What Matters

Peace (March 6)

Read: Luke 2:1-20 

Key Text: Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom his favour rests. (John 2:14)

Reflection: The declaration of the heavenly host makes clear the birth of Jesus was a momentous, history defining occasion.  This is all the more remarkable because of the humble and mundane circumstances surrounding it.  In the birth of Jesus, God’s favor has come to rest on humankind – Good News has invaded our world.

The angel’s song reminds us that God’s favour is experienced as peace.  Peace (shalom) is much more than the absence of conflict.  Peace or shalom is the experience of completeness or wholeness.  Paul writes of the reconciling work of God through Jesus Christ in this way, ‘Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’  (Romans 5:1)  The peace we receive through Christ is the full and complete restoration of our relationship with God.  We who were once enemies of God have through the work of Jesus become his friends (Romans 5:10).

More even than peace with God, Jesus embodies and makes possible the peace that reconciles us to each other.  In Ephesians we read, ‘(Jesus) is himself our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.’ (Ephesians 2:14)  Many things have the power to separate us, but only one thing – One Person – has the power to reconcile us to God and each other, and that is the Prince of Peace.

Question: Where have you mistaken the absence of conflict for the presence of peace in your life?  For example, is there a strained relationship that you have been avoiding that needs to be reconciled?  What steps can you take to see wholeness and completeness restored?

Read: Micah 5:2-5

Fulfillment (March 5)

Read: Isaiah 9:1-7

Key Text: 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 Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

Reflection: Israel lived with a longing.  Throughout its tumultuous history it constantly looked for a leader who could guide, protect and rescue it.  Moses and Joshua led them from Egypt to the Promised Land, where successive judges/saviours, like Deborah and Gideon became the vehicles for God’s saving grace for a constantly rebellious people.  Rather than look to God as their protector-saviour, Israel then longed for what the surrounding nations had – a king who could unite the fractious tribes.  God gave them what they wanted, and Saul, David, Solomon led the nation.  A succession of kings followed, in the end leading Israel into decline and despair.  Conquest and exile was the result, as the Assyrians, then the Babylonians and then the Persians ransacked the land, exiled Israel’s brightest and best, and destroyed Solomon’s temple.

Through the time leading up to during, and after exile a new and more sharply refined longing emerged in Israel – for a leader, a saviour – a Messiah.  Messiah simply means ‘anointed one’.  God established in Israel a longing for a Messiah who would embody his saving power perfectly.  This Messiah would be a royal king who would rescue his people from evil and establish a new kingdom of justice whose reign would never come to an end. 

The authors of the New Testament stress that Jesus fulfils fully and completely the messianic longings of Israel.  Jesus said to the teachers of the law that the scriptures they study so intently are the same words that testify, or point towards him (John 5:39).  On the road to Emmaus the resurrected Jesus explained to the confused disciples how he fulfilled the longing for a Messiah in the scriptures (Luke 24:25-27).  Jesus fulfilled Israel’s longing for a saviour.  And he fulfils ours.

Question: Of the four phrase’s descriptions attributed to the Messiah in Isaiah – Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace – which do you most need to experience in your life right at this moment?

Watch: Watch Lee Strobe discuss Jesus’ fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy (two clips)

Clip One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxIVnjXDFlg&feature=related

Clip Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9MGBjLu2UI

Divine Conception (March 4)

Read: Luke 1:26-38

Key Text: “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34)

Reflection: Well might Mary ask the question, “How will this be?”  People have been asking the same question of the virginal conception (not birth) ever since.  For many moderns the story smacks of legend rather than reality.  And even if it is legend, is it really that important?

The virginal conception is important for a number of reasons.  First, it stresses that Jesus was a wholly unique individual who was the product of both divine and human agency.  Second, the virginal conception explains how the central New Testament of incarnation happened.  Third, Jesus’ birth underlines the fact that he fully entered into the human experience, including all of our physical frailties.  Four, in his conception, Jesus was untainted by the curse of sin that marks all other human beings.  Five, the miraculous conception of Jesus reinforces the fact that he is God’s supreme gift to this world. 

