DISCLAIMER The views expressed in the meditations are those of individual members of the church community who contributed, and are not necessarily those of the chaplaincy of Holy Trinity Brussels Pro-Cathedral. Above picture Jesus Appears to Mary Magdelene
From The Message John the Baptist is to: "Present the offer of Salvation to his people"
Salvation is a Gift
Jesus is the Gift (Present)
For us to have the Gift of Salvation Jesus, Himself, needs to Present Himself on the Cross as a Gift (Present)
Jesus is the Giver and the Gift
Gift - Giver or Giver – Gift
He is both at the one and the same time, they cannot be separated.
This chapter is about the last times and so central to Advent; and it contains one of my half-dozen favourite verses in all of Scripture: 2 Peter 3:8 - “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day”. I can never drop my guard; the Lord scrutinises the tiniest detail of how I spend each day and misses nothing - every thought or attitude, every action, every word, every omission, every duty either faithfully executed or casually neglected - and yet, at the scale of my entire lifespan, He sees the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end, and knows the effect every external influence has had on me down the years, both great and small and regardless of whether or not I was aware of it. Taking a further step back, many of Jesus’ followers seem to have thought the last times would come within a few decades of His Ascension; but two millennia are nothing to Him and, as the psalm-writer puts it (Ps. 130:6) “My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning...”. So I take this as an encouragement to live each day faithfully as if it were my last, with my eye firmly on the Goal (“I press towards the mark”, as St Paul puts it), while at the same time knowing that there could still be a long wait as measured by clock and calendar. And finally Peter’s exhortation sets one thinking about Eternity, the great Beyond, not measurable in time at all as we comprehend it from our short lifespan, but rather in new dimensions which are as yet unimaginable..... Amen!
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Unless the LORD builds the house, They labour in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep. - Psalm 127:1-2
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Jesus is the bread given by our Father in Heaven to fill our hunger and quench our thirst and in Him is everlasting life (John 6:32-35, 51). He is the only bread that can set us free from sin and cover us in His righteousness (Romans 6:20, 22), giving us spiritual fulfilment and providing for all our needs. Why looking for completeness in material goods and in the so called disease “workaholism”? Because it is easy to comply with the world and difficult to be so “different”? We should not forget that we are in the world, but not from the world. It is He who renews us in the spirit of our mind and as a new man created in God enables us to walk in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:17-24). He directs our steps whatever our plans might be (Proverbs 16:9), for the joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10). And He has promised us His unfailing love which cannot be shaken ever
(Isaiah 54:10). There is no promise greater than that - what else do we need?
We are living in a world where frenetic activity is displacing calm reflection; where the real world of people and relationships is increasingly drowned by images and sounds that proclaim the latest belief. But belief in what? Ideas concocted by the purveyors of those images whose purposes are to achieve their own will and not that of the Almighty; Ideas that bring to them celebrity status or material gain. Peter warns us against these “false prophets... and false teachers” who “bring the way of truth into disrepute... denying the sovereign Lord who bought them”.
How are we to recognise them and to avoid being exploited by them? Peter says that “no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation”. Peter exhorts us to take time to distance ourselves from the material world and its glitter as to light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts.
Lord give us time to amend our ways and the grace to listen to you speaking with the “still small voice of calm” so that in this season of Advent we may truly prepare ourselves for your coming.
Wonder and amazement are the words that come to me as I re-read this Gospel passage this year. The Word is going to become flesh – God is to come to earth in human form. This is supernatural and beyond human understanding. It is the mystery of the incarnation. Something amazing is going to come about.
And so to me Advent is a ‘pregnant’ time – a time of preoccupied waiting, of preparation for a forthcoming event of new life. How can we or do we live it?
We can hardly ignore it. It is everywhere and all about us ‘in the air’. In worldly terms it is ‘the run-up to Christmas’. It is a difficult time for many people, bringing as it does, hopes, fears and great yearning.
I find it quite disturbing in a way – for how can I steer myself through this time of seething busyness and stress, whilst at the same time seek to attend to the space within where I can nurture a place in my heart to welcome this momentous event. How can I prepare to receive afresh the gift of the Christ child who comes in great humility into our dark world?
Can I possibly humble myself like Mary? Can I trust God like she did, and proclaim to be God’s servant? Can I let myself be surprised by him?
Can I dare to believe the Angel Gabriel’s message that “Nothing is impossible with God”?
Can you?
Romans 1:5-7 tells us that we are called upon to be a witness for Christ among all the nations. For me, the scary part is that, when you declare your faith, you ARE a witness – either good or bad! If your co-workers know that you are a “church-goer” and/or a Christian, and they know that you are cheating on your travel claims – you are a witness! Our bad example may discourage someone from coming to church or accepting Christ. We need to be steadfast in pray, asking God to help us to shine HIS light down every path that we tread.
