The word became Flesh. John 1. 1-18

Last Talk of 2013 on the subject  "The word became Flesh" from John 1. 1-18. 

1. What is a word?
Interaction time.  Discuss in family/friend groups what a word is and write on a “post-it” note.  Then we will collect the answers and collate them.
I'm looking for two elements in the answer: 
(a) A basic idea, thought or feeling. Something inside a person's head.
(b) A basic form of expression.  Something “out there”.
A word is the most basic way of getting something from “inside our heads” to “out there”. 

2. Who is “The Word”?
Basically, Jesus!   He was “in the beginning with the Father.”  John deliberately takes us back to Genesis 1, and shows us that “The Word”, Jesus was there.

He was “with God.”  Not just “inside God's head” but alongside God.  That shows he is more than just an idea or a thought that came from inside God's head.  He is a person.  The Message translates it “the Word present to God, God present to the Word.”  

Nothing was made without him.  Everything that exists, came because of Him.   That shows that this “Word”, this Truth that was present with God, is powerful.  He was and is God.

When we are talking about “The word”, we are talking about Jesus.  Whenever we are talking about Jesus, we are talking about this amazing, powerful, mysterious “Word”!

3. How does ”The Word” come”
He came in flesh.  That amazing, mysterious Word, who has always been there, spoke, shouted, cried, whispered, sang, in human form, into human ears, so that could hear.

That is amazing.  John loves to talk about opposites, like “light and darkness”, “life and death” or “Flesh and spirit”  (He begins to do that in verse 13, and does it more in chapter 3 v 6.  Paul says “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God...”  (1 Cor 15. 50) Isn't that amazing?  Jesus took on something that cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, in order to bring us into the Kingdom of God.   Then he took on something else that cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, our sin.  “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5. 21)

The “Word” became flesh.  Incarnate.  God reveals himself through and in the midst of ordinariness.   The Christmas story is full of ordinary people doing what ordinary people do – but always with God's surprises added in.  So a teenage girl is told she's going to have a baby; That's where her young life was expected to lead to – but she knew this wasn't just ordinary so she asks “How can this be?” (Lk 1. 43)  Joseph is trying to get out of a relationship that looks as if it's gone wrong.  Priests are opening up the temple and burning incense day by day. Shepherds are out looking after sheep.  Eastern mystics are tracking the movement of the stars, government is gathering statistics (and generally ruining people’s lives!; soldiers are obeying orders.  And in all of that, God breaks through. The Word became flesh.

And as the Word comes, two things happen
(a)    Creation: to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God –  born of God.  The Word brings an amazing transformation in to the lives of those who put their trust in him.
(b)     Revelation: No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son,  has made him known. The Word Enables us to know what we need to know about the God who is too big for us to understand.

4. Do you hear the “The Word?”
Last week Pam and I visited a church member in a nursing home, who hadn't got hearing aids in.  This person couldn't hear what we were saying.  Now I have a special voice I use on these occasions.  I hope that by speaking very loud, and very deep, and very slow, and using familiar words from Scripture, or perhaps sharing communion, the listener may be able to understand some of what I am saying.  It's a great way of speaking out the Gospel in residential homes!  God doesn’t shout the word. He becomes flesh.  Do you hear the Word? 

Do you hear the Word spoken to us in Christ?  Do you really hear it? Do you listen to it?  Do you understand it? Do you respond to it?    John tells us what we need to do....

Receive him, “to those who did receive him, to those who believed...” (v. 12)
That is a key word of John's. It means “take by the hand, welcome someone, or to accept hospitality; to conceive a child, or to eat food”. He uses variations of the word “Receive” in verses

• 5, “darkness hasn't received, caught, grasped, understood, or tied up the light”
• 11, “his own people didn't receive, associate with him”
• 12 “to those who did receive him, welcome him, accept his welcome...”
• 16.  “From his fulness we have received, welcomed, grace upon grace.”

Sarah learned a poem at School, that my Grandpa used to say to me when I was little. It's called “The boy on the train”.  He's going to Kirkcaldy to see his Gran and one couplet says
I'll sune be ringin' ma Gran'ma's bell, 
She'll cry, 'Come ben [come in], my laddie'

I love that line – that speaks of wide open arms and welcome.  We need to say to Jesus “Come away in...”  and to make him welcome in our lives. 