The virginal conception challenges the disposition of many of us to actively or passively dismiss the miraculous.  Miracles, by their nature, upset the accepted order of things.  Virgins do not conceive, water is not turned into wine and people are not raised from the dead.  How can these things be?  Miraculous events are signs that point to the wonder of God.  They are events that demand a response.  CS Lewis says of miracles, ‘It is…inaccurate to define a miracle as something that breaks the laws of Nature. It doesn’t…If God annihilates or creates or deflects a unit of matter He has created a new situation at that point. Immediately all Nature domiciles this new situation, makes it at home in her realm, adapts all other events to it.’  The miracle of the virginal conception is that it moved matter in such a way that Mary conceived in a way unknown before or since, and then proceeded with a normal pregnancy. 

Question: Have you ever witnessed a miraculous event?  If you did, how did it impact your faith?  If you haven’t, do you believe in the potential for one?

Watch: Some of the best Christian thinkers (Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig) discuss the question, ‘Do miracles violate the laws of nature?’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJk_TnDHhZo

A Father's Son (March 3)

Read: Matthew 3:13-17

Key Text: And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)

Reflection: In early 2010 I had the privilege of enjoying a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, including spending five days in Jerusalem.  For me this was the highlight of the trip.  On the southern steps of the Temple mount we scrambled over the rough hewn stone that dates right back to the 1^st century.  Dotted amongst the steps was the remnant of the ritual baths where pilgrims would wash themselves before entering the temple precinct.  The outward washing represented the desire for inner cleansing.  On top of the Temple Mount, which is now a Muslim controlled site, taps were everywhere available for pilgrims to prepare for worship in the Al-Aqsa mosque.  Whether it is Hinduism, Islam, Judaism or Christianity – ritual washing plays a central role, speaking of a latent desire in all of us to wash away the stain of our sin.

Matthew makes very clear that the baptism of Jesus is not one of repentance.  Jesus has not sinned and so does not need to confess, repent and be cleansed.  The Baptism of Jesus marks the beginning of his public ministry.  The baptism makes public the Father’s approval of Jesus and the Spirit’s empowerment of his ministry.  Jesus will not minister in his own strength, but out of the deep communion he enjoys as part of the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit will lead and empower him and his close walk with the Father will sustain him.  The opening of the heavens and the subsequent descending of the Spirit of God on Jesus reminds us that in his life, death and resurrection – the distance between heaven and earth became gossamer thin.

Question: When and how have you experienced God’s Spirit descending on you?

Read: A short account of the Creation parallels in the Baptism of Jesus from a site I refer to often: http://www.followtherabbi.com/Brix?pageID=1598

Incarnation (March 2)

Read: Colossians 1:15-23

Key text: He is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation. (Colossians 1:15)

Reflection: This beautiful passage is one of the earliest hymns of the 1^st century church.  It may have been written by Paul, or included by Paul in his letter to the Colossians as a familiar reference point, a little like a preacher referencing a verse from Amazing Grace today.  The subject of the hymn is the person and work of Jesus Christ.  With an economy of words, the writer testifies to the divinity of Jesus (v.15, 19), Jesus as Creator and supreme ruler over Creation (v.16), Jesus as the head of the church (v.18), his resurrection victory (v. 18), and the reconciling work of his cross (v.20).  In this hymn we have powerful testimony as to why one day every knee will bow, and tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.  This hymn could easily have been titled, ‘The Supremacy of Christ’

Paul, both here and elsewhere in his writings makes the radical claim that Jesus is God.  Verse 18 literally reads that Jesus is the ‘visible image of the invisible God’ (Ben Witherington) Jesus is not ‘like’ God but the exact and full representation of God in all ways.  Through and for him the heavens and the earth were created, and through him the new heaven and earth will be established.  He existed before time as we know it, and will reign eternally – for time with no end.  He is the Alpha and Omega – the beginning and end of all things.

For centuries the early church wrestled with the doctrine of the incarnation; that is, did God really reveal himself fully and completely in Jesus Christ?  Was Jesus really both fully human and fully divine, and at the same time?  This is more than philosophical pondering – the answers to these questions mattered then and matter today.  As CS Lewis said last century:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God’. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God." (Mere Christianity)

Question: What is your favourite hymn or song about and/or addressed to Jesus?  Why? (Perhaps dare to sing it as you finish your devotion time!)

