Be Still And Know

READ: Luke 2:8-9 NLT That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. Of all the many surprises in the Christmas story this surely is one of the greatest. We have long since got used to the fact that the birth of Jesus was announced to shepherds, but they were surely the last people who you would have expected to hear about it. They were always last to hear the news. Their work forced them to live away from their communities. But more than that, shepherds were smelly and ritually unclean because of their work. How amazing that God gave them the front seats in the Christmas story! If we had been given the responsibility of compiling an appropriate guest list to welcome the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, I would guess that shepherds might well have not made an appearance. We would certainly have included the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. If Jesus was their Messi

READ: Luke 2:5-7 NLT 'Mary gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.' In a few brief verses Luke summarizes the birth of Jesus. Brief as they are, Luke offers us more details than any of the other gospel writers. That means that we need to treasure every detail that he gives us, and they are all amazing. After placing the birth of Jesus within Roman and Jewish history we are given some very specific details about the birth. With the town crammed full for the census there was, not surprisingly, nowhere for the family to stay and after his birth Jesus was placed in a manger, a cattle feeding trough. The manger has been dolled up over the years and on many Christmas cards it looks like an idyllic place to be put straight after birth. But it wasn’t. It was just the only place that was available. It would have been smelly and unhygienic and the last place that anyone would want to use for a newborn. The idea

READ: Luke 2:1-3 NLT 'At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census.' I am delighted that in our highly secular society Christmas still has a very secure place. No one could possibly miss the fact that it is Christmas! All attempts to replace Christmas with a festival such as Winterval have failed miserably. But even so we have a problem because the birth of Jesus has become inextricably tied together with Father Christmas and Rudolf the Rednosed Reindeer and other imaginary characters. It’s really important that we recognize that Jesus’ birth was a historic event, and here Dr Luke gives us the facts. Jesus was born during the long reign of Augustus Caesar who ruled the Roman Empire from 27BC to 14AD. During his reign he established the Pax Romana which led to a period of relative peace for more than two cen

READ: Luke 1:76-77 NLT 'And you, my little son, will be called the prophet of the Most High, because you will prepare the way for the Lord. You will tell his people how to find salvation through forgiveness of their sins.' Have you ever lost your voice? I’ve had sore throats at times and found difficulty speaking but only once have I lost my voice completely. It was the most bizarre experience and it went on for about a fortnight. I felt horribly disconnected from everything that was happening around me. So I have great sympathy for Zechariah who had been unable to speak for nine months. On the birth of his son, John the Baptist, he is suddenly able to speak again and here are some of his words. He recognizes that John will have a crucial role to play in God’s plans, helping to prepare the way for Jesus’ ministry. John and Jesus were relatives, but they were brought up in very different parts of Israel and so probably didn’t know one another very well. However, John’s message of repentance was crucial in pavi

READ: Luke 1:51-53 NLT 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. As Mary praises God that she is going to give birth to his Son she takes us right to the heart of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus didn’t come merely to rearrange things. He came to turn the world upside down. If we are to take Jesus seriously, we have to look at our society with new eyes because God is not merely disappointed with arrogance, abuse of power and injustice. God wants them to be toppled. Sadly, it is all too easy for us to fit in with our society and, in the interests of a quiet life, not to challenge injustice. The story of the church in Germany in the 1930s is a terrifying illustration of this. Hitler sought to bring the church under his exclusive control and the overwhelming majority accepted this. They were, understandably, fearful of resist

READ: Luke 1:46-49 NLT 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.” What an incredible moment this was for Mary! How could anyone put into words the overwhelming joy and privilege of being called to be the mother of the Saviour of the World? It is hardly surprising that she, as a young Jewish girl, turns to familiar words from the Scriptures. She would have been brought up with the wonderful story of Hannah, Samuel’s mother, and would have been familiar with her prayer when she learnt that she was going to give birth. There are many moments in our lives as Christians when we simply don’t have the words to describe how grateful we are to God. Like Mary, we often turn to other people’s words to describe how we are feeling. I thank God for many songs and hymns which have been precious to me over the ye

READ: Luke 1:38 NLT Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” We know the story of Jesus’ miraculous birth so well that no part of it is a surprise to us. So we’ve really got to work hard to imagine how completely and stupefyingly incredible this moment was for Mary. She is probably a teenager and may well never have been outside the rural Galilee region where she was born. The news that she is going to have a baby was shockingly surprising at every level. She knew that she was a virgin and that having a baby was therefore a complete impossibility. But she listens attentively to the angel’s words and is assured that, crazy as this all sounded, nothing is impossible with God. Her response is extraordinarily impressive. She describes herself as the Lord’s servant and accepts the future that God had chosen for her. To be a servant would normally be seen as demeaning. We probably instinctively think of the TV series Downton Abbey: of the way in which servants, l

