Jesus Enters as a Warrior Behind Enemy Lines

“I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God. But someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not worthy even to be his slave and carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

In our quest to bring writers from the broadest spectrum of Christianity, our devotional author today is Benedictine writer Fr. Becket Franks, who writes at Becketmonk. Click the title below to read this where it originated.

And Yet…

In the words of C.S. Lewis,

“Jesus entered the world so anonymously and clandestinely- as a baby born to insignificant parents in an out-of-the-way corner of the Roman Empire- because he was a warrior compelled to slip quietly behind enemy lines.”

Why would he say this?  It is because of mercy.  In the world of Caesar Augustus, God sends down his mercy behind in quiet and in secret.  And who is the first to receive such mercy?  Our Christmas cards and our Christmas creches depict cute scenes of shepherds and Magi adoring the new born babe.  In the words of Bishop Robert Barron,

“We ought not to be romantic about shepherds…they were considered rather shady characters, ne’er do wells unable to hold down a steady job, unreliable and dishonest.”

AND, YET, God the Almighty chooses these people to announce the birth of The One who will sit and eat with sinners, and, die between two criminals.

In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Tell the people whom God frequents, salvation is upon you.”  According to this prophet of comfort, God never forgets.  God never forsakes.  God always brings reward. However, how will anyone know of the abundant mercy of God unless one of us shares this message with a waiting world?  Or, better, maybe it is you and me that need that merciful word today, right now.

To illustrate, a few years ago in the New York Times, Doctor of New Testament at Wheaton College, Esau McCaulley, writes,

“Christmas is Weird…it never promises to soothe every pain or cure every ill.  Instead, [it] gives us enough hope to walk a little farther;  [it] suggests that God has not forgotten anyone. He came as a child, weak and vulnerable…so that the weak and broken things might feel comfortable approaching the divine…”

like the shepherds, the “common workers.”

Now, of course we are not shady shepherds on the fringe.  But we are people who are in pain, physically, or mentally, or psychologically, or even existentially.  Just last week two of our residents lost a daughter suddenly.  In the last two years, we lost friends to Covid.  Last year, one of my brothers told me that Christmas lacks joy because he has to take his wife to kidney dialysis.  The people of the Ukraine fear for their lives and in America we continue to witness attacks upon our democracy.

Not to be a Donny Downer…this is what the Gospel means when the angels announce news to the shepherds:  mercy given is mercy received.  This is why St. Titus says,

“when the kindness and generous love of God appeared…because of his mercy…he saved us and renewed us by the grace and words of the Holy Spirit.”

AND YET, in the middle of the quiet night, the angels of the Lord speak the Good News to the common workers.  These unexpected everyday people become the first evangelists of the Gospel. Why God decides to come to us this way, I don’t know.  What I do know is that the Spirit speaks all the time to common workers in times of unbearable pain, unrest, and injustice.  When Christ speaks that same word of glorifying hope to you…, share it…  Please.  I promise to do the same.

Epiphany Sunday

by Ruth Wilkinson

Hands up if your Christmas tree is still vertical and decorated. Yes, I see those hands.

You’ll be glad to know that you’re not wrong – according to the worldwide Church calendar, Christmas isn’t over.

All around the globe, we observe this Sunday as Epiphany – a celebration of the arrival of the wise men from far beyond Israel’s borders.

They weren’t there on the night Jesus was born. They probably never met the shepherds or heard the angels. Their journey may have begun that night, and they arrived up to a couple of years later when Jesus was a toddler, running around getting into everything.

But their arrival marked some amazing good news for those outside the Jewish community. God had come for everyone. The borders of His Kingdom had shifted and expanded to include those of us who were, for so long, on the outside looking in.

So we find in the Scriptures this message:

The Lord led Abraham outside and said,
“Look at the sky. Count the stars, if you can.
Your family will be like that…

“I’ll make you into a great nation.

“I’ll bless you,
and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Until that promise was fulfilled
we Gentiles were without the Messiah,
foreigners to the promise,
without hope
and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, we who were far away have been brought near.

Through Him we are no longer outsiders and foreigners,
but partners of the promise,
and members of God’s household,
built on a foundation of Christ Jesus Himself.

This great news was first made known to the world through Gentile wise men
who arrived unexpectedly in Jerusalem, saying,
“Where is He? We saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.”

Now we are saved by grace through faith – God’s gift.

And even more –
As Abraham was blessed so he could become a blessing,
we are His creation, created for good works in Christ Jesus
which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

Bold, and confident of more than we could ask or think.
His power. His riches.
Raised up by the fulfillment of one promise,
to be the embodiment of another.

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

 

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References: Genesis 12, Genesis 15, Ephesians 2, Ephesians 3, Matthew 2

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Previous devotionals on Epiphany:

• January, 2018 – Missional aspects of ‘right worship’
• January, 2017 – God placed in the Magi the desire to follow the star

Sunday Worship

Matthew 2:9b After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11a And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him.

Today’s thoughts for Epiphany Sunday were published earlier today by a writer who is new to us, David M. Wilmot, a Vicar in the Church of England in Troutbeck. Click the title below to read the full article, of which this is the second half.

To Recover Confidence: Right worship, Right praise is the most missional thing you can do

…I so often wonder, where on earth did we get the notion that worship is about `meeting needs`? No, worship is about God. Worship is its own reward. Right Worship, right praise is our calling… without one eye on what other people might think. No, if worship is for our benefit at all the only `need` it addresses is our need to be transformed into the likeness of Christ. And this happens in two ways….

