Becoming a Christmas People. John 1. 1-18

I love narrative preaching: to explore truth through story.  This is the biggest story ever told... “Once upon a time.” Or rather, “once upon an eternity”, before time began, God was already there: The Father of all things.  The Spirit, hovering over the face of the deep. And the Word, proceeding from the Father's heart and bringing  a  universe into existence....  A good world, but a world very quickly spoiled, filled with darkness. 

 John loves to make contrasts: light and darkness; Jesus and Moses.  He wants to show that Jesus is better than Moses.  It's as if he knew the Papa Charlie Parker blues song that says, “Your baby ain't sweet like mine!”.  Light for our darkness; sonship for our alienation. Fullness for our emptiness; truth for our ignorance, grace for our sins.  All of this happens when the Light comes into the world. This Word is life and light. The transformation that needed to happen in the lives of men and women, happens through him.  The light shines. 

Proxima Centauri.  Public Domain Image

But then there is “once upon a time...”  The Light-word came into a darkened world.... How did God come?  How did the light come?  As a blaze of shekinah glory, maybe?  Blinding the eyes that don't want to see, and laser-like, burning away the wrongs and injustices?  Light travels at 671 million mph.  That's amazing!  Our nearest star is over 4 light years away.  That means its light takes 4 years and 10 weeks, travelling at 671 million mph to reach us. But Proxima Centauri stays 4.2 light years away. That's not how God's light came.  He didn't just shine from the distance.  The source of the light came into the world.

Christmas People are missional.
 God comes.  Coming is the other side of giong. .  Coming and going is at the heart of His mission and ours.  It's interesting that John sees God's mission from our viewpoint.  You see, whether someone is coming or going depends on the viewpoint of the observer.  When I leave the house Pam says to me “Where are you going?”  And when I arrive at your house you say “Thanks for coming to visit.” 

Christmas People are incarnational.
The word became flesh. That's how the light came. Veiled in flesh.  We beheld his glory.  He entered our experience.  He became human.  Mission is not just about words.  It's almost hard-wired into our Scottish Baptist psyche that we need to tell people they are sinners in need of a Saviour.  Yes, that is the Truth that will set people free.  But in order to enable people to receive that truth, Jesus came, not simply to take on flesh and then die for sins, but also to live a life that demonstrated the truth – putting father’s love visibly in front of people.  Light, present with them.  God's Word, become flesh.  And if we are going to help people receive that truth, we need to clothe that truth in flesh, we need to be present among men and women.

Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas has a reputation for hate-based campaigning. In the aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut School massacre, they wanted to hold a “praise service” praising God for supposedly “judging America” through these killings... Dr John Drane, a Scottish theologian and mission specialist, asked on Facebook: “What are Scottish Baptists going to do to distance themselves from this bunch? The average person in the street won't know the difference.”  I liked the answer of the Pastor from Girvan.  “basically we do everything we can to show the love of Jesus to all in our community, whether they live like we'd hope they would or not. That way, when folk around here read about Westboro Baptist, the 'average person in the street' recognises the difference.”  That's the answer.  Its' about incarnation.  

Christmas People are developing. 
They know coming involves becoming.   Mission means a transformation of us, a becoming.  Here's something difficult to grasp. God, who is complete, perfect, full of knowledge became flesh.  Jesus who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, became flesh. The lamb slain before the foundation of the earth, became flesh.  God is allowing something to happen to himself. God who is eternally perfect, adds frailty to his perfection.   He did it in order to bring light to our darkness; he did it in order to bring life to or death, grace for our sins. 

We can never ever do that for another human being. We don't have to because Jesus did it all, once for all.  But Jesus said – and John recorded it – “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”  Mission for us will be patterned on what we see in Jesus.  Mission is incarnational.  And mission involves becoming... We learn; we grow; we understand; we adapt; we build bridges; we pay the cost.  We change.  How many Baptists does it take to change a light-bulb?  One answer:  “The majority at a Church meeting.”  Another answer: “Baptists – change?” But I'm not talking about superficial change – putting the service half an hour earlier. I'm talking about becoming.  Becoming like Jesus. Becoming like our neighbours.  Incarnation is at the heart of mission. 