Watch: Lee Strobel (author of The Case for Christ) outlining four arguments for Jesus being God: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9RDHHpfKJw

Alpha and Omega (March 1)

Read: John 1:1-18 

Key text: Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:3)

Reflection: This is a magnificent, beautiful and painfully difficult to interpret piece of writing.  In 1^st century Greek philosophy and thought, Logos or ‘the Word’ was a critical concept.  The Word was thought to be the rational principle of the universe.  Jewish philosophers like Philo adapted this concept further, defining logos as the creative plan of God that governs the whole world.

In Genesis 1, God speaks the universe into being –‘and God said’ is repeated on the six days of Creation.  This Word that spoke existed before Creation.  This Word was and is inseparable from God, indeed is God.  Then John really messes with our heads.  This Word, this Logos that spoke all that is into being, clothed himself with the form he created, making his dwelling place on earth (John 1:14).  The Word that spoke is now the Word revealed in Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth.

Perhaps the deepest mystery of the Christian faith is the doctrine of the Trinity – that God is One, but known in the three persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  At the heart of this doctrine is the belief that God is not known in viewing each person of the Trinity separately, but in relation to one another.  God is a dynamic, always loving, always giving community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  As such, Creation is the beautiful outworking of God’s loving, triune nature.  (Some commentators see reflections of the doctrine of the Trinity in God’s decision to make humankind – ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness – Genesis 1:26)

Some commentators suggest (persuasively I think) that John 1:1-18 was originally a hymn sung in the early church.  If so, this is so very apt.  Creation dances with the majestic power and sovereignty of God.  Our speaking of it should be as lyrical as Creation reveals itself to be.

Read: Psalm 139

Question: What personality trait or physical attribute that God has given you are you most thankful for?  What do you wish you could change?  Why?

Majesty (February 29)

Read: Job 38-39 

Key text: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?  Tell me if you understand.” (Job 38:4)

Reflection: This is an awesome text, not least because in it we don’t question God (a favorite pastime) but God questions us.  Job is a righteous man who endures terrible suffering, is lectured by his friends and who unsurprisingly shakes his fist at God in defiant despair.  Life, and it seems, God, is unfair.  Job is not the first or indeed the last person to make this accusation.

After 37 chapters of suffering and questioning, a seemingly silent God now speaks out of the storm.  God answers Job’s challenges with a challenge of his own.  Verse after verse, phrase after phrase, God reminds Job of the majesty of Creation and the supreme Majesty of its Creator.  The discourse covers cosmology (the stars), meteorology (the wind, the rain) and especially zoology (the wild animals).   In poetically describing the wild and free nature of the lion, mountain goat, deer, hawk and eagle – God is reminding Job and us that while we have dominion over creation, we do not control or sustain it.  God alone does.  Job’s perspective on life is re-orientated by a beautiful reminder of the sovereignty and power of God the Creator and Sustainer of all things. 

In Psalm 8 David speaks of a rightful place in Creation, and Gods, beyond it.  God’s name is majestic in all the earth.  Compared with such an awesome God, who are we that God is mindful of us?  Before God and his Creation we become profoundly aware of our smallness.  Though we are small, still we are significant, being place a little lower than the angels.  It is in this paradox that Job and we find our true identity. 

Question: Where and/or when have you been awe-struck by Creation?  How did this experience impact your view of God and your relationship with him?

Watch: Noted writer, speaker and Oxford academic John Lennox answer the question, ‘Who created God?’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIknACeeS0g

Imago Dei (February 28)

Read: Genesis 2:4-25

Key text: The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.  (Genesis 2:7)

Reflection: The Bible speaks of Creation in two ways; as an event and as a process.  Creation is an event – the primordial origination of the world, the beginning of history’.  (DofB)  This is ‘creatio ex nihilio’, or creation out of nothing.  But in the scriptures Creation is also an ongoing, unfolding process (creation continua), for example, Psalm 33. 