To be transformed.   In receiving The Word, living, powerful and creative into our lives, we allow him to work out his new creation in our lives., to transform us.   Jesus was scathing about people who are hearers of the word and not doers.  

And Pass it on!  John  “came as a witness to the light”.  We want to be witnesses to Jesus.  We want to speak out “The Word” who was in the Father with God.  And because we are new creatures  we can make God's Word incarnate in the ordinariness of the lives we live today in the surprising ways that God's spirit leads in our lives.

And so we go... we have friends leaving today for Iraq.  We pray for them, as they go to serve there.  In the ordinary things of life, God's surprises come.  “Love incarnate”.   And so we go...  out to our own neighbourhood of Rosyth.  Through our ordinary lives, we expect God' surprises to happen.  “Love incarnate”

There was a report on “The Sunday Programme” this morning about Food-banks.  One volunteer from Nottingham talked about her own life.  She had drifted away from faith, but now she's a regular at Sunday worship and helping out at her Church's Food bank. Why? Because during the year when she hit rock bottom financially, the Food bank. was there for her.  Ordinary things, but God is at work.  “Love incarnate”

Matthis is a five-year-old boy who lived in Montpelier. For a year his Grandfather had been taking him to Church.  Then one  day he walked in with his Dad, Mum and baby brother. His parents were obviously finding faith in Jesus.  Our friend asked the boy's Mum what made the difference.  She answered “Matthis.  All year we have been sharing our lives with a boy who always talks about his friend Jesus, prays to him, sings to him.  That got to us in the end.” Ordinary people, ordinary things, and an extraordinary God.  “Love incarnate”.  And so we go...

© Gilmour Lilly December  2013

Advent 3: “Love”

Readings: Jeremiah 31. 1-6;  1 John 4. 7-12 and 19-21; John15. 9-17;
See also John 3. 16; Philippians  2. 1-11

The third advent Candle is about God's LOVE.   That Father’s love is fixed and certain.  It is not a maybe love.  It is not a conditional love.  It is not a vague, wishy-washy, theoretical love.  It is a clear, definite, demonstrated love.  God calls us to show the Father’s love.  Because God has loved us.  He has demonstrated his love.  Love focussed into a historic event.  “I have loved you”.

This is how we know what love is:  This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. (1 Jn 4. 9) God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (Jn 3. 16)

I have loved you...
Visible love, with arms and legs.  Love through history.  Love through a person.  Love through incarnation.  Love through sacrifice.  The birth, the life, the death, the resurrection of Jesus, all show us God's love.  We need to pause and think about the way Jesus loved during his thirty-three years on earth, rather than jumping quickly from Bethlehem to Calvary.  Jesus didn't.  He walked from Bethlehem to Calvary.

Remember where he came from.  He was in the form of God.   That doesn't mean Jesus “looked like God”.  (After all, what does God look like?)  It means he was totally God-shaped.  Not so much that he is “shaped like God” but rather, he is the Shape, the physical form of the God who is spirit. When God takes shape, that Shape is Jesus.  He is the same kind of being as the Father.  Paul  says in Colossians 1:15 he is the image of the invisible God, the first-born over all creation.

In his birth, he had … nothing of kingly security, comfort, or prestige.  He was born to a peasant girl, in an occupied country, during an enforced journey, in a manky corner of a crowded room; not long after his birth, he was a refugee.  He came to his own and his own received him not.  He emptied himself,

When he was baptised, the one who prepared the way, John the Baptist, was surprised.  “Jesus, why are you coming to me to be baptised?”  And Jesus insisted “It's the right thing to do.”   In love, he placed himself right alongside us.  “Taking the form of a servant...”  And he walked right alongside us, healing the sick and broken; challenging the proud and the hypocrite, feeding the hungry, accepting the outcasts, washing feet.  “Taking the form of a servant...”

And then at the end of his ministry, he was arrested,subjected to a mock trial, falsely accused, ritually humiliated, cruelly tortured to death, then buried in an act of desperate kindness, in someone else's burial plot.  Obedient unto death, even death on the cross.   Herein is love...