This passage shows the importance of listening to, obeying and trusting in God. Had Joseph not listened to God at this point the course of history would have been changed.
So wake up! Rub the sleep from your eyes! Up on your feet, Jerusalem! You've drunk the cup God handed you, the strong drink of his anger. You drank it down to the last drop, staggered and collapsed, dead-drunk. And nobody to help you home, no one among your friends or children to take you by the hand and put you in bed. You've been hit with a double dose of trouble —does anyone care? Assault and battery, hunger and death —will anyone comfort? Your sons and daughters have passed out, strewn in the streets like stunned rabbits, Sleeping off the strong drink of God's anger, the rage of your God. Therefore listen, please, you with your splitting headaches, You who are nursing the hangovers that didn't come from drinking wine. Your Master, your God, has something to say, your God has taken up his people's case:"Look, I've taken back the drink that sent you reeling. No more drinking from that jug of my anger! I've passed it over to your abusers to drink, those who ordered you, 'Down on the ground so we can walk all over you!'And you had to do it. Flat on the ground, you were the dirt under their feet." (The Message)
God is speaking to his people. He is telling them that they have been drinking from the cup of his anger and have been getting drunk on it; no longer able to function properly, not in control, barely alive.
The thing is we deserve this anger. We reject God and go our own way and so we should have this cupful.
But God says Awake; awake! I have taken this cup away from you.
It is sadly true that guilt is a common feeling in our Christian lives… there are things that make us ashamed, ways of life that we have that we do not want to confront and things we would never dream of telling people about.
This is clinging on to the cup. We hold on to the view of life that sees how we don’t match up to God’s perfect standards. In this prophetic book of Isaiah and in everything we know of Christ, God invites us into seeing ourselves and each other in a new way.
Awake; awake! I have taken this cup away from you.
Here we have the Thessalonians with erroneous ideas on the return of Christ. Some believed that the day of the Lord had already come. Paul asks them to recall what he had taught them when he was among them. Certain events need to happen before the return of Christ. Paul reminds them of the gospel of truth as they were being distracted from this truth. They were believing in false doctrines backed up by false signs. We need to base our faith in the truth of the gospel.
Read verses 13 and 14 again.
Doubt is an integral part of a sinner's faith, and we should not be ashamed of it. There are times when we ask, "really, can this be it?” Should not something much more majestic, emotional and spiritual constantly be happening in me if God counts me among the holy? Could I not be escaping my present state, and become numb to pain? It is in these times that we cannot believe that Jesus was, is and will continue to be the full answer, the lamb slain for us. The "rock from which we were carved" (Isaiah 51). We keep looking for other sources of salvation, for leaders who are worthy to be followed in the world's eyes. We expect our own Goliath to show the way. We look for idols, and so often we find them, whether in the form of politicians, footballers, or even religious leaders. Or we look for some form of intuitive wisdom, karma that would help us escape our troubles and find salvation within ourselves. Even John the Baptist doubted. He of all people felt he needed to double-check even though Jesus was right there, physically with him. Indeed, seen from a humanist rational point of view, Jesus is completely counterintuitive to our senses. He does not make any sense to the notion of power as the world knows it. That the King of Kings would come as a helpless baby, and that eventually he would be helplessly nailed to the cross? Unheard of. But our God is not only a God of a crushing force of the "right hand", documented many times in the Old Testament. He also has a "left hand". And this left hand is - indescribable power arising from weakness. It is in this un-human power, when still today, by the gift of faith through grace, the blind continue to receive sight, the lame learn to walk. And ultimately, the dead are raised to life.
Read again verses 2 and 3.
We often want God to show himself through miracles or rescue us from some big muck up. Very often he doesn't work like that. It's not at all that God couldn't. He is God after all. He can reach into every situation, and is strong enough to do anything; a mere word from Him and even drought can be upon us. No, the problem is at the other end, with us. God comes to us, and he finds us not there. God calls to us, and we don't answer.
At Christmas God came to us as a child. He could have come as the mighty overwhelming God which he is. But no, that would have been too much for us. We could not have resisted him. And so he comes as a humble child. God's voice is quiet enough that we can listen to God if we want, but we can also easily ignore him. He has chosen it like that, so that we can ignore him if we want, so he can test the inner heart of us all.
When God comes to you this Christmas, will he find you? When God calls to you this Christmas, will you answer?
Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304
Things/people don't always look the way they really are. Jesus did what he did because he was the Son of God, The Saviour, The Messiah. That was His authority.
Jesus, as was his habit, replied nimbly with a question that put the Priests and Elders in a difficult place. They dared not answer.
On the one hand they did not want to show they would not believe John the Baptist was heralding Jesus as The Messiah and on the other, they were afraid of the people who believed John was a prophet.