Firstly, worship remind us of both who we are and whose we are. What I mean is that the very act of gathering in obedience to the Sabbath command is that we put down a marker as to where our true and ultimate loyalties lie. You see, I don`t think we have begun to appreciate how radical and thoroughly subversive a thing it is to worship. It is… or at least should be… regarded as absolute dynamite. Ask some of our many persecuted brothers and sisters what happens when day by day week by week you persist in reminding the world; anyone within earshot of its true king.

Because that`s what we learn of Jesus in that Epiphany Reading today isn’t it? (Matthew 2.1-12) The coming of the Christ; the world`s true King threw everyone (especially those who considered themselves to be someone) into an absolute panic. Why? Because his very presence exposes our real problem: idolatry. The attempt to live as if God is not God. In the birth of Jesus the Christ, the Kingdom of self… and the Kingdoms of the world are `on notice`. Because, the question is never `whether` we worship but `what or whom`. And to a world that seems obsessed with matters of identity and persists in attempting find their sense of who they are in things less than God, worship gets things the right way around.

And this is the second thing: You see worship `forms` us in our true identity, as sons and daughters of this King. We must not domesticate or turn passages such as the one we heard a moment ago, into little children’s stories. Remember, those visitors from the East `paid him homage ` but that act of worship changed them. They didn’t go `back to Herod`, to the recognized authority; because we`re told “they left for their own country by another road”. (Matthew 2.12) My point is that this is what we must learn to expect from our gathering here: Formation in Discipleship.

Jesus tells us, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. (Matthew 6.21) In our worship, just like the wise men, we hand over our treasures… our loves… the things which most drive, motivate and enthuse us. And here`s the thing… We offer them for trans-formation. We expect to leave here by another road… with our loves trans-formed. So, I`m calling us to a renewed confidence today and I`m suggesting that confidence will come as we re-engage with what it means to worship; as we kneel before the king of kings. It really does begin and end with God; the one Revelation calls the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

And if I were to offer one practical step I would suggest that you immerse yourself in the Book of Psalms. Not just because it`s the book which taught our Lord to pray… but because it has nurtured the Church in a true Vision of God from the very beginning. I was taught a long time ago that if you’re going to learn to pray, you need to read at least one Psalm every day. And what`s true for us individually is especially true of us as a Church. Place the Psalms at the heart of your worship….

You could do worse than begin with Psalm 115. Not least because the writer takes a well-aimed and comedic shot at the shallowness and stupidity of the world’s idolatry. He pokes fun at the nations by saying:

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk;
   they make no sound in their throats.

But then he ends by saying:

Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them. (Psalm 115 4-8)

Again, the writer`s point is that it is never a matter of `whether` we worship… but WHAT we worship. And in the end, we will always come to resemble the desire of our hearts…We become like the thing…the god we worship.

Dear friends, in times of change and uncertainty you will find the confidence to be faithful as you centre your lives in worship; the worship of the true and living God revealed in Jesus the Christ. Right worship, Right praise is the most Christ-like and therefore the most missional thing you can do. Our prayer is that in worship you should be transformed into the likeness of Christ… that you will bear his image to those with whom you live and work. It all begins here. You become what you worship…

The Better Source of New Year’s Resolutions

Today we pay a return visit to the Presbyterian Church in Canada’s website. Click the title below to read at source. The author of this piece is Valerie Dunn.

Follow Your Star

I had once given up on making New Year’s resolutions, because I never kept them. I now realize that the problem was that I had not consulted the Lord. They were my ideas of what I should do, or what other people thought!

The image of a star comes to mind, because Epiphany, when we observe the arrival of the wise men, is in the first week of January. When they followed that star, it was because the Lord had placed the goal of doing so in their hearts.

Matthew 2:9b-11 – The star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of frankincense and of myrrh. (NIV)

We each have a star to follow as well. The Lord has placed within each one of us hopes, dreams, and goals, but we often push these aside.

My experience has been that the quiet voice of the Spirit gets louder and more persistent until I start listening. Even then, my response is likely to be, “I’m busy now. I really don’t want to do this” or “I am a senior; I am past that sort of thing.”

Then, I am reminded of the story of Abraham, who was told that his ninety-year-old wife Sarah would have a son.

Genesis 18:13-14 – Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” (NIV)

Indeed, nothing is too hard for the Lord. We are not too old, too young, too inadequate, if it is the Lord’s idea. The Lord knows what gifts we have to offer, and like the wise men, He will direct us to the place where we need to give them.

Some years ago, I left a secure job because the Lord was calling me to work in the community. I was scared because it involved becoming self-employed and operating with no paycheque. All my life, my greatest fear was financial insecurity. Not only was I challenged to face that fear, but He has always provided, to this day. I have also had a lifelong fear of public speaking, and although I have a good singing voice, I have been terrified when asked to do a solo.

Once I said “yes” to the Lord, however, over a six-month period, both fears not only disappeared, but now I also enjoy both public speaking and solo work. So my New Year’s resolution will be to listen carefully for the Lord’s direction, then to follow my star wherever it leads. That feels sort of scary. However, I am determined. Why not join me in this prayer?

Prayer: Lord, I ask You to take over. Help me to listen for and hear Your direction for my life, and to trust You, knowing that You will always be present to help and guide me as long as I seek to do Your will, and follow my star. Amen.

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