Christmas People know mission is uncomfortable.
Becoming, change, is painful. Living internationally among people is painful.  Jesus knows this. He has experienced it. He came to his own and his own received him not.        There will be moments when we feel ill at ease in our world.  There will be moments when our world feels ill at ease with us.  How do we fit in while maintaining faithfulness to God's word?

I sometimes feel very uncomfortable in the world we live in.  On Christmas Day we woke up about 8 and I listened to Radio 4 at 8.30 a.m.   The discussion was about using Christmas leftovers.  Someone says “Everyone has ham, so why not make turkey and ham pie?”  This in a  world where 1/5 of the population have less than 50p a day to live on.  How do I live generously among my family while living radically among the poor?  How can we be an inclusive community and remain faithful the Biblical teaching on sexuality? 

Christmas People are expectantly generous.
v. 12f. “He gave  the right to become children of God.”  Christ comes full of grace and truth. He gives to us, grace upon grace. He transforms us – through generosity.  He became flesh so that we could become sons of God.  Have you spent some of your time amazed at the generosity of your heavenly Father this Christmas?  I was talking to our Pete after last Sunday  and he was saying that a couple of the carols brought tears to his eyes – and it wasn't my dodgy keyboard playing, it was the majesty of God's grace.  I know it wasn’t my playing because it happened to me on Christmas eve: “Silent night, Holy night, Son of god, Oh how bright love is smiling from they face, strikes for us now the hour of grace, saviour since Thou art born!”

To be Christmas people means generosity. We give like God gives.  One grace after another.  Grace is more than just undeserved favour. That's mercy.  Grace is joy-giving, generous, pleasing, thankful, makes the other person thankful...  and when one pleasing, generous favour is worn out, there's another one in its place.  That's how God gives and how he wants us to give.

Grace (charis) is charismatic.  The giving of a generous missional church is done in the expectancy that a miracle will happen, a rebirth not of flesh or of the will of man but of God.  A miracle happening in the life of the other person, just as it has happened in your life by God's grace. 

And the resources for all of this? 

 That's where we need to get back to the beginning. In the beginning was the word.  The word was God.   God could do it because he is God.  And God can do it with us – because he is God.  Because we have received of his grace, because the supernatural has touched or lives, grace upon grace, we can be the means by which words become flesh; we can live incarnationally, generously, in an uncomfortable world.

That's Christmas.  The word became flesh.  That's God's mission: not just words, but words become flesh.  And that's our mission too.  God calls us to be a Christmas people.  The world needs to see us come among them; making Gospel words become flesh.  And the glorious thing is that it is possible.



© Gilmour Lilly December 2012

Missional Spirituality 2. Luke 1. 25-45

Chelmsley Wood Baptist Church members turning up on Remembrance Day found their premises condoned off as a man had been murdered outside. Their Pastor said, 'To turn up for worship and be faced, literally, with a pool of blood and a police cordon brings home the importance of proclaiming and living the message of Christ in our community.' We live in a messy worldwhere mission is like birthing soemthing. Being – becoming – a missional Church is a lot like getting pregnant. Mary has a lot to teach us about the way God calls us and deals with us as we look at the mission context we live in today...

1. Missional spirituality begins with God. For Mary this pregnancy journey began when the angel Gabriel came to her. She wasn't looking for this. It took her by surprise.  God takes the initiative and comes to us with this surprising call to be involved in what he is doing. When I was in Gloucester, someone had a moan at me once because I was, he said “Always going on about Mission. People get bored hearing it.” Well, I don't want to bore you and I don't want to nag you or put you on a guilt trip.... What I want to do is be biblical, and say that it begins with God. In fact, you are here because God has taken the initiative. You are not here simply because you're the sort of oddball who is interested in religion like some people are into BSA motorbikes or Beatles or Buddy Holly records. You are here because God is on your case. Maybe you kind of wonder what you are doing here this morning. Well, I believe you are here because God is on your case. He wants to speak to you, he wants to do something in your life. We start right there. If you don't know Jesus personally this morning, God has something to say to you. He wants you to know that you are precious and loved, and he wants to come into your life. If you are feeling hemmed in buy the humdrum, just jogging along and not sure what the point is, God wants to let you know today that you are formed in his image, and formed for a purpose. God is taking the initiative. He always does. The whole Christian Good news, the whole Christmas event, the whole coming, life, death and resurrection of Jesus was about God taking the initiative. ”God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5. 8)