He is the Victor And all that, so that the stuff that impedes and opposes God's Kingdom in our lives, our sin, could be dealt with.  We have everlasting life.  He is the sacrifice that deals with our sin.  He is the Victor over sin, and death and hell; he is the Victor over oppression, greed, injustice... he is the Victor over  inequality, exploitation war;   He is the Victor over sickness, and brokenness, insanity and the demons.  All of these things shall come to an end.  Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  (Phil 2. 9-10)

Maybe we need to think about some of the way-marks along Jesus' journey: the manger  at Bethlehem, the river Jordan, the cross of Calvary, and see him there... and see afresh the father's love.  John says with delicious daring : “God is love”. 
 

Everlasting love
So I want to ask you, “Do you feel loved today?”  Are you basking in the reality that  your Heavenly Father loves you today?  God says “I have loved you with an everlasting love” and, no, he hasn't changed his mind: “...with an everlasting love”

When Jeremiah wrote these words down, Israel was going through an experience that made them wonder about God's love. In 722 BC, King Hoshea of Israel refused to pay tribute to Assyria, so the whole country was destroyed and thousands were taken captive to Assyria.  That was a  disaster at three different levels.  Politically it was a new development for Mediterranean history, and would set the scene for hundreds of years: Empires, first Assyria, then Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome; a new, expansionist dictatorship.  Personally, it brought pain and loss to every Israelite: deportation, separation from loved ones, enslavement, poverty, humiliation the loss of homeland, freedom,  security,  income, family life...  And spiritually, the prophets were saying this was the result of their sin: those who accepted that must have felt a deep sense of grief and guilt.    Maybe your circumstances make you wonder: does God really love me?

As we rush, or stumble, or stagger, or drift, into the Christmas season, the majority of the world's population struggle with grinding poverty, toil and suffering. The angels sing but “man, at war with man, hears not The love-song which they bring” During the last century, 170 million civilians died  due to the actions of dictatorships: bombings, gas-chambers, beatings, executions, starvation. That’s 3 people every minute of the last century.  Where was God in all of that?   Yet the message of Christmas, the message of the Cross, is that all the sorrow, all the aching wrings with pain the heart God.  Our world is broken, fallen, spoiled; God's Kingdom is still awaited.  But the message of Christmas and the message of the cross, is that God has entered fully into the suffering of his world. He has borne it, carried it in himself, and his Kingdom will come.

As we rush, or stumble, or stagger, or drift, into the Christmas season, we carry our own scars: the losses, the worries, the physical pain.  Does God understand? Does he care?  The coming of God into the world, to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins, tells us that he does care.  O little heart of mine, shall pain or sorrow make thee moan, when all this god is all for thee, a father all thine own.

As we rush, or stumble, or stagger, or drift, into the Christmas season, knowing what we are, conscious of sin, failure, and perhaps all too used to feeling utterly worthless... can God love me?  “Bethlehem, Calvary, and the journey in between, scream at us, “Yes, a thousand times Yes”.  “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”

And in response...

"It would be a strange God who could be loved better by being known less." says Frank Sheed.  As we get to know this God, who has come to us so generously in Christ, we know that he is pure distilled love.  We respond to his love, with love.  Firstly, our lives become an outpouring of gratitude and adoration to such a wonderful heavenly Father. We love God.

Secondly, we love one another.  be like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. Have this mind among yourselves. (Phil 2. 1-4)  Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.   Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  (1 John 4. 7, 11) My command is this: love each other as I have loved you.  (Jn 15. 12)

Love our neighbours.   We show God's love, in the world God so loved.  Our commission from God is to be “Learning to show the Father's Love.”  That hasn't gone away.  We may have lost sight of it.   We may feel pessimistic about it.  But that remains what God has called us to.    Big-hearted living that responds to and reveals the character of an amazingly big-hearted God.


