Be Still And Know

Luke 1:74-75 'We have been rescued from our enemies so we can serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness for as long as we live.' The whole Bible speaks about salvation, and that comes to a climax in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. So we need to know what salvation is all about, and these verses make it incredibly clear. God’s intention is that we should live our lives to the full. His desire is to rescue us from our enemies so that we can live in partnership with him, free from fear, sin and anything else that might spoil life. Living with fear totally distorts life. If you are fearful of what others will say and think of you, you will be reluctant to take risks and every day will be a trial. If you are fearful of medical, financial or relationship difficulties, it will lay a heavy burden on you. God doesn’t promise to take all our difficulties away, but he does promise to set us free from fear as we place our lives in his hands. Sin always spoils. It doesn’t have the ability to do a

Luke 1:72-73 “He has been merciful to our ancestors by remembering his sacred covenant— the covenant he swore with an oath to our ancestor Abraham.” Zechariah’s beautiful song of worship after the birth of his son, John the Baptist, celebrated the way in which God had led his people in the Old Testament. Fundamental to God’s dealings with his people was his covenant. This was the understanding that underpinned God’s relationship with the people of Israel. The important fact about a covenant is that it is two- way. God made certain promises and expected the people to fulfil their side of the relationship in response. Although he longed for them to live in partnership with him, he never imposed it. Zechariah pointed back to the covenant that God established with Abraham. To show the intense seriousness, God made it with an oath. That might seem strange to us, since we are used to people using oaths in order to appeal to a higher authority. Clearly God is in a completely different position, since he is the h

Luke 1:67-70 Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this prophecy: “Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and redeemed his people. He has sent us a mighty Saviour from the royal line of his servant David, just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago.” The birth of John the Baptist was a momentous moment in many ways. John’s mother, Elizabeth, had been astonished to fall pregnant at her advanced age but also had to cope with the shock of a mute husband. When the baby arrived, neighbours and relatives came together to celebrate. The big question was how the child would be named. The crowd of well-wishers expected that he would be called Zechariah, after his father, but Elizabeth had become convinced that his name should be John. Still unable to speak, Zecharian wrote down (to everyone’s surprise): “His name is John.” The great joy for this godly couple was that, in their son John, God’s will would be fulfilled. The promise had been made long ago that a Saviour woul

Luke 1:51-53 'His mighty arm has done tremendous things! He has scattered the proud and haughty ones. He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands.' Mary’s song is nothing less than revolutionary. She recognised that God isn’t in the business of merely rearranging society but turning it upside down. The world, dominated by power and self-interest, isn’t in need of a few tweaks or some fine tuning. It needs to be fundamentally reordered. That was clearly true of Mary’s society, dominated by the highly organised and ruthless Roman Empire, but is no less true today. Within just a few lines, this beautiful song takes us to the heart of Jesus’ ministry. It might have been thought that, since he was a king, Jesus would spend his time with the rich and influential. But right from the start of his ministry, he was surrounded by the poor and marginalised. Jesus’ first visitors were shepherds of all peopl

Luke 1:50 'He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him.' Mary’s song gives us, in very few words, an amazing description of God. She sings of the way in which God has blessed her life but then goes on to speak of the way in which he brings his life and salvation to all those who follow him. On two occasions she draws attention to the fact that God is a God of mercy, and we shouldn’t rush past this word. In verse 49 she declares that “the Mighty One is holy”. That is to say, God is totally pure, true and completely separated from anything that is sinful. That’s wonderful – but it presents us with an enormous problem, because we are definitely not any of those things! Hard as we might try, we are a long way from being holy, and that means there is a huge distance between us and God. Only God’s mercy can bridge the gulf. Only his willingness to reach out to us, to be generous and forgiving can enable us to enter into a relationship with him. David knew all about God’s mercy. He was not on

Luke 2:21 'Eight days later, when the baby was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel even before he was conceived.' Three ceremonies took place after the birth of Jesus, just as they did for every Jewish baby boy. Firstly, he was circumcised. This practice dates right back to the time of Abraham and was a sign of the covenant between God and his people. It was absolutely essential for every Jewish boy to be circumcised. A failure to do so was believed to lead to the extinction of the soul and the denial of a share in the life to come. It was such an important ceremony that it could take place on any day of the week, including the Sabbath. Secondly, the Jews believed that every firstborn male, whether human or cattle, was sacred to God. They belonged to him and so needed to be bought back at a price. This cost five shekels and could not be paid sooner than 31 days after the birth of the child. The third ceremony was the purification of the mother. In Jewish law, a woman who had