In the first two chapters of Genesis we have two separate accounts of Creation as event.  The accounts are not contradictory; rather they illustrate different truths about the same event.  In contrast to all other ancient accounts, Genesis 1 is the poetic narration of a peaceful Creation of the world and all that is in it.  By contrast, in the ancient Babylonian account of Creation (Enuma elish), the world emerged out of divine combat and struggle between the gods.  In Genesis one, God surveys all he has peacefully made and declares it ‘very good.’ (Genesis 1:31)

In Genesis 2, we move from poetry to prose as man is formed from the dust just as a potter shapes clay. Here we discover the deeply relational nature of Creation.  God recognizes that man’s identity can only be fully realized in relation to others (Genesis 2:18), and so woman is formed to complete humankind.  The first humans are then given dominion over Creation as with God’s blessing they name the animals.  This dominion is consistent with the assertion in Genesis 1 that man (male and female) is created in the image of God.  Human beings are not animals – we are God’s image bearers, and as such have worth over and above the great worth of other beings.

Question: What does it mean for you to be fearfully and wonderfully made? (Psalm 139:14)

Watch: A video clip from Louie Giglio’s ‘How Great is our God’ message:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRiIWL04po8&feature=related

G_d (February 27)

Read: Exodus 3 

Key text: God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’’ (Exodus 3:14)

Reflection: I feel sorry for Moses. Desperately trying to run from his past, hiding in the sparsely populated Midian desert, Moses had every reason to believe he had started over, even marrying into a new family.  But a burning bush interrupts everything.  (Perhaps God could be called, amongst other things, the Great Interrupter?)  God’s mission for Moses is clear, and Moses’ intention to find an excuse to refuse his commission clearer still.  Moses asks for a name he could give to the slave-bound Israelites – every god has a name after all.  Egypt herself has Isis and Ra, to name just two.

God’s response is breathtaking.  ‘I AM’ is the answer to Moses’ question.  It is not so much a name as it is a primitive Hebrew word that is transliterated as ‘hayah’, which means ‘existed’ or ‘was’ or ‘I shall be that I shall be.’  God is beyond the capacity of a name to even begin to describe his divine character, nature and timelessness.  God is wholly other.

The bible details many different names for God, each seeking to capture one or more of the infinite number of Divine attributes.  The most common name in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) are Yahweh (6639 times, usually written as LORD) and Elohim (2750 times, written as god). Many Jewish believers to this day believe in the sacredness of God’s name such that they will not write it in full (often recording it as G_d).  This tradition is traced back to the third of the Ten Commandments not to take or speak the name of God in vain (Exodus 20:7).  Such reverence for the Name(s) of God stands in stark contrast with our irreverent culture that truncates God’s name into a SMS abbreviation ‘OMG!’

Question: What name do you use to address God most often in prayer (e.g. Father, Lord, Jesus etc.)  Why? 

Further Reading: An exercise in praying the names of God from Navigators: http://www.navigators.org/us/resources/items/Thirty%20Days%20of%20Praying%20the%20Names%20and%20Attributes%20of%20God

The Beginning (February 26)

Read: Genesis 1

Key text: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

Reflection: Every story has a beginning, middle and an end.  The story of the Bible is nothing less than the grand narrative – the story of our universe.  Right at the beginning, in the very first verse we are introduced to the hero of the story and the character that strides every page of the scriptures and of history – God.  History is in the end his-story.  God existed before the story began (In the beginning God…)

Estimates vary, but somewhere around 85% of the world’s population believes in some concept of God, whether impersonal (deism) or personal (theism), one God (monotheism) or many gods (pantheism).   While the so-called new atheism has made a noisy splash in the western world over the last decade, belief in some concept of God has remained robust and widespread.

Perhaps the greatest of Christian theologians after the Apostle Paul was Thomas Aquinas.  In his magnificent Summa Theologica, Aquinas offered five ways or proofs that persuasively argue the existence of God.  The third of the five ways is the argument from contingency, which is summarized as follows: 

• Many things in the universe may either exist or not exist. Such things are called contingent beings.
• It is impossible for everything in the universe to be contingent, for then there would be a time when nothing existed, and so nothing would exist now, since there would be nothing to bring anything into existence, which is clearly false.
• Therefore, there must be a necessary being whose existence is not contingent on any other being or beings.
• This being is whom we call God.

This was Aquinas giving philosophical voice for the first and most important assertion of the bible, ‘In the beginning, God…’

Question:  When you close your eyes, what image comes into your mind when you reflect on the word ‘God’?  What does this picture tell you about your concept of God?

Further Reading: The Five Ways: Thomas Aquinas - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinque_viae