Prepare the way for the Lord

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Prepare the way for the Lord

A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the LORD, make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.”

Isaiah 40:3

I love Christmas. Being a teacher, I usually get three weeks off work, so it’s a great opportunity to relax, unwind – and catch up on all the things I should have done during the busy Christmas term! It’s also a really good opportunity to see family and friends, who I don’t see often enough during the year. Round about the beginning of November, though, I start to get a little grouchy. It seems that all the retailers want us to start thinking about Christmas, but too me it just seems far too early. On 1st November this year, I was trying to enjoy a coffee at Costa – but getting rather worked up as Elton John’s “Step Into Christmas” blared over the sound system. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Elton, but November 1st is too early for Christmas songs. In my opinion, November 30th is too early for Christmas songs!

In today’s verse, we hear the prophet telling people to prepare a way for God in the desert, and to get a road ready in the wilderness. The prophet warns that it is not enough merely to welcome God; it is necessary to make advance preparations. Just as you might tidy the house before relatives come to stay, it is necessary to ensure that all is ready when God arrives.

As we saw in our recent Mark Marathon, John the Baptist quoted this verse when he was heralding the arrival of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. But as we prepare to celebrate his birth, in just a few weeks time, maybe it’s a good opportunity to prepare ourselves for his arrival. Are we living our lives in a way that honours and glorifies him? Do we try and lead and sinful and blameless life? Do we treat our friends – and enemies – in a way that would would approve? Do we spend our money and use our talents in a way that pleases him?

Why not reflect on this in the coming days. Rather than getting bogged down in buying presents and ordering turkeys, just reflect on the idea that “Jesus is the reason for the season,” and ensure that you are ready to celebrate his birth on December 25th.

The great comforter

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The great comforter

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Isaiah 40:1

Sometimes we all have those patches in our lives when we just feel miserable and unhappy. It might be because a friend or relative has died. It might be because of personal illness. It could be because we’re not happy at work. It might be something as basic as the weather. I know from personal experience it is easy to question our faith, and to wonder where God is in all of this. When I was in my late teens, I went through a period where, although if you had asked me if I was a Christian I would have replied in the affirmative, I really wondered where God was. I now realise that God was there all along, watching over me, caring for me, and hoping desperately that I would talk to him, to tell him how I feel, and to share my burdens with him.

As we approach Christmas and begin to think about the birth of Jesus, it is easy to get caught up in the romance of it all – the birth of a baby in a stable, the visits of the shepherds and the wise men, the star and the donkey. As we’ve recently seen in our Mark Marathon, however, Jesus was much more than just the baby we think about at this time of year. He holds a vital place in the Trinity of God. He was there at creation, he died and rose again to save us from our sin, and he will judge us on judgement day.

One of the reasons why Jesus came to be with his people, though, is to offer them comfort. He came to offer comfort to nations, but he also came to offer comfort to individuals. The gospels are riddled with examples of individual people whom Jesus came alongside and offered them comfort, whether it was healing, forgiveness, or even just friendship. So too he offers us comfort when we are tired and stressed, lonely or upset. He offers us comfort in the here and now, but also in the promise of future hope, that one day we will be with him in a new creation.

So when you do feel in need of comfort, don’t push Jesus away. Tell him how you feel. Tell him your worries and concerns. He does listen. He does love you. And he will offer you comfort.

Jesus the Christ

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He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.

Mark 8:31

Sometimes I’m surprised when I meet people for the first time, because they do not seem to match the view I had of them in my head. When I met William Hague, I was surprised by how tall he was. When I met Clive Owen, I was surprised by how normal, and un-Hollywood-like he is. When I met Stephen Fry, I was surprised by how friendly and un-smug he is. I guess we all form views of people we have never met, and that these are invariably wrong!

Throughout our Mark Marathon, we have seen people being challenged by who Jesus is. In Mark 8, where this year’s Mark Marathon concludes, we see a crucial turning point in the gospel, because Jesus fully reveals not just his identity, but what will happen to him. The disciples also articulate their view that Jesus is, in fact, the Christ – although at this stage they do not fully understand what this means.

In today’s reading, Jesus calls his diciples aside as they walk to the next town, and tells them what is going to happen to him. He tells them that he will be subjected to suffering, and be rejected by the religious leaders. Most powerfully of all, he tells them that he will be killed. When I heard that my beloved grandmother had cancer and had only weeks to live, I was heartbroken. I can imagine the disciples’ hearts sinking when Jesus told them this. Peter, of course, refuses to believe Jesus, and tries to rebuke him. I’m sure that this was based largely on a misunderstanding of what it meant for Jesus to be the messiah, but I also have no doubt that this was partly because Peter was by this time a close friend of Jesus, and he didn’t want to think of Jesus dying.

Jesus also, of course, tells the disciples that after three days, he would rise from the dead. Now, if one of my friends told me this, I would not believe them, but coming from Jesus, maybe the disciples did. They had certainly seen him achieve some pretty remarkable things!