© Gilmour Lilly December  2013

Grace... The Ongoing Meal Guest talk by Andrw Hyde

Hymn before the sermon: Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.
Title:
Grace... The Ongoing Meal
Our ongoing living in grace with Christ and with one another.
Dramatic story-form retelling of David‘s grace actions towards Mephibosheth - from 2 Samuel 9:1-13.  This story gives us an incredible picture of God's grace to us -- as indicated by the word 'kindness'.  There are many lessons that we can learn about Grace from this story...
* God’s Grace will find you – it remembers, pursues and carries us.
* God’s Grace is where you abandon your crippled past and your crippled mentality.
* God’s Grace is where you discover who you were born to be – a new position of intimacy, an ongoing perpetual position.
What I want to focus on is another aspect of God's grace towards us: that we come into a continual experience of that grace as is illustrated by Mephibosheth leaving Lo-Debar (No pasture) for Jerusalem so that he could "always eat at the King's table" "like one of the King's sons."

Point 1: The Ongoing Meal....
We continue to live & stand in Grace. 
“Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem because he always ate at the king’s table, and he was crippled in both feet.” (2 Samuel 9:13)  Many people are aware that grace is required when we begin the Christian life (Eph 2:8) - but what is
not so well understood and appreciated is that God brings us into a lifelong experience of His grace.


NT pointers to this: 'Jesus Christ came full of grace and truth - of his grace we have received one blessing after another' (John 1:14-16) - or another translation has it as 'we have received grace upon grace.' Also Romans 5:2, Acts 13:43.
We are continually receiving and being strengthened by His grace - whether that is in our Christian walk, our sanctification, the spiritual gifts are designated as grace gifts, and our service. Even for church leadership - that is a work and role that has to operate from God's grace: Romans 15:15-16, 1 Corinthians 15:9-11, Ephesians 3:8.

So we have in the Mephibosheth story - a picture of the need to live in grace -- as seen as the place of the "ongoing meal" between David and his family and Mephibosheth – at the King’s table.  Christ invites us to an ongoing meal. Revelation 3:20 tells us that He will come in to eat with us, and we with Him. So opening the door and receiving Christ into our lives means that we enter a
continual and ongoing ‚meal‘ of fellowship and friendship with the Lord. There is a restored relationship that is shown by "having a meal together." There can be continual feasting - our fellowship with Christ.

The basis of this is the Cross - where enemies are brought to peace and strangers are made into friends. The cross shows this through the two directions of the pieces of wood that comprise it: the vertical trunk - that shows us the reconciliation between God and Man - but also the horizontal trunk
that shows us the peace and reconciliation is made possible between people - but only through the cross. Ephesians 2:14-18.

In the OT, agreements or covenants were sealed by the eating of a meal - a symbol of that newly-found peace and harmony. Meals in the Bible are powerful images of intimacy and unity.In Kurdistan today, meals form a very important part of making agreements and covenants - it is the way that friendships are bonded together and deals are sealed. We have found the Kurds to be a
very hospitable people - they are always inviting us for meals -- so that it will demonstrate and deepen our friendship & fellowship together. One family wants to have us over for a meal monthly!

There is also an Arab custom that demonstrates this. After a meal with Arabs, they will often say,  "Salt and Bread - we have shared salt and bread." This illustrates the concept that: we have eaten together - of the same salt and bread - so let there be no kind of emnity between us into the future.

So we have the idea of The Ongoing Meal.... we continue to live & stand in Grace.  But in our own situation as a church, there is more to grasp here.
For we are ALL equally Mephibosheths that have been saved, restored and being blessed continually by the Lord. We ALL have weaknesses and failure (as illustrated by Mephibosheth ongoing disability and crippledness in both feet) but we have ALL come to continually enjoy the King's Table.

So what does it mean that we continually share the King's Table TOGETHER?

Point 2:  The Ongoing Meal....
Developing and deepening grace relationships (friendships) within the body of Christ.

“They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.” (Acts 2:46)   So this perpetual grace is ours, relationship and fellowship have been restored in Christ - there has to be peace, harmony and wholeness (Shalom) in eating together - but we must apply this to the relationships with our fellow-believers at the King's Table.

We must seek to develop and deepen relationships and friendships within the body of Christ.  We see in the Book of Acts that the believers regularly met together both for spiritual purposes (being taught, prayer, communion, as well as regular worship at the temple) but they also gathered regularly for eating with one another - “They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad
and sincere hearts.”