Luke 1:46-49 Mary responded, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour! For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me.” These words of Mary are very similar to the Old Testament prayer of Hannah when she learnt that she was pregnant. It is hardly surprising that Mary used these words. She was a young Jewish girl and in the four-day journey from Nazareth down south to her cousin Elizabeth, she would have had lots of time to reflect. It would have been only natural for her to recall the famous prayer of Hannah. That often happens with scripture. When we face a challenge or a new opportunity, suddenly words from the Bible will come to mind and, ancient as they are, they often express just what we are feeling. There are two things about these verses that strike me. First of all, that Mary was humble. She knew that she was a lowly servant girl. She had only rece

Luke 1:42-45 Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, “God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed. Why am I so honoured, that the mother of my Lord should visit me? When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.” There’s lots of joy in the scriptures surrounding the birth of Jesus. But I love the fact that the first person to leap with joy was John the Baptist while he was still in his mother’s womb! He began his ministry early! John would be the one who paved the way for Jesus 30 years later and this was a beautiful recognition of the significance of his cousin. Joy is consistently a sign of God being at work. When the Holy Spirit is at work in a person’s life, there will always be joy; it is one of the fruits of the Spirit. It naturally and inevitably flows from a life deliberately seeking to live in line with God’s will. Billy Sunday is the wonderful name of an American baseball player

Luke 1:38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her. We know very little about Mary. When Matthew and Luke provided a family tree for Jesus they did so through Joseph’s descendants. The Bible makes no mention of Mary’s family line or even of the name of her parents. Other sources tell us that they were called Anne and Joachim, but we cannot be sure. In Luke’s account we find her in Nazareth and so that may well have been her home town. We presume that she was probably a late teenager when the angel Gabriel came to her with the astonishing news that she would miraculously become the mother of the Son of God. But hazy as our knowledge may be of Mary, we are given a remarkable picture of someone who trusted God completely. Having heard the news, she simply identified herself as the Lord’s servant and accepted the truth of this amazing revelation. The title ‘servant’ is often used of people who follow God. In the Old Testament we fi

Luke 1:28-30 Gabriel appeared to Mary and said, “Greetings, favoured woman! The Lord is with you!” Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favour with God!” Fear is often mentioned in the accounts leading up to Jesus’ birth. John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, was told not to be afraid when Gabriel met with him. The same happened when the angel met with Mary. Joseph too was told not to be afraid when he was informed of Mary’s surprise pregnancy. For all of them, what was happening in their lives was an astonishing surprise. For John the Baptist’s mother, Elizabeth, the surprise was that she was well past child-bearing years; for Mary it was because she had never had sexual intercourse. All that was happening was totally miraculous, because we all tend to live with the assumption that only ordinary things will happen in life. This first chapter of Luke challenges our thinking in all sorts of ways. Firstly, it r

Luke 1:19-20 The angel said to Zechariah, “I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to bring you this good news! But now, since you didn’t believe what I said, you will be silent and unable to speak until the child is born. For my words will certainly be fulfilled at the proper time.” I’m sure that Zechariah would have seen this as the biggest moment in his life. He was having the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of presenting the incense offering in the temple. And there he was confronted with an angel who informed him that his elderly wife would soon give birth to a son. It would have been a startling moment for anyone but for a very old man, who had long since given up any thought of his wife having a baby, it was overwhelming. I don’t find it surprising that he asked the angel how he could be sure that this would happen. But the angel saw his refusal to believe his words as a sign of disobedience; as a result, he was mute until the time of John the Baptist’s birth. Because

Luke 1:8-10 'One day Zechariah was serving God in the Temple, for his section was on duty that week. As was the custom of the priests, he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense. While the incense was being burned, a great crowd stood outside, praying.' Luke draws attention to the importance of prayer more than any of the other Gospel writers. He presents Jesus as the man of prayer so it is not surprising that, right at the start of his Gospel account, Luke draws attention to the fact that there was a crowd of people praying. As Zechariah performed his duty in the temple, it was a supremely holy moment, and one of breath-taking importance for Zechariah. Although he was involved in serving in the temple twice a year, priests were only allowed the privilege of entering the sanctuary to burn incense only once in a lifetime. There were probably about 1,000 priests in Zechariah’s section, so some priests never had the privilege of performing this sacred duty. Zechariah was clearly

Luke 1:6-7 'Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God’s eyes, careful to obey all of the Lord’s commandments and regulations. They had no children because Elizabeth was unable to conceive, and they were both very old.' Luke begins his Gospel by introducing us to two couples. An old couple and a young couple. First of all, we meet Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were both very elderly and very godly. Zechariah was a priest and a direct descendent of Aaron. There was no retirement for priests and so, because there were so many of them, they were divided into 24 groups, serving at the temple twice a year for a week at a time. We naturally warm to Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were a devout couple. When Luke records that they were righteous in God’s eyes, he wasn’t suggesting that they were perfect but notes their careful obedience to the Lord. Yet they lived with one great sadness: they had no children. In New Testament times, this was considered a matter of shame and would have been confusing for such a god