You are here because God is calling you to be part of his mission in his world. The call to be part of what God is doing comes with the new birth package. Mission is God's initiative, but it is part of the same initiative God took when he sent Jesus into the world, it is part of the same initiative god took when he first got hold of your life. The way that will work out in your life., isn't something for me to nag you about today. It is not for me to say “You were saved to serve, so get on and find out how you are supposed to be serving.” Rather, it is god's initiative. Missional spirituality, the kind of walk with god that invo0lves us in God's mission, begins with god. Not with us. It is God's mission. He is coming not  just sending.

2. Missional spirituality is incarnational spirituality. Gabriel says to Mary, You're going to have a baby boy. Call him Yeshua, “the Lord saves”; he will be Son of God and messiah the “son of David.” It's time Mary; I am at work and I'm not just speaking words, I'm sending my Son; I'm coming into the world. This is more than a new time of the prophetic. It's going to have arms and legs. Mary, you're not just going to give birth to a prophet, you're going to give birth to the Son of God. Missional spirituality is incarnational spirituality. It takes seriously John 1. 14 which says “The Word became Flesh. That's what incarnation is: the “word becoming flesh.” Mary had the immense and scares privilege of being involved in God's missionary activity, God's saving work, God's incarnation, God becoming flesh.

And that is what Missional Spirituality is still about. It is about God becoming incarnate. It is about God touching lives. It is about God's love being seen. Learning to show the Father's love. Some of you dread mission because you find the whole idea of telling someone about Jesus scares; the whole idea of trying to talk to your husband or wife or son or daughter about Jesus – when they have made it plain they don't want to know – is difficult to say the least. But God isn't always or only calling us to talk. He's calling us to show... And while we can do a wee bit of that individually, through little acts of kindness, we are not able to make Christ incarnate on our own.

If we are going to do this, we need each other, just like Mary needed Elizabeth. They worked out their experience of god's miracles together. They shared Gods' word together, They affirmed each other. Elizabeth says to Mary, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb...” (v 42) How do you think this teenager felt, when a mature, godly, wise lady took her seriously, respected her humanity and honoured her ministry? You know what Paul says about the Church. It is Christ’s “body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Eph 1. 23) “You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.” (! Cor 12. 27) God is in the business of shaping a Church that will make him incarnate, that will live out the life of Jesus in the world today. And he calls us who are part of the Church to be part of that incarnation. It's a new thing; and becoming an incarnational Church may seem like pregnancy and birth for us as individuals. Missional spirituality is incarnational spirituality. It's mope than words.

3. Missional spirituality is beyond us! Maybe, like Mary, you want to ask “How can this be – as you are.... too old, too young, not educated, not confident, not ready.” I hope you do! Mary's question wasn't one of unbelief (like Zechariah's, v. 18)); it was one of self-doubt. Her question, “how will this happen since...” accepts that it will but doesn't know. Mary may well be asking “What do I do? Do I marry Joseph tomorrow and start a family with him? I'm only a girl; am I ready for the responsibility of being Mother to messiah? Do I need to learn to read and start studying the Bible? What do I do? Nothing.

We are as Bible Believing Christians instinctively drawn to ask the question “What do we do?” We love a project. Define a problem in the Church, describe a group of unreached people, and we've got a programme for it. So we ask “What do we do?” And God says “nothing.” There's nothing you can do to make this happen. That doesn't mean it will be easy, effortless or pain free. Far from it. But it will not be achieved by your effort. Mary, what do you do? Nothing.

4. Missional spirituality is supernatural. The Holy Spirit will do what needs to be done. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (v. 35) It's that simple. God will do it. The Holy Spirit is at work. This is the realm of the supernatural. Elizabeth's baby kicked hard when Mary entered Elizabeth's house. Events like that were little reminders that they were dealing with miracles. “The Spirit will come upon you.”