I recognise it is "safer" to be non-committal or say "I don't know" when asked a question, rather than be truthful and upset the apple-cart, either my own or someone else’s!
Thank you God, for being there even when I didn’t feel your presence.
You were there all these years I struggled to bring up my three children all alone. You protected me with legal help when I was kicked out of our house and from other evil people.
I would stand in front of the fridge and with clenched teeth read aloud the text I had put there: I praise you and worship you and give thanks for all I have... even when I had nothing to feed my children with at that moment. But you provided Manna from heaven: from the left-over cakes of weddings I organised. I thank you for being the husband and father we didn’t have, for providing me with a house and with all those loving friends who surrounded me with love and care, and so helping me to complete the bringing-up of my children on my own. Now years after I still know you are there Lord and I praise you Lord for my children being adults now, for the grand children and for giving me a husband and already 5 years of blessings with him.
At a time when the end of things was expected to be imminent, Christians were concerned, not only for their own spiritual future, but that of friends and family, not only those living but the dead. If God would come and save the believers, what would happen to those who were no longer alive? In this passage St Paul reassures them that the Lord will not only lift the living to Heaven, but also those now dead, who were of the Christian community of the time.
He exhorts his community to comfort one another with this promise; a message as relevant today as it was then.
Advent as a season of reflection is an opportunity to lookback over the year that is nearly over. It is an opportunity to give thanks to God for the good days and to bring to him again our difficult days. It may be that today is a ‘difficult’ day.
Psalm 86 is a psalm for such moments. It is a prayer – a very honest prayer. It rightly recognises who God is and his character, his goodness, his mercy and his love. It recognises our human need and frailty and it asks for God’s help in the days of our troubles. The psalm also asks God to change us, to enable us to walk in his ways and to do so wholeheartedly. In a time of great trouble C.S Lewis found that he could not stop praying. “I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God- it changes me."
Have mercy on me O LORD, for I call to you all day long.
Bring joy to your servant, for to you O LORD I lift up my soul.
AMEN
Christmas is sometimes a challenge when it comes to overflowing love - picture yourself struggling round the crowded shops, standing in a long queue at the post office, stuffing the turkey at 10pm on Christmas Eve with the vegetables still to peel and an assortment of relatives arriving the next day.... How on earth can I be blameless and holy for the coming of Jesus at Christmas? (let alone the second coming, which is Paul's focus in I Thessalonians.) And how can I feel the love which I would like to enrich my Christmas celebrations?
This letter reminds me that God is the source of our love for others, that he can strengthen our hearts, and that prayer is the foundation for this. Let's find time to pray for ourselves and each other - as Paul and Timothy did, night and day, for the Thessalonians - to feel God's increasing and overflowing love this Advent and Christmas.
The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
What a shock for Mary! She realised that what the angel had told her was true – she really was pregnant! And not yet married! - a scandal in the Jewish society of Mary’s day, and still for many people in our day.
What do you do when you have such a heavy burden to carry? Mary went off to visit cousin Elizabeth, a safe place for her to share her fears and hopes. For us too it is often good to find a ‘safe place’ to talk through our worries and questions with a close friend, someone we can really trust.
Some thirty years later that baby had become a man, and we read today some words he spoke to the crowds who thronged around him. He offered them a ‘safe place’ to put down their burdens, inviting them to ‘come to me’. He still invites us to come to him, especially perhaps when life gets tough, and he asks us to take up his yoke – but is that adding another burden? The country people he was talking to would immediately picture a pair of oxen, yoked together, ploughing the field – not one ox doing all the work but two of them working together. And that is why Jesus’ yoke is easy, his burden is light, because he is there with us, sharing the load, not leaving us to go it alone.
Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Teacher, 397
So many of us lead busy lives that we seem to assume God must be the same. Either our intercessions form a long list of what we expect God to do, of how we think He ought to intervene; or we perhaps give up on prayer ' I can't imagine what God can do of any use in this situation, so there is no point praying about it'. This Psalm offers an alternative vision. It begins (in the NIV) with a cry for God to 'be' with the Psalmist in his suffering. V8 offers a moving picture of God being alongside the writer in his tears and laments. The deepest desire of the Psalmist is to know that the God he praises and trusts 'is for me'. This is not a passive picture of God, sitting back and doing nothing, but it does raise the question: as well as asking God to do things for me, am I willing to allow Him to be with me?
Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c. 326
Psalm 30 is A psalm of David. A song for the dedication of the House [of God]. Yet, in David’s time the House of the Lord was not even built. So why did he write it?
From his shepherd boy days with a harp, through all his adversities, to his throne over the Twelve Tribes in Melchizedek’s fabled Salem, the building of a House for Yhwh was David’s dearest desire. But the word of the Lord withstood him: the building of the House was not for David but for his son. David might have been dejected. Instead he turned all his powers to enabling the work through his successor. He bought the land. He drew plans under the Spirit’s inspiration. He gathered jewel, stone, wood and precious metal. He organized the Levites for the Temple ministry. And he wrote psalms – like this one – to be sung in the sacred courts when the House, seen only in his mind’s eye, would stand complete, beauteous for situation, the joy of all the earth.