Colossians 4:7-9 'Tychicus will give you a full report about how I am getting along. He is a beloved brother and faithful helper who serves with me in the Lord’s work. I am also sending Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, one of your own people.' You learn a lot about people through the way in which they speak about others. There are some who seem to moan about everyone they know. But I love the way in which Paul speaks so warmly of his friends and acquaintances. Tychicus was clearly someone whom he trusted completely and who gave Paul wonderful support in his ministry. He is mentioned five times in the New Testament and always receives glowing praise from Paul. In his second letter to Timothy, we learn that the apostle sent Tychicus to take over from Timothy in Ephesus, so that Timothy could be released to spend some time with Paul before his death. It’s vital that we have people in our lives whom we can trust completely. That’s fundamental to the way in which the Church, the body of Christ, works.

Colossians 4:5-6 'Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.' Whether we have a short or a long life, it is clearly a fact that our opportunities are limited; they are finite. Paul urges his readers to take every opportunity seriously, which means that we need to live wisely. Wisdom is always a deeply practical, down-to-earth word in the Bible. The wise person takes God’s truth and applies it to their everyday life. This is particularly crucial in our relationship with those who are not believers because, whether we like it or not, people are looking at our lives and learning about God from our example. When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he told them that they were ambassadors, that is to say they represented God and his kingdom to the non-Christian world. One of my sisters is an ambassador for the British government; her whole life is shaped by her res

Colossians 4:2-3 'Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. Pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in chains.' There is no way in which one can exaggerate the importance of prayer. It has been (wisely) said that we are as strong as our prayer lives and no stronger. That applies just as much to us as individuals as it does to our churches. It is through prayer that we deliberately open up our lives to God and so without it we will soon be struggling. It is for that reason that Paul encourages his readers to devote themselves to prayer. They needed to be continually committed to it and to be on their toes. Paul was more than aware of the spiritual battle they were fighting every day, and they needed prayer to keep them spiritually alert. We must never forget that Paul was in prison when he wrote these words. No one knew better than he did how important it was to stay close to God in pra

Colossians 3:22 'Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord. Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.' 'Tain't what you do (it's the way that you do it)’ was a jazz song first recorded in 1939 by Ella Fitzgerald. The apostle Paul would have agreed with that. There were probably many slaves in the congregation at Colossae, and he knew that the way in which they did their work was a fundamental part of their Christian testimony. They obviously needed to do the right things, but it was important that they did them in the right way, whether or not their master was watching them. They needed to give their best because the service they were giving flowed from their relationship with God. He was always watching, even if their master wasn’t, and they needed to work willingly, as if everything they did was being d

Colossians 3:15 'Let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.' The world is full of conflict. Whether you look at international relations, national politics or even the life of your local community, conflict is never very far away. But that isn’t what God wants for us and so he has made it possible for us to live at peace through Christ, the man of peace. Paul speaks about Christ acting like an umpire who oversees our lives and continually works to ensure that peace occurs. However, the first word of that sentence is the crucial one – “Let”. That is to say peace won’t just happen. We have to give our “yes” to the peace of Christ. We need to welcome him into the centre of our lives and allow him to bring his peace to every situation that we face. Peace is our calling as part of the body of Christ, the Church. That means that we cannot sit idly by when we see strained relationships. As in every other human c

Colossians 3:14 'Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.' The famous Victorian poet, Robert Browning, wrote: “Take away love and our earth is a tomb.” It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of love. It isn’t merely one more excellent virtue which we need to acquire. Love is essential. Without it, no family, organisation or church can thrive. So Paul encouraged his readers to put on the clothing of love; just like any other item of clothing, we need to head into each day ensuring it is in place. The Greek word for love in this verse is agape, which is what I would call ‘tough love’. It’s the love which you have for people whether they love or hate you in return. It’s the kind of love which just can’t stop loving. It’s so committed that it doesn’t give up when the going gets tough and the opposition is fierce. It is, of course, the kind of love that God first showed us. When John wrote his first letter, he pointed to Jesus as being the supreme expressio

Colossians 3:13 'Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.' Any happy and harmonious community relies upon forgiveness. It isn’t an optional extra but an absolute necessity. However, it is also incredibly hard work, so we need to reflect very carefully upon it. Humans step on one another’s toes very easily. In complete innocence, we often do it without meaning to. We say or do things which are obviously right to us, but which cause hurt and unhappiness to others. And, by the same token, people step on our toes and hurt us unintentionally. The only way of coping with this inevitable part of community life is to forgive. This forgiveness rarely needs to be put into words; saying that you forgive another person for their thoughtless words or actions can easily produce problems of its own. God calls us to live with an attitude of forgiveness that graciously and lovingly moves on from the hurt without drawing attentio