In fact this pattern is seen frequently where "Meeting" and "Eating" are often seen synonymously in the NT - gathering in people's home (requires that the host provide some refreshments), and love feasts where the Lord's Supper was also celebrated as part of the love feast.

As we have seen, eating together provides the way that 'family relationship', and a sense of 'bondedness and covenant' between the different people can be cemented and deepened. It is a very important aspect of church that isn't always followed up on. The opposite is also true - that where relationships between church people are weak or non-existent, then the likelihood of destructive disagreement and conflict is increased dramatically.  In addition, one study has shown that where church members have less than five friends in a
congregation then there is little incentive for the person to remain in the fellowship when minor traumas and disappointments come across their pathway from others in the church (or from leadership, or from church style and procedural issues etc.).

One friend once counselled us: “Where there are conflicts on a team, work on building up good relationships and friendships between each other.” This would be the way to ensure that personalissues are taken out of the equation and that subsequent conflicts can be handled in a constructive fashion rather than destructively.

So how do we build up these relationships together?

It requires that personal 'one-on-one' or 'couple-on-couple' time is taken to get to know each other better. So that there is an opportunity to discover the other people in the church.

• "Let's get together for a coffee."
• "Come over for your tea (evening meal)"

In the 1920's, the evangelical churches were against the 'social gospel' - and rightly so, because at that time it meant the message of liberalism in the churches - that by doing good deeds alone one could work one's salvation - and that God was only seeking Christians to do good works.

But the times have changed from then! We are preaching a 'social gospel' - a gospel that reminds us that Christians are brought into the Body of Christ and that there must be good social relationships between them without partiality! We are called to live in friendship and brotherly love with one another - this is the ministry of the Body to one another (and without regard for the Body of Christ,
the church members, there will come judgment from the Lord - 1 Corinthians 11:29-34).

Key to this is to regain an awareness of the practise of hospitality (Philoxenia - love of strangers).  Cf. Matthew 25 "I was a stranger and you invited me in..."
"When did we see you a stranger and invite you in?" 
"Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers (and sisters) of mine, you did for me."

The Bible teaches that we must practice hospitality and offer hospitality to one another (Romans 12:13, 1 Peter 4:9) and that it should be a normal characteristic of those in leadership (1 Timothy 3:2). How can we define hospitality: "a conscientious pursuit of welcoming strangers and friends into
our homes and lives, so as to make them feel truly loved and accepted."
Again, hospitality doesn't only mean food - it means taking time with people, having a welcoming attitude, and undertaking any shared activity where there is scope for truly meeting one another and discovering about one another.

Humourous slide: picture of two hamsters eating. The family that eats together ... stays together.  Application: We should want to see that there is an aspect of having "an ongoing meal" with one another - that can only be strengthened by physically sitting down together over a tea/coffee or over a meal, or participating together in a shared physical-social activity (e.g. going for a forest walk together).   This means that we each do this - both with people we already know in the church, but more importantly, with those that I/we don't know so well within the church family.  This will mean young adults sitting with older church members - and 'established' church members sitting beside and engaging with newcomers etc.

Point 3:  Our attitudes for the ongoing meal
"Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
(Colossians 3:12-14)

How can we do this hospitality? How do we overcome our reserve and unwillingness?

It works both ways - young people can also be unwilling to lift their eyes from the various screens that they are looking at in order to engage with other people!

We do this by God's strength and grace. Colossians 3:12-17.  "A significant measure of the Christian life is found in how we treat people and the quality of our relationships with them."

What does the Lord say to us? "Clothe yourselves" with certain qualities and attitudes.  So what do we have to put on in the pursuit of good relationships with one another?

• Compassion - "I will be conscious of the other person's distress and have a concern for them and I will have a desire to alleviate this distress."
• Kindness - "I will respond to God's grace, kindness and mercy by showing you the same attitudes!"
• Humility - "I will consider our equal status before the Lord."
• Gentleness - "I will not dominate, manipulate or coerce you for my own ends."
• Patience - "I will persevere in my love response towards others."
• Bearing with each other - "I will not be filled with resentment towards the weakness and sins of others."
• Forgiving one another - "I will be ready to own my mistakes and faults to say, 'I want to apologise for...' or to say, 'I'm sorry that....'" and "I will also quick to say, 'You are forgiven' and 'I've forgotten about it already'"
• Love - "I will consider my neighbour's good - as dear as my own, and give all that it takes!"

