“There remains, then a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us then make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish following their example of disobedience.
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sward, it penetrates even to dividing the soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
Hebrews 4:9-12, NIV
Much of the fog enveloping us after a stressful season of production and effort will lift if we can rest.
Rest allows you to listen. Rest must be accompanied with refuelling.
Like Elijah who ran until he could no longer run, its time to lay down your head and then get up and eat.
Eat this Word: “anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works.”
Heavenly Father, grant to our students and friends, good rest, in the name of Jesus, AMEN
Its Christmas… again. As a preacher the celebration of Jesus’ birth and the return to the usual texts is both a burden and a delight. But Christmas and planning for a congregation has not always been so “usual” for me. In 1985 I was not even 18 yet and I was responsible for planning worship and congregational gatherings for Riverbend Baptist Church in Gainesville, GA. The Baptist hymnal provided me with the standard mix of some strange and some wonderful songs to sing as a congregation. And no doubt, the best and most enthusiastically sung carol of all was Isaac Watts’ poem Joy to the World.
Even in 1985, with the advent of Advent in a few baptist churches, I was vaguely aware that Christmas is a high context event. That mix of candles and a four-week celebration with a wreath was deemed too catholic for many, but we dove right in. We were celebrating not only the birth of Jesus as the Messiah but also anticipating the return of Jesus to reign in the new heaven and earth.
Joy to the World is literally down to earth. The hymn shouts out, “Joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her King.” With those words, Isaac Watts pulls together both the historical entrance of Jesus through the womb of Mary and the anticipated return of Jesus as a reigning King through the heavens. Jesus has come to “earth” to the “ground.” Jesus will come to “earth” to the “ground” again. Jesus is the divine seed that will inhabit Mary’s womb and reverse the fortune of adam, but He is also the seed that will transform all Creation.
Somehow our vision of loving God and loving people has not included the stewardship of earth.
The carol is full of imagery and of meaning rooted in Genesis 1-3, the imagery of the Psalmist, the incarnation and birth of Jesus, and Revelation.
Imagery of the earth, the ground and nature. Both heaven and nature can sing. People can sing for the reigning King. Rocks, hills, floods and plains can repeat (echo) the sounds of joy. Sin and sorrows grow. Thorns infest the ground but will be displaced by the blessings of the Saviour. The curse infecting the ground is to be removed. The nations occupying the land display the King’s righteousness.
Imagery of Jesus, the King, the Messiah, the Saviour. He is the Lord, the King. People may prepare the hearts for Him, making room for Him. He is the Saviour who reigns. He has blessings that infiltrate every space. He rules with truth and grace. He causes the nations to prove His righteousness. His love is wonder-full.
I’m so glad Christmas comes every year. Without Christmas and the week of Jesus’ passion (Easter) the church would succeed in divesting itself of responsibility for how we steward the stuff of earth. There’s nothing like Christmas to draw the church out of a sanitized vision of life with God. Jesus comes from the communion of God and takes on flesh. He takes on the form of adam, a dirt creature. Perhaps we forget that Jesus is not born in Bethlehem just to be “born in your heart.” Jesus declared His presence and ushered in the Kingdom of God on earth. He is going to accomplish it with His life, His death, and His resurrection. He is going to accomplish it through a people he builds who will pray not just with their words, but with their very lives, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
But when we sing Joy to the World, we are invited back to the Eden Garden and forward into the new creation redeemed by Jesus. All who sing this song are invited into the grace and truth of Jesus for the stewardship of the ground and the stuff of earth as we anticipate His return and glorious reign.
Watts presents a vision of the earth and of Jesus that is continuous. By that I mean there is no interruption between us and the new heaven and earth. Those who now live with Jesus as King and Saviour are to live in all their relationships in the anticipation and joy of Jesus’ full reign as Lord. All who confess Jesus and Lord and sing this song are actually commanding nature to sing, and to acknowledge Jesus as Lord of all Creation.
Jesus calls to us in “Christ’s Mass” to pursue a fully formed discipleship in which the Gospel has implications for all our relationships: with God, with self, with people, and with the stuff of earth. I’m afraid that our relationships are malformed just as our sense of the Gospel may be malformed. Somehow our vision of loving God and loving people has not included the stewardship of earth. But when we sing Joy to the World, we are invited back to the Eden Garden and forward into the new creation redeemed by Jesus. All who sing this song are invited into the grace and truth of Jesus for the stewardship of the ground and the stuff of earth as we anticipate His return and glorious reign. As followers of Jesus the Lord of the Earth we cannot help but become environmentalists or at least sympathetic to those who are occupied with the wise stewardship of the ground.