In the same way, we should have it in our heart to prepare for the day when the Lord will dwell among us. If our part seems small, we should still complete it as best we can. For he looks not on the grandeur of the work, but on the obedience of the heart.
Chatting with a good friend recently I was reminded once again that Advent and Christmas can prove a very difficult period for many of us, and not just because of the extra jobs that need doing... There is an emphasis on expectation, waiting and longing that can be painful to dwell upon.
My prayer is that the last verse of this passage will become a reality for all of us - that by the power of the Holy Spirit we really will overflow with hope and be filled with joy and peace as we trust in the God of Hope...
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. (New International Version, NIV)
Isaiah 44:24-45:13 (if you would like to hear the poetry of the passage click on 'listen to this passage' at the top of the passage)
This is poetry. It does not have the rhymes and metre of English poetry. But it has lines that begin with the same word and it has rhythm. It repeats ideas so that they grow and are enriched. The message of poetry often exceeds the obvious meaning of its words. We must try to feel its passion and capture its pictures, as well as noting its words.
The speaker is the LORD, the God who makes himself known to his chosen people. But he seems to be speaking not just to Israel, but to Cyrus, the Persian king who in a famous inscription attributes his success to Marduk, god of Babylon. Is that why he is so careful to explain who he is and what he does?
God is calling Cyrus to be his anointed one. We can feel the shock to Israel, for this is the term for the Messiah, used in the Old Testament of Israel’s kings. God is calling an idolater to be the shepherd of Israel!
It is not until late in his words to Cyrus that God reveals why he is doing this. Then in two short lines he releases all the tension and anxiety of Israel. He is doing it for them! Yes, he is still Israel’s Redeemer.
How little we know, how narrow is our vision of the work of our God, who is working all the time for the good of his people. We must be open to his vision, ready to feel God’s passion for us.
We live in a world of plenty. Yet many starve and are homeless.
We live in a world of complexity and over-organisation. Yet we face insurmountable problems in our daily life or at work.
Lord, let us not be ashamed of putting our trust in You. For You have the power to redeem our imperfect world and our imperfect lives of all their troubles.
As we start our preparations for Christmas in so many practical ways we can start to feel stressed. We can feel exhausted before we even begin! But Psalm 42 reminds us that when we feel stressed, lost or downcast we find our hope in God. Putting our hope in God is nourishing, it feeds us and revives us, just as water revives the deer. We need to thirst for God, to call on God to sustain us in our busy lives and remember to celebrate God in everything we do. God is God of our whole lives; the good, the bad, the stressful and the happy. The Psalmist reminds us that when our soul is downcast, God is still loving us, still nurturing us, still sustaining us and that with our hope in God we can achieve anything.
As we look at the turmoil in our world, and the Spirals of Human History, we can assure ourselves from Scripture that God really Does have it all in hand !
In Isaiah we read of great rescues of the past ~ God's interventions in saving his people by thwarting their enemies, and quenching their thirst with his 'Living Water'. We are warned of the consequences of going our own way, of not giving Him the Glory, or recognising His generosity to us.
The Psalmist begs for Justice as his enemies close in. Can we really expect to be rescued if we have not obeyed Him? It is so easy to forget, as did generations of our (biblical) forefathers, all He has done for us, and be immersed in ourselves and in our worldly activities. God sees into our hearts, as he did of old, and repays us as we deserve. Alas for those who treat their God with contempt! Should we really expect to be rescued if we have not obeyed Him?
But that is not the whole story . . . The 'upright' can always turn to Him for Protection: Their adversaries will ultimately reap what they sow . . ., and the innocent rejoice in safety. In that 'New Heaven and New Earth' of St. John's New Testament, we see that Sanctuary , lit by God's saving Presence; his Spirit is quenching our thirst also with his 'Living Water'; it is protecting us from the 'snares of the ungodly'.
Praise to our Lord, the God of Israel, who cured the sick and fed the hungry in Galilee long ago, as St. Matthew describes. He will satisfy our hunger, and heal us too, as we pass through those 'desert' times in our lives, when we know not what we lack, or where to find it. Jesus gives thanks before he feeds us. . Thanks for the food, and for God's Grace to come ~ and the simple picnic becomes a Feast!
However hard the pressures of life today, God knows our needs, understands our problems, and cares for us , just as we are ~ sick, weak, hungry, and full of sin. Like those Galileans of old. We only have to turn to Him, and open our hearts to accept His Gift . . . That spiral becomes a Ring of Safety, with God Himself in the centre. He's got it all in Hand!