You'll find similar words in Acts 1. 8, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,” and in Isa 35. 15 “When the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field.” As for Mary, so for the Church: the Holy Spirit comes upon us, incarnates god's life, brings in God's future, and makes a new creation.

God overcomes our obstacles by his Holy Spirit. He calls and equips all of us. He can do it, He can birth the supernatural in our lives. He can make the most ordinary of Churches into a body where God is incarnate. It's not about us. Malcolm Duncan, Pastor of Gold hill baptist Church, says “Genuine spiritual experience whether of faith, hope or love can never be manufactured by us it can only ever be received. Our lives are our response

5. Missional spirituality is surrender. Mary's response to this was so amazing as to be more or less iconic... This girl, asked to pay such an enormous cost, says to the angel, “OK. Let it be to me according to your word.” “Yes, I am prepared to sacrifice my plans; yes I am prepared to surrender my reputation; yes I am prepared to surrender my vision of how my life is supposed to pan out. I am you servant. Do what you want with me.” Missional spirituality is being available to God so that he can make himself incarnate.

That's it, in a nutshell. It is about the supernatural, not just the natural. It's not something we can do but something that God does... what he wants us to give to him is our availability, our co-operation; the surrender of ourselves to him. Whatever the cost. Whatever the obstacles; whatever our personality. And our God says “Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?” (Isa 66. 9). As we say to God “Have your way,” he will bring his Kingdom to birth.

© Gilmour Lilly December 2012

Missional Spirituality (1) - Luke 1. 5-25: Meeting God and engaging in his mission

Zechariah wasn't expecting an angel (v. 12). Why should he after several hundred years of silence. People were used to faithfully carrying on the rituals and drilling into the Book.  The priestly duties were a family thing.  You didn't go to theological college to become a priest.  You were born into a priestly family, that could trace its roots all the way back to Aaron.  Zechariah was  a member of the priestly family, performing his duty.  Twice a year he and his section of the priesthood would have a week “on duty.”  As there were  about 18,000 priests, they would draw lots to decide who got to burn incense, and no-one got to do it more than once in a lifetime. Zechariah happened, also, to be a man of the Bible, “walking blamelessly in all the commandments ” (v 6). He wasn't just into the ritual  as some in the Priestly class were, without keeping the law. 

Picture by Olive Utney, in Public Domain

Zechariah had taken his turn to burn incense on the altar in the temple.  He was on the rota, his week came to be on duty and there he was.  That was enough.  He wasn't expecting an angel because he was just like us.  “Lord, isn't that enough for us, today?  We'll keep coming along: 11 a.m. Every Sunday...  We'll sing the songs, do the offering, have communion, listen to a sermon.  We'll read the bible, have our quiet time, go to Bible Study.”   We are so used to precisely that mix of routine ritual, and academic study.  But what if the angel Gabriel were to turn up today? What if he were to say, “Move over Gil; I have a message for Rosyth Baptist Church”? We would be surprised.  Because we think ritual and Bible study are enough. 

So the angel came with a  message of hope.  “Your prayers have been answered.  You are going to have a child, and he will be great, and will be the one who will prepare the way for the coming of the Lord.

Arguing with angels.
Not only was he surprised to see the angel, but Zechariah argued with the angel. Promise and hope were too much for him.  Because he as just like us.

He and his missus, Elisabeth, were getting on in years.  When they were young and got married,  the possibility that they wouldn’t have kids didn't even enter their heads.  But a year, two years, five years had passed, and Elisabeth hadn't become pregnant. They prayed about it.  The consulted the doctor; they tried various remedies... they got their friends to pray.  Ten years passed, then twenty, and eventually Elizabeth went through the menopause.   They had hoped and prayed; but God didn't seem to answer.

And Zechariah had watched the life of the nation.  There were promises of a new age, of Messiah coming... People had gone out into the desert, become hermits, too make themselves pure ready for Messiah coming. But the Messiah hadn’t come. The Romans had come instead... still people hoped and prayed.  As he burned the evening offering, he had prayed for the salvation of Israel as every priest who offered the evening incense offering did; but God didn't seem to answer.

