,
And he will be called
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

Then and now

When Isaiah spoke this prophecy, the people were living in fear and with a sense of hopelessness. Yet even in the midst of the darkness, they were told to trust and to wait.

Seven centuries later, after cycles of rebellion, exile, repentance and return of remnants, light blazed. Brilliance broke into darkness in a literal way that first Christmas with an angelic choir over Israel and a guiding star over a foreign land.

The first Christmas there in Israel has been and gone. Today we hang brightly coloured lights around our houses, over our trees and occasionally even on our clothing in celebration of that light.

Yet in another sense, our Saviour has not yet completely dispelled the darkness. Just switch on the TV and you will see what I mean. As Christians, indwelt with God’s Spirit, we radiate light in a dark and dreary world. The apostle Paul urged his readers to imitate Jesus’ life and in so doing, we would be “… children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe…..” (Philippians 2:15b)

A city of light

Jesus was born. The prophecy was fulfilled.

And yet we still live in a dark world. We sparkle like stars, yes, but darkness has not yet been fully dispelled. Disease, dismay and death surround us. Can we trust and wait, like Isaiah did back in Israel in the dark and hopeless days of the eighth century BC? Can we trust and wait on God as the early Christians did in the oppressive Roman world of the first century?

Consider the vision that the early church leader John was given. It’s purpose was to provide hope and to encourage perseverance of battered and bruised believers. It is as relevant to us now as it was to the early Christians back then. John wrote:

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

Revelation 21:22-23

Immanuel – God with us

Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled. God was with those Israelites even in their difficult days. Judgement was imminent, but in the judgement, mercy was offered. Immanuel – God with us.

Fast forward 750 years (more or less). Jesus, Immanuel, the Light of the World, was born. The darkness tried to put out the light, but the light prevailed for it was more powerful than the darkness. (See Matthew 4:12-17, John 1:5, 3:19-21, John 8:12, John 12:35-36.)

As God’s people, united with Jesus himself, we also shine in the darkness. (See 2 Corinthians 4:6, Ephesians 5:8, 1 Peter 2:9, 1 John 1:5-7.)

God is with us in our difficult days. Immanuel.

Jesus will return in power and glory. Death will be defeated once and for all, along with decay, disease, despair and darkness. Immanuel.

Right now, though, our world is still dark. Nevertheless, Almighty God has intervened decisively and continues to intervene. Immanuel.

At the end of a year the like of which we wish we may never have to endure again, may we shine brightly for Jesus. For he, the light of the world, has come. Immanuel.

And so we trust and wait … and shine. Immanuel.

Happy Christmas. Immanuel.