Do Not Be Afraid

A Christmas meditation based on Luke 2:10-11, Isaiah 9:6-7, Luke 1:30-33...

Do not be afraid…when you are disillusioned by our political system, 
For to us a child is born and the government will be on his shoulders. 

Do not be afraid…when you feel overwhelmed by stress and anxiety,   

For to us a child is born and he will be called Wonderful Counsellor. 

Do not be afraid…when you feel powerless or out of control, 

For to us a child is born and he will be called Mighty God. 

Do not be afraid…when you are isolated and alone, 

For to us a child is born and he will be called Everlasting Father. 

Do not be afraid…when you face conflict and hardship, 

For to us a child is born and he will be called Prince of Peace. 

I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people! 

He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and for ever. 

His name is 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 the house of Jacob for ever; his kingdom will never end. 

Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord!

Reality of Messiah v's Religious Pride

"They were ready for a Messiah, in the abstract, but not for such a Messiah as Jesus was in reality.  The great stumbling block to them was Christ's threat as Messiah to interpenetrate their very existence in such a way as to cut across their cherished ideas and desires and ambitions.  They wanted Christ to subserve the notion of their own religiousness and were furious when he touched them at the point of their religious pride, and so by the pressure of his very presence as the incarnate truth he evoked from them the full movement of sin in undisguised contradiction."  (Thomas F. Torrance)

Torrance unveils a Messianic struggle that I believe continues to cripple the Church and corrupt the hearts of believers today.  Our theology embraces the idea of Messiah (the abstract) but our ecclesiology seems to be in constant conflict with the reality of Messiah.  In other words, the reality of who Jesus is is in conflict with whom the Church has made Him.  I am of course making a generalisation to highlight a continual conflict that exists between religious tradtion and Messianic truth today.

Some time ago I preached a sermon series entitled "Signs, Symbols and Sacred Songs" that evoked a strong reaction when I suggested that our religious symbols and rituals become a form of idolatry when they become more important than whom or what they represent.  I saw the manifestation of our church wanting "Christ to subserve the notion of their own religiousness and were furious when he touched them at the point of their religious pride."  While religion can be a great vehicle through which to express our understanding and experience of God, it can be a great stumbling block when it is threatened by the reality and truth of Jesus Christ!

It is only when we submit ourselves to the reality of Messiah and allow Christ "to interpenetrate [our] very existence in such a way as to cut across [our] cherished ideas and desires and ambitions" and strip away our "religious pride" that we can be truly ready to fully embrace the incarnate truth of Jesus. 

The White Elephant Of Christmas

There is a stirring in my spirit I cannot shake and a discontent in my soul I cannot silence.  I am struggling to share the joy of my colleagues who are celebrating 6,000 people who have been assisted with toys and hampers in South Australia this Christmas in the absence of any recorded statistics of those we have assisted getting saved.  Everywhere I look I see our message of "hope" buried deep within a campaign calling upon our community to provide the resources we have convinced ourselves will bring hope this Christmas.  Somehow we have traded our prophetic calling to proclaim the Messiah for a cultural expectation to perpetuate the materialism of Christmas.  There is no doubt the presents we distribute will bring joy for a moment, but that hardly compares to the presence of Christ who brings joy for eternity.  

Our publicity and programming for this season centres around how much money we can raise by feeding off the insanity that drives people into shopping centres to spend money they can't afford.  From the giver to the receiver, the only people who seem to really benefit from the "hope" we offer this Christmas are the retailers.  The paradox is that society is being sucked into a vortex of spending, stress and social expectations that is drawing them further away from the things they really hope for at Christmas.  In a genuine attempt to fill a void at Christmas time we seem to be inadvertently magnifying the things people don't have instead of magnifying the One they could have!

Maybe my perception of our message this Christmas is overstated or generalised, but the uncomfortable truth is that I think it is closer to reality than we are prepared to speak out.  There is an enormous 'white elephant' sitting in the middle of our Christmas outreach endeavours that is largely being ignored or justified away.  I hope this provocative reflection stimulates robust discussion among all Christ followers to have the courage to acknowledge the 'white elephant' and challenge the status quo of how we do Christmas. 

Christmas Expectations

Expectations are a powerful force that have the ability to drive human beings to greatness or cripple them from realising their full potential. Leadership author Stephen M.R. Covey highlights the life altering impact of expectations in his book 'The Speed of Trust' - "We tend to get what we expect - both from ourselves and from others. When we expect more, we tend to get more; when we expect less, we tend to get less." 

As a leader I understand first hand the tension between my own expectations and those of others and the conflict that is created when those expectations are violated by either party. There is much that could be discussed about expectations from a leadership perspective, but Christmas offers us many other conflicting expectations that are worthy of discussion. 

From a historical perspective, Jesus was born into a culture that expected the Messiah to be a warrior who would come and overthrow the Roman Empire, liberating the Jews from oppression. Yet, he came into the world as a baby, born to a virgin in humble and vulnerable circumstances. While he did indeed come to save the world, the manner in which he lived and died defied the expectations of those who awaited the promised Messiah.  

The birth narratives of Jesus recorded in Matthew and Luke provide the backdrop for this season we celebrate called Christmas and feature in traditional Christmas carols. Yet, the birth of Christ is conspicuously missing from many of our modern Christmas festivities and songs.  The absence of Christ from Christmas outrages the expectations of the Church, while the presence of Christ offends the expectations of a secular community.

This sacred season that evokes expectations of peace, hope, love and joy has evolved into a commercially driven season that is more commonly defined by busyness, stress, over-eating and over-spending.  Expectations of gift buying, family gatherings, and holiday schedules have distorted our expectations of a season that is far from being a time of peace, hope, love and joy.

It seems the further our expectations of Christmas move from their origins, the greater the conflict arises from a misalignment of those expectations.  Just like the misaligned expectations around the coming Messiah, our Christmas expectations run the risk of completely missing the point of a season that offers everything, but delivers far less.  Maybe if we choose to defy the expectations of what Christmas has become, we will rediscover what it was intended to be and experience the life transforming expectations of a God who entered into our world through Jesus Christ.  Maybe if we choose to embrace God's expectation of salvation through Jesus Christ, Christmas will be restored to a season of real peace, hope, love and joy.