Restless Wonderer

Few gifts really change your life.  Advertisers aim to convince you that the thing they want to sell is something you want.  The best adverts go further, persuading you that what you want is actually something you need.  Ignorance becomes desire, which becomes longing.  The Old Testament prophets who foretold the future day of God’s deliverance generated longing among Israel’s faithful.  Yet centuries of dashed hopes and false starts that followed the return of a remnant from Babylonian exile made their prophecies sound like a breach of the Trades Description Act.  You said we’d have God’s universal peace – instead we’ve got the so-called ‘Roman peace’.  We want our money back! There were those in Israel who held stubbornly to hope and Simeon was one.  Indeed God had given him a special revelation that he would not die without seeing the Messianic Age.  As Mary and Joseph brought the baby into the Temple, the Spirit brought Simeon. ...

You’ve probably experienced the scenario of the unwanted Christmas present.  The sinking feeling and feigned gratitude as the paper falls away to reveal another pair of socks, bottle of smelly stuff or saggy hand-knitted jumper.  Or the hollowness in someone’s eyes as they mumble that your gift really will be useful.  Unwanted gifts often reflect on the giver – a lack of understanding (‘I’m sure he’ll like this – I would’) or simply desperation (‘I’ve got to give her something!’).  Occasionally, though, they reflect something wrong in the recipient – lack of self-awareness (‘If only they knew it, this is just what they really need’) or ingratitude born from resentment (‘I don’t want anything from him!’)  So it was with King Herod. Herod’s image as the pantomime villain of the nativity play is largely supported by the historical sources.  This king of Judea, a client of the Romans, was ruthless, opportunistic and megalomaniacal, his one redeeming fe...

There is an art to wrapping Christmas presents and I don’t have it!  My wife does.  What she can do with a sheet of paper, a ribbon and a pair of scissors never ceases to amaze me.  I remember ‘earning’ a badge for wrapping books in the uniformed youth organisation I attended, but I suspect now that either there was some corruption in the system or that my leaders were men of great pity. Mary is one of the most outstanding figures in Scripture.  She is a model of prayer, praise, meditation and adoration.  She is not to be venerated, but her example can certainly be emulated.  The part of Mary in the incarnation is both passive and active.  In one sense she simply had to accept what God had planned – her simple response was the heart of all true prayer, the words of God's servant: "let it be to me according to your word".  She didn’t make the baby grow – what mother does? She was, in one sense, the wrapping of the present, the protective shell a...

In the nativity plays Joseph is often a bit of an ‘extra’ – it’s not quite clear what he’s for.  Admittedly, he didn’t have a part directly in Jesus’ conception or birth, but if Jesus was God’s gift then Joseph was the delivery man.  Joseph was spoken to by God through dreams four times: first to assure him that he should take the pregnant girl to be his wife; then to warn him to flee to Egypt in the face of the treachery of the false king Herod; and finally twice to tell him to return to Israel and specifically to Nazareth.  As the delivery man, it is Joseph who makes sure that God’s gift gets on time to where it needs to be – Bethlehem, Egypt, Nazareth. There is more than a passing resemblance between Mary’s husband and his ancient namesake, the son of Jacob (see Genesis 37-50).  Both were spoken to in dreams and went to Egypt in order to rescue God’s people through their simple trust, their integrity of character and their obedience in the face of opposition....

It’s not even December and I can’t escape the constant chitter chatter about what to get for Christmas.  My children are running around with Argos catalogues, wanting to write their lists, and my inbox is bulging with marketing emails.  To add to my woes, two words which I refuse to name and which, until a couple of years ago, I had never associated with one another – black is a colour I had traditionally reserved for Mondays – have now become unavoidable. Amidst all this hype I can’t think of a single item I want for Christmas, which probably says more about the plenty I live in than any virtue of my heart.  Of course, I don’t have everything and I am not ‘rich’ by the standards of this country, but when I step back and consider how much stuff I possess compared to all previous generations it is quite staggering.  We twenty-first century Westerners, it seems to me, are materially rich, yet relationally and spiritually poor.  We know the price of everything...

Silence and speech; emptiness and meaning.  These may seem like opposites, but Psalm 19 suggests otherwise.  In this psalm, one of the most beautiful examples of Hebrew poetry, David describes God’s revelation of Himself, firstly through nature and then through words.  The psalm opens with the declaration that the heavens and sky declare God’s glory and creativity.  We might expect David to focus on the heavenly beings – sun, moon and stars – and, indeed, in verses 4-6 he does describe the sun’s majesty, but in verses 1-3 it is the empty space of the sky that is said to have meaning.  The silent expanse of emptiness is speaking – spreading it’s message of a glorious creator across the globe.  As the sun bursts like a resplendent bridegroom into the sky it simply magnifies what would still be evident if it never rose.  Creation is pointing to creator. Yet powerful as this general revelation in creation may be – and many people have been led by thei...

Contentment is a rare quality.  Personally speaking, I struggle a lot with restlessness – a feeling that I’ve not yet settled down and that there is more to achieve.  Others may struggle with the same emotion but in relation to something else – wanting to have more or to experience more.  I’ve no doubt that some of my restlessness is healthy – it arises from that deep sense that this world is not our ultimate home, that we are made for God and for the new creation He will reveal when Christ returns.  At the same time, however, I could too easily make that a rationalisation for a kind of discontent that is destructive and, frankly, ungodly.  In Psalm 16 David points to three things in which he delights.  These lead him to a place of satisfaction in the present at the same time as trusting in God for his ultimate, eternal future.  As you read through this psalm, two of the sources of delight are obvious – in verse 3 David says he delights in God’s h...