The crucial thing to realise as we read through this verse, though, is that Jesus died for us. For you. For me. As we approach Christmas, with tomorrow the first Sunday in Advent, it is a perfect opportunity to remind ourselves of this fact. We may remember Jesus the baby at Christmas, but don’t forget what that baby became. He became a compassionate healer, who showed love and concern for all whom he met. He was an incredible miracle worker, with the power to control the elements. He had powers over Satan and demons. He was an awe inspiring and influential teacher who spoke with the authority of God. Yet Jesus rose from the dead after three days, so he is still all of these things.

And Jesus is still the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, and the promised one of the Old Testament. He is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets.

He died on the cross to undo all the sin that we commit everyday. He died to pay for all of our wrongdoings. He died because although it is the punishment that we deserved, he loves us and wanted to take our place.

How much Jesus has done for us. How much we owe him.

Header image: Chatham House, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The man of sorrows

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The man of sorrows

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Isaiah 53:3

I’ve been very fortunate in my life. I’ve always been, for the most part, a happy kind of guy. Yes, there have been the inevitable moments of sadness, such as when my grandparents died, but I’ve always managed to bounce back from these brief periods. I’ve also been very fortunate to have had a wonderful group of friends around me. I have two close friends who I have known forever, and a group of old school friends who I am still very close to, plus the usual work colleagues and people I’ve met through various activities I’ve been involved with. It’s been a pretty good thirty years!

In our current Mark Marathon passage, Jesus challenges Peter to say who he thinks he is. Peter replies that Jesus is the Christ, and he is of course correct in this. He has the wrong understanding of what the Christ is, however. Yesterday, we saw that it is possible to get a picture of an all-powerful messiah from the Old Testament prophecies. What we have today, though, is radically different. Far from the picture of the all-powerful conquering hero, we have a vision of a “man of sorrows,” a man, who unlike me, is all too familiar with sadness. We have the image of a man who was “despised and rejected,” who had few friends he could call upon who were loyal and trustworthy. This prophecy tells us that the messiah was familiar with suffering, was despised, and not held with the esteem he deserved. This is far from the vision of the messiah we saw yesterday, and far from Peter’s view of the messiah.

Both are true, of course. Jesus is all-powerful. He is God. Yet he chose to become like the lowliest of men, and to experience loss, pain and suffering like most of us have never, nor will ever experience.

Why did he do this? He did this for you and me. He did this so that we can be reconciled to his father, to our heavenly father, despite our sin. Never has anyone done as much for me as Jesus has. He died for me on the cross, dying in the most painful way imaginable.

He also experienced the very worst of life here on earth. When we complain to God, he knows how we’re feeling, because he has experienced it – and even more than we have.

Love like that demands a response. We should seek to honour God in all that we do. We should seek to live according to his rules, and to shine as a beacon of God’s love for everyone to all around us.

The right hand man

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The right hand man

The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

Psalm 110:1

Once upon a time, I was Head of History in a prestigious boarding school. For a couple of years I was pretty much on my own in my department. Although I did have three other teachers, all of them had other responsibilities in the school, and so if I wanted something done, I had to do it myself. It meant that I was rather busy! In my final year, however, I was rather more fortunate; I had an excellent new teacher in my department, called Daniel, whose primary focus was teaching. Consequently, I had someone I could delegate tasks to, which meant that the department operated much more smoothly. In fact, you could say that Daniel was my right hand man.

Right hand man is quite a common expression these days. It generally means someone who can be relied upon to carry out tasks that support the person concerned. In Biblical times, it had an additional meaning; if someone was at your right hand, it was a real position of honour. If you found yourself sitting on the right hand side of a king at a banquet, then you were privileged indeed!

In today’s verse, David, the Psalmist, foretells of the messiah. He says that the LORD (God) allows David’s Lord (the messiah) to sit at his right hand. David therefore shows just how powerful he views the coming messiah, and how important the messiah is to God. Jesus is frequently referred to in the New Testament as “sitting at the right hand of the father,” illustrating that the writers firmly viewed Jesus as the messianic figure foretold of in this psalm.

Today’s verse also tells of how God will make the messiah’s enemies a footstool for his feet. This led to the common misconception that the messiah would be a powerful military figure, who, in the time of the Romans, would repel the invading armies and restore power and prestige to the Jewish people. This is what people expected of Jesus, and what the apostle Peter expected of Jesus when Jesus asked him, ‘who do you say I am?’ Peter could not believe when Jesus told him what would happen to him, the messiah. The truth is, of course, that Jesus does hold this important, powerful position, but this will only be evident on judgement day. When that day comes, Jesus will be telling the father which of us has honoured him, and which of us has not.

Do you believe Jesus to be the messiah? Do you believe that he is seated at the right hand of the father, and that he has the power to crush his enemies underfoot? If so, how will you honour him? Will you give him the worship that he deserves – worship that encompasses the whole of your life? Or will you idly stand by and watch as others do?

Slightly amended on 28/1/15.