"How am I supposed to believe this stuff?" are the words not only of a sceptic but of a cynic. How am I to believe a message of personal hope, or for that matter one of hope for the nation? We have personal disappointments and pains: hopes and dreams that have not been fulfilled. We have been part of a community that has had vision words from God and maybe we haven’t seen these words come to pass.

A Model for mission
 “I am Gabriel.”  The angel says.   “OK Zechariah, so this is your big moment; so you get to spend a few minutes in the temple, burning incense.... you think you know the truth because of your status, your background, your age, your experience... But I am Gabriel... my name means “God is my strength”.  I stand in the presence of God, beyond time, through eternal ages, that is my role. And here I am, sent to you, on a mission. I have authority from God to speak his word, and to execute his will.  The word I have spoken is God's word.  It will come to pass. But because you have spoken out in unbelief, it would be better if you didn't speak at all – so you will be unable to say a word until after this baby is born."  Because Zechariah was just like us, Gabriel models the missionary authority that should be present in Zechariah's life and I ours.

We need to stand in God's presence, and we need to go with a sense of authority to speak God's word and to execute God's will. It isn’t enough to have an education, to have a past, to observe the rituals and study the word.  We need to enter into that supernatural place where God is our strength, where we stand in his presence, receive his authority, and are sent to speak his word and execute his will.  Mission, God's call,  isn't just a matter of a bit of extra effort; it isn't just a matter of faithfulness to a tradition.  It isn't just the application of some new techniques (nothing wrong with being up to date but that is not what mission is about...) it is the outflow of the energy, the power of God, through us as he sends us to take part in his purposes for his world.  We are not just learning to tell people the message, or to show people love.  We are learning to show the Father's love.  Unless it's Father's love, from the Father, inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit, bringing bit of heaven, the rule of God on earth, it's not really mission.

God is at work.
Eventually, white with shock, trembling, Zechariah stumbles out of the Sanctuary.  “What took you so long?  What happened?  Are you all right?” But Zechariah, literally dumbstruck, can't answer.  All he can do is gesture:  a kind of game of “give us a clue” and it becomes obvious that God is on the move...  “What, Zechariah? You saw an angel? You – and Elisabeth – a baby – at your age?  And he's going to be the one who prepares the way for the Lord?”  And all Zechariah can do is nod his head.  They could see that God is at work.  And they could see even more clearly that God is at work when the wrinkled old Elizabeth started to get morning sickness, stayed in for five months – but friends who visited could see that she was getting bigger week by week.  God is at work.

But it wasn't all God.
Zechariah had to do his part too!   Zechariah has to learn obedience. Active, counter-intuitive faith-filled obedience.  This new stage in history, this intervention of God, this fulfilment of promise, that God  is doing, involves you,  Zechariah. It's not just a spiritual experience but one with practical consequences.  Not just something to talk about and theorise about or argue about.  The angel certainly saw to it that Zechariah wouldn't waste time talking, discussing what had happened, arguing about whether God would keep his promises.  Zechariah had something to do. He has to father this child and in due course to name him “John”.

I wonder if some of us need to take control of our speech because the way we talk prevents our engaging with the Kingdom.   Job was a good man who had a string of terrible, devastating things happen to him.   Then three friends turned up to give him a bit of moral support.  Or so they thought.  The trouble was, all they could do was trot out the same old platitudes.  “We get what we deserve from God.  Suffering is a punishment and prosperity is a reward from God – always!  Job, brother, God is good and orders everything so  good people get blessings and bad people suffer.  Why don't you confess your sins to God and he will put everything right in your life.”  They were sincere enough – just sincerely wrong.

Our versions might be,  “These things are sent to try us;  what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.; God is teaching you something really special through this; we're all sinners – nobody deserves anything good from God; .”  But instead of murmuring platitudes and clichés that can undermine faith, let’s engage with what God wants to do in our world, through us. "Set a watch over my lips, Lord..."

God is at work.  He wants to break into our world.  He wants to bring his Kingdom, his reign.  And he wants you to be involved, to stand in his presence, to go where he sends you, to speak his word and execute his will.  He wants you to take responsibility for your part...

© Gilmour Lilly December 2012