itsawonderfilledlife

Week 3
Faith

Faith is … the substance of things …

Social media had told me to google the words faith is, then see how the sentence is completed, and the above is how my sentence was finished.

the substance of things …

Perhaps (probably) I had been googling what faith is at some point and the technology remembered my search. Whatever the case that led Google to complete my sentence I like it. Mainly I like it because the sentence is still not complete.

Faith is the substance of things … it is like saying faith is the stuff of stuff.

What Google is leading me to is the well-known verse in Hebrews 11:1 :

Now faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Faith is what we are hoping for, what we are dreaming of, but is yet to be in our direct sight.

It is a little bit like children waiting for Santa to deliver a special toy at Christmas. This child knows what they want, what they hope for, but it is not yet in their clutches, their possession. They think of it, dream of it, anticipate how life will improve when they have it … but it is still just a dream, just a hoped-for thing. Because they want it so badly, they not only hope, but believe it will one day be theirs … they have faith in it breeds hope.

That is what advent should be for each of us, faith that breeds hope.

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Week 3
Faith

I read a little story … weeks ago (below). It is the story that created within me the desire to return to writing for a season …

for I wanted to hear the music that plays from the darkest place.

God,

In this world we walk through dark places, places filled with sadness, hurt, rejection, loneliness and pain (just a few of the dark and nasties). This is our reality, our experience of being fully human.

But, we also know that we do not walk this life alone, for you sit with us in the darkness. You hold our hands and embrace our pain … as your own.

And, we know, that if you walk into the dark with us, we can trust that your will make something new out of this darkness, that we can trust you to keep your promises to us, that you will bring music out from within our dark valleys.

May me hold tightly to you, trusting all that you say and do. Grow our faith, dear God …

Amen

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1

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Week 2
The Promise of the Prophets

The long awaited Messiah, the King of the Jews, did not come to Earth as a physical warrior. He came in human form, as a babe … as we all began.

He was innocent, dependent and helpless … yet he was the also the Savior of the world.

This historic Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ does not simply mean that Jesus is like God.
It is far more radical than that. It means that God is like Jesus.

D. Elton Trueblood

The mystery of this all human, all God birth can muddle the most level of heads. It leaves the most brilliant wondering. It confounds any who dare to pause and consider a babe to be the divine. One cannot entertain this thought without a hallelujah reverberating through our souls.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

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Week 2
The Promise of the Profits

“A voice of one calling in the desert prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth; The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Isaiah 30:3-5

The prophets and prophesies of the coming Messiah were not only in the Old Testament. Isaiah tells of one coming to prepare the way for the coming LORD. This one spoken of is John the Baptist.

John’s first New Testament reference is the angelic announcement to Zechariah, that he and his aged, barren wife Elizabeth were to have a son, who they would name John, The shock of this unbelievable announcement made Zechariah unable to speak for months. The angel continued this birth announcement with regulations for John’s life (aka no alcohol drinking) and this :

“And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:17)

He was to get people ready, to straighten the path for this coming Messiah.

I think that the most tender evidence of the bond between John and Jesus came when Mary entered the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who was about 5 months along.

“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:41).

Mary, not long pregnant, only spoke a greeting, yet Elizabeth’s child within (John) leapt in her womb. In that dark place where John was growing and developing, he saw the light …

And so, as a man, John the Baptist prepared the way for his cousin, his own redeemer, to fulfil the prophesies of old, with the message (that is still for us today) :

repent and be baptized

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but after me will come One more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” Matthew 3:11

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Week 2
The Promise of the Prophets

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign:
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel

Isaiah 7:14

The prophet, Isaiah, gave the world a hint about the arrival of the new King … he would arrive as all other monarchs before and after him … born, from a woman. In this amazingly common manner of being born :

the physical has brought the eternal
miraculous in the mundane

This king would have an earthly mother. One who would care for him, change his diaper, nurse him, raise and nurture him. She would also be part of the typical, nine month period of waiting for his arrival. That long and aching waiting for her babe to be born … to be delivered …

and her own delivery would come through the one she delivered.

God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month.
For no word from God will ever fail.”
Luke 1:26-37

God chose Mary … she was part of his plan to deliver all of humankind, in love and compassion.

“In Advent, we put all our hope in the sacred blackness of a womb. As we wait, we remind ourselves that darkness (which is far too often reduced to a trite symbol for sin and death), actually has the unique capacity to bear the divine. In Advent, we reclaim the holy dark.”

Cole Arthur Riley

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Week 2
The Promise of the Prophet

Micah 5:2
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.”

Bethlehem … meaning house of bread.

The prophet Micah told of the setting of the birth of the highly anticipated ruler of Israel. How interesting that, of all the prophesies regarding the birth of the Messiah, the town is mentioned.

From this small town of Bethlehem (once called Ephrathah) came the Redeemer. But, it is also interesting that this was not the first redeemer from Bethlehem, for years before (but still in the line of Jesus) was Boaz, that kin or relative of Naomi, who married her widowed daughter-in-law, Ruth … becoming their kinsman redeemer, providing them a safe and secure future.

Then, generations later, in that same sleepy town, God allowed his Son to be born. A babe, like that first born of Ruth and Boaz, named Obed. Obed was born to a wealthy and prosperous dad, whose roots were deep in this town. Jesus was born to a poor man (Joseph), a carpenter who was just travelling through … no wealth, no roots.