This is God's word for us as a church at this time ... we must show the Father's love to each other in these ways. Whereas, complaining and grumbling are destructive tools - used by the Enemy of Souls.

God has called us to the "ongoing meal" of fellowship and peace within the 'House of Grace' - and we live out these attitudes of Grace in order to love, accept, help and encourage one another.

We must cultivate certain graces ...

• The grace of acceptance - cf Romans 14:1 - 15:7 (esp 15:7)
• The grace of listening - to understand and appreciate the other person.
• The grace of openness (open communication) - we should have the courage to speak openly about our personal beliefs, opinions, preferences, feelings and concerns ... to express one's hopes, fears and aspirations.
• Lastly, the grace of submission ... as an evidence of the filling of the Holy Spirit "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ."

Personal testimony from Andrew about relinquishing control of situations that were inappropriate for me to think that I have to control it - one recent experience at our staff conference - and another situation when we would love to control the kind of people and influences coming among the kurdish churches - but it is God who in control of these things. „God you are in control – and I am not!“

Application:
Rembrandt Picture of the Prodigal son – the son is received by the father into an ongoing grace relationship - but what is the response of the older brother?? We aren’t told how he responds to his father’s entreaties that he will join the party. But what will our response be to those ‚strangers‘ in the church and those new people coming into the church?

© Andrew Hyde December  2013

Luke 1 67-80 Advent 1 – “Hope!”

The story behind this prophetic praise hymn, is of Zechariah and Elisabeth longing for a child until they became too old and gave up hope; then God sent his angel to tell Zechariah it was going to happen. Zechariah didn't believe it, so was struck dumb until, sure enough, Elisabeth became pregnant and eventually gave birth to a baby boy who was called John. In the meantime, Elisabeth 's young cousin Mary had arrived, saying that she too was expecting a baby; but this baby was the son of God. When John was named, his father Zechariah 's speech was restored and this psalm of praise giving a divinely inspired commentary was the first thing Zechariah said!

The point
In the events of the last nine or ten months, Zechariah sees not just a miraculous answer to his own prayers over years of desperation, but God at work to “visit” his people. It's happened! The time has come!   God has “Visited“,  come to take care of his people  “Israel”.  It has happened.

There's a verse in Psalm 119 where the writer talks about feeling like a “wineskin in the smoke” (Ps 119. 83). New wineskins would be cured for a while by being hung up in the rafters of the house, where smoke from the fire would drift around them and preserve them. And used wineskins that were being kept would be stored in the same place. To anyone looking up at them they looked abandoned and useless. Zechariah and Elisabeth waiting for a family to come along must have felt like “wineskins in the smoke”, and those waiting for God to “visit” his people, must have felt like “wineskins in the smoke”

Photo by G Lilly 

But that waiting time is over. God has done it. He has visited his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation. All the strength of a bull or a ram is focused in its horns, to lethal effect. So the Old Testament idea of a “horn of salvation” refers to a person or persons in whom all the strength and power of God is concentrated. This wasn't Baby John: Zechariah's family were not from the house of David. But Zechariah obviously knew about Mary's pregnancy and the predicted birth of her baby, the Messiah.

The first thing Zechariah expects as God “visits”, is “salvation from our enemies” (v 71, 74). The first thought on many minds as they heard these words, would be political: the obvious enemy was the Romans. But as Marshall says, “Political need and spiritual need are closely linked.” These enemies prevent Israel from “serving God without fear” (v. 74)

But it's not just a matter of freedom from the Romans. The tone of the song changes in verse 6. This is where baby John comes in. He is to be the “One crying in the wilderness, “prepare the way of the Lord.” ( Isa 40:3 ) As he lived and grew and served and preached and baptised, he fulfilled that prophecy. Not the One who would save, but the one who would prepare the way... level the paths, get a people ready for their God.