Is it possible that everyone who sings Joy to the World has been invited, even commanded, into a life formed by the Kingdom of Jesus and His Cross? Then are we not compelled to consider the ground we walk on with redemptive and holy wonder? Can we keep ourselves from getting dirty in the science, politics, and policies of the ground for His glory?! Can we love the earth with Jesus?
Joy to the World!
Joy to the world! The Lord is come; Let earth receive her King. Let ev’ry heart prepare Him room, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven and heaven and nature sing.
Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.
No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as the curse is found.
He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness, And wonders of His love, And wonders of His love, And wonders, wonders of His love.
Written by Isaac Watts and first published in 1719 in his collection The Psalms of David: Imitated in the language of the New Testament, and applied to the Christian state and worship.
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Luke 2:11-12, NIV
Talk about sensory overload! Those shepherds had a lot to process. But they were used to looking for signs. So I think the angel was speaking their language when he announced: “This will be a sign to you…”
Folks on the edges and living in the rough are used to looking for signs. They depend on signs. Signs are tangible expressions of something that has been there or of something that is coming. Signs hold promise. But signs are not always interpreted properly, their implications are not always understood. So, the angels have made an announcement and then have given the shepherds clue, a sign, of which child in Bethlehem is the child of promise.
Shepherds are people who know how to read the signs. They are tuned in to:
Signs of distress. Signs of danger. Signs of comfort. Signs of safety.
Shepherds know a lot. They are a wealth of knowledge regarding the land, the seasons, the day, the night, the predators, the sheep, their diet, husbandry, and the desires of those who have hired them. When shepherds see the signs, they process for understanding, and then they take action.
But, shepherds for all their knowledge and all their labour, may or not have been respected by all. Their hard work brought them to the edges of life and death, their schedule, and their persistent days and nights in the rough, meant that their manners and ways may not have been in keeping with the social demands for purity and the Law.
I know we are in danger of romancing the shepherd. But that isn’t a new issue in Israel or the church. King David had been taken from the shepherds’ pen to the King’s throne (Psalm 78:30). In the beloved Psalm, God Himself is called the Shepherd (Psalm 23). As with kings and rulers, most people probably easily found themselves in a love-hate relationship with shepherds.
When you read the Christmas story how do you position yourself? Do you read it from the sanitized space of comfort? Or do you see the gritty, raw, insider – outsider, weak – strong, ruler – ruled, dichotomies?
God chose these people, on the fringes of society, to occupy the front row seats of His tangible introduction of His glory and love in the flesh of a child.
While God is in the history and the details moving the Messiah into Bethlehem, the experience of Mary and Joseph, and the shepherds is one in which other powers are shaping their lives. A foreign ruler wanted to count his people and thereby exert his powers to tax. The shepherds were doing work that was at the bottom of the food chain, but they were expected to risk their lives for the sheep. Mary and Joseph lacked the means to push somebody else out of a guest room so they could face the challenges of delivery in some measure of comfort.
God chose these people, on the fringes of society, to occupy the front row seats of His tangible introduction of His glory and love in the flesh of a child. All of heaven and the church must break out in an ecstatic utterance: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests! (Luke 2:14 NIV)
I believe it, but don’t you too find it challenging? God is still inviting people into tangible expressions of His life and presence today through His church, the Body of Christ. While it may produce fear to turn again to the fringes from which we came or to surrender ourselves to the revelation of God in Christ Jesus, He assures us, “Do not be afraid!” And so it was with the Shepherds who found Jesus just as they had been told: they became a sign of God’s grace to Mary and to others!
Oh, that we would be so occupied by Jesus the Christ that we too become a sign for people on the fringes to discover! Oh that the encounter of Jesus’ church, His tangible manifestation, would yield delight and praise!
I have an early memory as a kid. That in itself is remarkable as I don’t remember near as much as my wife does of her childhood. As I look back, life in my childhood is a blur punctuated with a few dramatic moments of peaked emotion. Life just seemed to mosey along and I enjoyed a sense of stability even though that’s probably not what my parents experienced.
My early memory is of Christmas. On a Christmas Eve we joined our fellow members of St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Gainesville, GA for a celebration of Jesus’ birth. The Christmas Eve service was packed.
I remember walking down the sidewalk to the stone building in the dark and then sitting in the balcony taking in the hushed holy atmosphere, the candles and a sense of shared expectation. I remember the men from Riverside Military Academy, likely all high school students who couldn’t go home for the holidays, lined up in front of us in their uniforms with their visors in hand. One turned and winked at me. Not just a solitary wink, it was a wink that traveled from one eye to the next and back again. I went home and tried to mimic that motion while looking in the mirror. I spent days trying to perfect the act.