READ: Luke 1:13-15 NLT The angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! God has heard your prayer. Your wife, Elizabeth, will give you a son, and you are to name him John. You will have great joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord.” This was the greatest day in Zechariah’s life. Being a male descendant of Aaron, he was a priest and that was a great privilege. However, there were a huge numbers of priests. It is suggested that there might have been up to 20,000 of them and so there were divided up into 24 groups which served in rotation. The greatest privilege of all was for a priest to be chosen to go into the temple to burn the incense at the time of the offering of the morning or evening sacrifice. Having burnt the incense, the priest would then emerge from the temple and pronounce a blessing on the people. This was such a great privilege that a priest could only do this once in his lifetime and many never had the opportunity. The priest was chosen f

READ: Psalm 40:9-10 NLT 'I have told all your people about your justice. I have not been afraid to speak out, as you, O Lord, well know. I have not kept the good news of your justice hidden in my heart; I have talked about your faithfulness and saving power. I have told everyone in the great assembly of your unfailing love and faithfulness.' We often hear people say that religion is a private matter. The view seems to be that you can believe whatever you like just so long as you keep it to yourself. In this psalm David points out that this just cannot be done. Anyone who discovers the justice, faithfulness and salvation of God needs to talk about it! I wonder what excites you? It could be your family, your cat, your home, your stamp collection or this year’s holiday. It is the most natural thing in the world to want to look for an opportunity to tell other people about whatever is most precious to you. That’s the way we’re wired. When you have experienced God’s goodness in your life it is impossible to bottl

READ: Psalm 39:4-5 NLT 'Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered— how fleeting my life is. You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath.' I will never forget the moment. I was 17 years old and a friend of mine asked me, “Have you heard about Luke?” I hadn’t. Luke was always full of life and initiative, had very long hair (as most of us did at the time) and always had a cheeky smile. My friend said, “He died last week in a car crash together with three friends. Their Mini hit a fuel tanker and burst into flames.” I was completely and utterly devastated. It made no sense. I remember thinking, “How could Luke, someone who was particularly full of life, have died?” As I struggled to come to terms with Luke’s death I learnt many things. Most of all I learnt that life, which seemed so permanent, was anything but. Totally tragic as this moment was, I learnt to look at every si

READ: Psalm 38:4-9 NLT 'My guilt overwhelms me—it is a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins. I am bent over and racked with pain. All day long I walk around filled with grief. A raging fever burns within me, and my health is broken. I am exhausted and completely crushed. My groans come from an anguished heart. You know what I long for, Lord; you hear my every sigh.' It’s an incredible privilege when someone is completely honest with you. David tells us exactly how things are in his life, and it’s not going well! He feels guilty, he’s in pain and he is emotionally crushed. You can hardly imagine anything worse. But the crucial fact is that, amidst it all, he knows that God hears him. I love the expression that David uses when he writes “you hear my every sigh”. God doesn’t merely know when we are going through a hard time, but he picks up every detail of our distress. He is our Creator and knows us better than we know ourselves, so when we pray he is well ahead of us

READ: 1 Corinthians 1:10-11 NLT 'We can say with confidence and a clear conscience that we have lived with a God-given holiness and sincerity in all our dealings. We have depended on God’s grace, not on our own human wisdom. That is how we have conducted ourselves before the world, and especially toward you.' It’s hard to be criticised. No one likes it. If there is some truth in the criticism that’s one thing, but when you are sure that the criticism is totally unfounded that’s something else. That’s Paul’s situation here. He is being ferociously attacked by people in the church in Corinth. It would be a disappointing experience in any setting, but when it comes from the people of God it is particularly discouraging. Paul’s response is to look inside and to examine his conscience. As he does so the pressure lifts because he has a clear conscience. He believes that he has lived before God with integrity and has depended on God’s grace and wisdom. That didn’t make the critics go away but it did give him streng

READ: 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 NLT 'We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.' We all experience hard times. They are an unavoidable part of life. It may be a sudden illness, a road accident, a broken relationship or a hard time at work. No-one is immune. Paul certainly didn’t manage to avoid hard times and is very honest about them, as we see in this passage. The question is what do you do with hard times? We don’t know exactly what Paul is describing but he was clearly staring death in the face. He may be referring to one of the occasions when he was faced with physical violence, although some Bible scholars think that it refers to illness. Whatever it was , the result of this experience was that he lear

READ: 2 Corinthians 1:4 NLT 'He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.' When God blesses our lives, he doesn’t want us to hug the blessings to ourselves. In this verse Paul makes it plain that God encourages us so that we are then stronger and can go out and encourage other people. God calls us to get involved in an eternal chain reaction. It works like this – God encourages us when we go through difficult times so that we can encourage others and then they, in turn, are made stronger and can go out and encourage yet other people – and so on, and so on. Isn’t that exciting? The experiences of your life are unique. No one has experienced life in exactly the way that you have. Your life is a bundle of joys and sorrows, successes and failures and through it all God has been with you and has given you his encouragement. As a result of this you have a story to tell and you can use it to put courage and