The Second thing Zechariah expects as God “visits”, is a cleansing and forgiveness process. God's people experience “the knowledge of salvation” (not just head-knowledge) “through the forgiveness of their sins” (v. 77). Because the hope and vision of Israel was nationalistic. and narrow; because they saw that hope in terms of political rescue from national enemies... because they were smug and blind to their own sin, they needed someone to prepare the way, to cause them to face up to the reality of their own sin and the possibility of salvation. And this,  in repentance, and a refreshing, enlivening experience of God's forgiveness and grace, is where we always have to start in any experience of revival or renewal.

Sunrise at HuaLo by Handyhuy

The Third thing Zechariah expects as God “visits” is captured in the words “the rising sun will come to us from heaven” (v. 78f) The word translated rising sun (NIV) or dayspring (AV) or Sunrise (NASV, Message) literally means anything that rises or grows upwards or springs forth: it can mean the sunrise or it can mean the shoot of a plant. It looks as if Zechariah has at the back of his mind prophecies like Jer 23. 5: “I will raise up for David a righteous Branch” but is mainly thinkin
g of Mal 4:2 (NASV )  “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.” Salvation isn't just political or personal, it's total. It brings healing, (cf Isa 53. 5)  “by his wounds we are healed,”  It renews strength Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength (Isa 40.  31) and freedom and joy. It starts with forgiveness; but it doesn't stop there. It brings with it peace, "shalom", that is not just the end to war but the experience of salvation in every department of life. (“Peace, peace, to those far and near,”) ( Isa 57. 1 9)

That is what's happened. That, says Zechariah, is the salvation that has arrived. Not waited for any more. No more are God's people like wineskins in the smoke. God as visited his people. It's happened. Boom.

But there's a problem.
This “promise” is for Zechariah entirely a Jewish thing. It's focussed on “Israel” (v. 68); what God has done “for us” (v. 69); he has remembered his holy covenant (v. 72) with “our father Abraham” (v. 73), and plans “to give his people the knowledge of salvation” (v. 77) and to guide “our feet” (v. 79).   Zechariah has no interest in anyone else. He does not take the Gentile world into account.

The Difference ...
How wonderful that Luke the Gentile can write so lucidly about this very Jewish event! The thought is Zechariah's. Its very Israel-centered nationalism is its mark or authenticity. But the language is Luke's. For example, referring to God speaking through "the mouth of” the prophets (v. 70; cf Acts 1. 16; 3. 18, 21; 4. 25; 15. 7). He uses forms of language that just subtly remind us that he's there.

Luke understands then whole of gospel history, from before the birth of Jesus to beyond the birth of the church, including the life ministry death resurrection of Jesus and the coming in power of the spirit, as the arrival of the kingdom, the beginning of the fulfilment of the messianic hope, to be completed when Jesus returns.   It's as if he is looking back at this event, able to understand and smile tolerantly at the dullness and narrowness, because he knows that God's plan was bigger than Zechariah could ever imagine.

Maybe the hope of Israel was, at the time of Zechariah's prophecy, quite limited and nationalistic. That didn't prevent them from having a hope, however narrow; and it didn't prevent God from having his plan and purpose, however large. If we will let him, God will respond to our little narrow vision and hope, by sending his vast, broad, vision and hope!

So what does that look like?   It means
Confidence.  We live expecting the interventions of god as though they had already happened.  That's not a shallow optimism but a statement of faith.  Desmond Tutu " I am not optimistic but I am hopeful"   Jurgen Moltmann is a German theologian who came to faith in Christ in a PoW camp in Kilmarnock. He says “Only abandon hope at the gates of hell"
Cleansing  We know and experience repentance and forgiveness process; that does not mean wallowing in our sin and failures; but letting God deal with our rubbish!
Connecting.  We live a “joined up” life that recognises  the effects of salvation in every department of life. We connect with all the healing, strength, joy and peace of god's Kingdom.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn spent many years in a Soviet labour camp. There is a story of how one day he reached the point of feeling he could go on no longer, threw his shovel down and waited to be beaten to death: it had happened to other prisoners. But before the guards responded, another prisoner ran over, scratched a cross on the ground, and went back to work. Somehow Solzhenitsyn found the strength to pick up his shovel again. When the Gospel touches us it changes all of life.


Moltmann says "The knowledge that Christ alone is Lord cannot be confined to faith. It must encompass the whole of life."

What does your hope/vision look like?

© Gilmour Lilly December  2013