Yet, in this house of bread rose the one from the stump of Jesse … one with deep roots, the one who came to be known as the very bread of life.

When he had called together
all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law,
he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.

“In Bethlehem in Judea,”

they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

“‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.”

Matthew 2:4-6

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Week 2
The Promise of the Prophets

“Where is the One having been born King of the Jews?
For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.”

Matthew 2:2

A star in the sky, in the night, in the dark.

The ones who we know as the wise men were scientists, astronomers. They had seen evidence of an amazing light event in the skies. So amazing was it that they went to the king (Herod) to inquire as to where this King of the Jews would be found. I find myself wondering if they were laying wagers as to his location … and, of course, a King so powerful would know where a new king was born.

In the Old Testament, Numbers 24:17 speaks of the star that would come …

I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near.
A star will come forth from Jacob,
and a scepter will arise from Israel.

Of course this passage is not necessarily referring to a star in the skies, but the rising of a great man, from the line of Jacob, the Jews. Yet, because stars were such a daily-relied on phenomena, those who studied them would know that a unique light in the skies was significant to their very lives. Plus, the arrival of other leaders (Caesar being one) was commonly announced in the skies.

This astral birth announcement alerted these wise ones. But their interest went beyond the norm, for they needed to know more about this King of Jews, whose star shone so bright.

A star will come ….

and He did,

and is brilliance still shines,

and the wise still seek Him.

God gave the Magi a star, not a road map.
Follow the direction God is pulling your heart
and worry less about needing to know every detail beforehand.

Ian Simkins

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Week 2
The Promise of the Prophets

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and of might,
    the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

Isaiah 11:1-3

A shoot will come up form the stump of Jesse …

A stump … that is where my mind lingered. A stump is the remnant of a tree that had been cut down. It is visually not small, otherwise it would not be visible, nothing more than a twig. No, a stump tells us that it was sizeable, it contained many rings. It lived for years.

That stump, that stump of Jesse … what does it mean?

Most of us who have weathered the advent season would know this passage from Isaiah as part of the Christmas story, for it is commonly read every year at this point in the church calendar. Most of us would also understand that the shoot is a reference to the Messiah, who was to come from the line of King David (for Jesse refers to the father of David).

The stump … this refers to the the place from where the Israelites (including Jesse and King David). At one time they grew and were strong, and stood tall. But the Jewish people (culture and religion) had been cut down, the kingdom of David a faint memory, their trust in their God holding on by a thread.

But … God ….

God had a plan for dead stumps. From this dead and lifeless stump of the Israelite people came a living shoot, in the person of Jesus. But part of God’s plan was not just that he would come to save his own people, but the entire forest. For he came for all … Jews and Gentiles (everyone else).

In this we all have become the Chosen of God … for he chose to redeem all through his Son.

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Week 2
The Promise of the Prophets

So God has given both his promise and his oath.
These two things are unchangeable
because it is impossible for God to lie.
Therefore,
we who have fled to him for refuge can have
great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us.
This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.

– Hebrews 6:18-19

As we open the doors of advent we cannot omit the promises of God to us all … promises made hundreds of years before his promises were fulfilled in the person of Jesus. And the greatest of his promises was that he would send a Savior.

Before we get into the promises, we need to be assured of our confidence in the one who is making the promises.

I love the passage (above) from Hebrews 6, because it is not definitive about how God’s promises are trustworthy, that he cannot lie, cannot change what he says.

In this world we live, so obviously infested with sin and it’s effects, it is hard to find anyone who is unswerving in their promises. Marriages, friendships, workplaces and even in the church, promises get broken … to people who are broken … by people who are equally broken.

But God …

He does not break his promises. He can be trusted.

In verse 19 of the passage is this line:

This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.

Man … the symbolism of an anchor … I can visualize being on rough water and throwing it into the raging seas to hold the boat steady. And that is what God can be in our lives …

but,

an anchor can also be dropped into calm waters, when we want to stay in one place, so as to ensure that we are not deceived by the calm (and we can be so easily deceived by the calm).

God’s promises are our hope, for he is trustworthy!

What a hope is He!

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Week 1
The People’s Need

reclaim the dark … for light shines in the dark

Christmas came amid it all … amid all of the dark and twisties …

• tears, sorrow, dismay
• loneliness
• longing for the past
• dying, grief
• sin
• enemies, death

These are the realities today, as we open the daily advent doors to the celebration of arrival of the Christ Child … as we await his coming again. These were the realities then … roughly 400 years ago.

Christmas, then and now, is all about dark places …

• the womb
• a valley
• the grave

But, it is also about contrast, about that upside-down experience of Christ within us.

And without such a contrast …

would there be a reason for a Savior?

No …

That is why we wait with anticipation, otherwise we know not why he came, we know not our own value … for if we follow this Savior (who not only was born, but died and rose), we can be part of bringing the upside-down world to those around us.

Luke 6 says:

Blessed are you who:
are poor (now)
hunger (now)
weep (now)
who are hated (now)
who are rejected (now)

This was the state of life for the Jews … this is the state of life for us … NOW!

Our reality of being the blessed is not due to our circumstances or situations, but because of HIM, of He who came to deliver us from our darkness

and bring the light.

This ends week 1, the People’s Need.

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