That night in St. Michael’s is the first Christmas I remember.
Now as an adult the memory of that Christmas brings to me to wonder and to question.
Why where we all there? Tradition? Obligation? Curiosity? Delight?
Where we just acting?
And perhaps more sinisterly, I have wondered before, is Christmas just a cosmic wink? Perhaps I’m not alone in these questions. Our faith as adults must grow up. I serve a congregation and University that is full of people committed to growing up in the way they think. However, most are not committed to growing up in the way they think about faith. Yes, the academy is growing giants. But, the temptation before us is to develop and deepen our capacities in a topic of study but neglect and even reject God, faith, and our heart.
I believe that first Christmas Eve of my memory laid down a foundation stone for faith in my life. God used that evening to called forth a simple response to Him in my life. Love. As I got older the simple response of love, wonder and delight is often accompanied by questions of doubt and ability: Does God really love me? Is God really? Can I love God? and If so, how shall I love … God?
Luke 2:8- 12 8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Christmas is the grand call of God to people in which He says, “I love you.” Jesus born in Bethlehem made God’s love tangible. A sincere response to a tangible gift is to receive it. A sincere response to God is faith in Him.
Such faith is easily polluted. I am aware of my own inner cynic and the excuse machine it fuels; its always blowing toxic smoke. But I do long this Christmas to enter into the way of knowledge that sincere faith offers us. Only then, by receiving what God has given, can the mean question of “Who loves you?” be met with a reflexive and simple response, “Jesus loves me.”
Jesus makes it clear that our Heavenly Father knows how to give good gifts. So, He teaches his disciples to pray persistently. He wants us to keep on asking, seeking, and knocking. Then Jesus shows His followers that their Heavenly Father is more extravagant, glorious, and rich in His giving than they can imagine.
“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you re evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:8-13
Do see how extravagant God is? “How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
That’s generous! God will give to us the His Spirit who has been present when God is creating: In the beginning. Genesis 1:1-3 In the incarnation of Jesus. Luke 1:35 In the baptism of Jesus. Matthew 3:16 In the extraordinary life and ministry of Jesus. Acts 10:36-38 In the birth of the Church. Acts 2 In the ministry of each local congregation. Ephesians 2:22
Paul urges his readers in Ephesus to be filled with the Spirit. Get filled with the Spirit. Keep on being filled with the Spirit. Paul has in mind the creating work of God. Where there is darkness, chaos, and formlessness in our lives and in the world the Spirit of God is present for a God-shaping struggle. And into this darkness God can speak, “Let there be light.”
Jesus promised that His very life, ministry, death on the cross, and resurrection is to make the in-dwelling gift of the Spirit possible. His words of comfort to the Disciples gathered in the upper room the night before His crucifixion made no sense and they seemed to have felt only confusion and grief. He says to them,
“Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go I will send Him to you.” John 16:6-7
Later they understood Jesus. The way of the cross, the passion of Jesus, had opened the way of the Spirit for the creation of a new humanity. Peter would say in his exhortations to the people of Jerusalem gathered at Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off–for all whom the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:38-39)
Having received “the gift” we can ask for this gift to occupy our hearts, mind, soul, and strength over and over. Be filled with the Spirit. Having received Jesus as Lord, having received the forgiveness of the Heavenly Father, having received your adoption as children of God, are you open again, today for the filling of His Spirit?
Are you asking? To be filled with Holy Spirit. Are you seeking? To be filled with the Holy Spirit. Are you knocking? To be filled with the Holy Spirit.
In Scot McKnight’s recent book, Open to the Spirit, he suggests a prayer of openness toward our Heavenly Father:
Lord, I am open to the Holy Spirit. Come to me, dwell in me, speak to me so that I may become more like Christ. Lord, give me the courage to be open. Lord, I am open to the Holy Spirit. Come, Holy Spirit. Amen.
You have been created and born again in Christ Jesus for a dynamic living relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The whole movement and struggle of history is for people to be in this communion with God. So ask, seek, and knock.
If you are not sure that the narrative of Scripture is for our communion with the Father, Son, and Spirit consider this vision and exhortation from the Apostle Paul to the Galatian church:
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.’ He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.” Galatians 3:13-14
“…we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his son, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” Galatians 4:3-7)
This is God’s intention for you: communion with Him, not isolation from Him.
So by humble and sincere faith in the name and promise of Jesus Christ our Lord — ask again, “Fill me with your Holy Spirit.”