READ: 2 Corinthians 1:3 NLT 'All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.' Paul is bursting to address lots of issues in this letter. His relationship with the church in Corinth was a difficult one and he will need to defend himself very strongly in the pages that follow. But he begins by reminding the church about the nature of God their Father in Heaven. He reminds them that he is the Father of Jesus and that he is by his nature merciful. As a result of this he is the source of all comfort. The word comfort that the translators have used here is an interesting word but not what I would have chosen. Comfort comes from Latin and literally means ‘with strength’, however, the word doesn’t sound very strong to me. It makes me think of someone coming along with their head on one side and saying,” O dear, poor you. I’m so sorry you’re feeling rough.” A better translation for me would be the word en-courage. That is to say, God doesn’t merely say

READ: 2 Corinthians 1:1 NLT 'This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.' Paul had a stormy relationship with the church in Corinth. He had had the privilege of establishing the church in that busy and famously immoral city but they gave him a consistently hard time. It is, therefore, crucial for Paul to establish the reason why he is writing this letter. He is doing so because he is sure that he has been chosen by God for this role. Humanly speaking I’m sure he would have loved to have steered well clear of them. But Paul is committed to doing whatever God called him to do, however tough it might be. It is vital for us all to know what God is calling us to do. I remember a ministers’ meeting years ago. About fifteen of us were present and we all shared how we had heard the call of God to become ministers. It was fascinating and probably very different from what you would imagine. A couple of people could point to a particular verse of Scripture which was important f

READ: Psalm 37:16-17 NLT 'It is better to be godly and have little than to be evil and rich. For the strength of the wicked will be shattered, but the LORD takes care of the godly.' The Old Testament has no problem with wealth, indeed many of its stars were incredibly rich – such as Abraham, Job, David and Solomon. Indeed, wealth is seen as a sign of God’s blessing. But if you’ve got to choose between having wealth and a life focused on God, then the best choice is God. When our relationship with God is right, every other consideration pales into insignificance. Jesus pointed out that you have to choose between gods. You cannot serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24). Only one of them can be in the driving seat. This is a vital message for our society where the desirability of money is largely unquestioned. Many of the things that money can buy are excellent in themselves and can rightly be admired, but they have a limited shelf life. How very different from living a life that is deliberately focused on God b

READ: Psalm 37:1-3 NLT 'Don’t worry about the wicked or envy those who do wrong. For like grass, they soon fade away. Like spring flowers, they soon wither. Trust in the Lord and do good. Then you will live safely in the land and prosper. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.' I have worn glasses since I was a little boy. Without them life is just a blurry jumble of images and makes little sense. I am so grateful for the skill of opticians over the years who have ensured that I can see clearly. In this psalm David is encouraging us to see our lives from God’s clear perspective – to see life not from our blurry, short-term human point of view but with the sharp clarity of eternity. David was surrounded by people who were committed to making life difficult for him. In early years he lived with the explosive and often violent temper of King Saul. And then as king he faced the challenge of not only a constant supply of military opponents but also many of his fellow countrymen who we

READ: Psalm 36:5-7 NLT 'Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths. You care for people and animals alike, O Lord. How precious is your unfailing love, O God!' Do you remember the first time you heard someone tell you that they loved you? Perhaps it was your parents or a friend or a partner. It’s an inexpressibly wonderful experience. It changes everything. You are special, and the whole world looks different. David says many wonderful things about God but most incredible of all is that God the Creator of the Universe actually loves us. It’s always precious when you see a child and their parent expressing love for one another and the expression “I love you to the moon and back” is often heard. Here, thousands of years ago, David is looking for similar language to express the unfailing love of God and concludes that his love is as vast as the heavens, and his faithfulnes

READ: Psalm 35:17,18 NLT 'How long, O Lord, will you look on and do nothing? Rescue me from their fierce attacks. Protect my life from these lions! Then I will thank you in front of the great assembly. I will praise you before all the people.' Have you ever felt that the Lord has completely forgotten about you? Perhaps you have seen God blessing all the people around you, and you are wondering when it’s going to be your turn. If you’ve ever had those thoughts then you will understand where David is coming from. He has had a succession of crushing experiences and he is desperate for God to step in and to sort things out. Waiting is never easy, but when things are going so painfully badly it is much, much worse. Time and again in this psalm, David cries out to God to fix the situation. But what impresses me is that as he waits for God he doesn’t lose confidence that God will, at some point, step in and answer his prayer. He is sure that the time will come when he will be praising God for his deliverance. Samuel