The Decision

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“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

Mark 8:29

Sometimes in life we have to make decisions. I have to admit, that it’s not something I’m very good at! When confronted with an ice cream freezer in the summer months, what I’d really like to choose is a Magnum – a rich vanilla ice cream enrobed in Belgian chocolate, as the makers would probably describe it. I know that if I’m going to have an ice cream, though, I should really select a low fat choice, because I’m not exactly getting any thinner! Trying to decide where to go on holiday is also always problematic. I know that I should holiday in the UK to keep my carbon footprint down, but I always seem to go galivanting off in a plane half way around the world!

We have to make a decision about Jesus, too. Just as Jesus challenged the disciples to think about who he is, we also have to come to a decision. It’s not enough simply to follow our friends or family. It’s not enough to simply hedge our bets and go along with the whole going to church thing, just to be on the safe side. Ultimately, we have to decide for ourselves who Jesus is. Is he the Christ, as Peter asserts here? Or is he just a good teacher.

C.S. Lewis once said that there are only three options when deciding who Jesus is. He says that he was either mad, bad or God. Mad, because he went around telling everyone that he was the Son of God, and if he wasn’t, you’d have to be pretty crazy to do that. Bad, because if he wasn’t the Son of God, yet claimed to be, he was a downright liar. Or God, because he was telling the truth.

If we decide that perhaps Jesus was neither mad, nor bad, but was in fact God, we have a further decision to make. Do we accept him as our personal saviour, or do we reject him, and decide that we don’t want anything to do with him. Ultimately, this could be the difference between eternal life and eternal damnation. I know which I’d prefer.

There’s no hiding!

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There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

Luke 12:2-3

I spend about half my weekends in Belfast, which is where Claire, my fiancée lives.  When I’m there, I usually attend her church, Ballynafeigh Methodist.  Yesterday was no exception.  At this point, I’m afraid I have a confession to make.  Claire and I were chatting whilst the notices were being given.  Not a hanging offence I know, after all it wasn’t the sermon!  But there’s a good reason why we would never dream of chatting during the sermon.  Claire’s mum sings in the choir, and sits on a raised platform at the front of the church, and has a clear view over the whole congregation.  During services, therefore, Claire’s mum sees everything that we do.  We daren’t misbehave!

Of course, there are many people in the choir who can see what is going on in the church.  As can God, who is omnipresent and all-seeing.  Not just that, but as Jesus states in this passage from Luke, which follows on from Jesus’ warning about leaven (see yesterday’s Daily Reading),  God is omniscient, which broadly means that he knows EVERYTHING.  He sees us when we’re in the privacy of our own homes.  He watches us when break the speed limit because we’re running late.  But he also knows our inner thoughts.  When we think ill of that person who has irritated us at work, he knows what we’re thinking.  When we’re thinking uncharitable thoughts about the beggar in the street, he knows what we’re thinking.

Not only that, but Jesus warns of a coming judgement day, a time when all those actions and thoughts that we thought were hidden will made known.  Jesus has already warned of the futility of empty faith, in which we simply follow the motions, without having any deep conviction (Mark 7:6).  Here he tells us exactly why that is the case.  We will be held accountable for ALL our thoughts, words, deeds and actions.

There’s a real incentive to purify our thoughts.  Jesus has told us that it is not what goes into a person that makes them unclean, but what comes out of them (Mark 7:15).  There is no hiding from God.  He knows when we do good, but he also knows when we do bad.  Let’s all try and think more positively, and treat others with the courtesy that we expect.  If we all followed this path, the world would be a considerably better place.

Don’t follow the crowd!

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Don’t follow the crowd!

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

1 Corinthians 5:6-7

One of my oldest friends, Fiona, is training to be a doctor.  Several years ago, just as she was starting her studies, she persuaded me to join Facebook.  I had no idea what Facebook was, and even less of an idea what it was for, but I duly joined.  For over a year, Fiona was pretty much my only friend on Facebook.  Then, slowly, over the next few months, more of my friends began to join up, and I gradually began to get a better idea what Facebook was for.  A short while later, pretty much everyone I knew was on Facebook, and everyone was talking about this new internet sensation.  It grew very quickly from a small affair to something that seemed to catch the interest of the whole world.

Facebook is a perfect example of something that affects a whole community.  It only needs a few people to lead the way, and suddenly everyone is involved.  Communities can be good at spreading these positive events.  But communities can also use this effect for negative purposes.  You often find that when a couple of people in a group of friends start smoking, many of the other friends start too.  It’s a slippery slope, and we need to be careful of the power of communities to spread ideas.  In today’s reading, Paul stresses this to the Corinthians.  He is only too aware of the power of communities.  He uses the metaphor of yeast and dough.  A little yeast can affect a large batch of dough.  Similarly, sin can affect a whole community.  It only takes a few people to commit the same sin for society to redefine this as acceptable behaviour.

Jesus uses exactly the same metaphor in our current Mark Marathon passage.  He warns his disciples of the dangers of the “yeast” that is Herod and the Pharisees.  They will try to mislead people and undermine the teachings of Christ.

There’s an important lesson for us here.  We must not simply go along with the crowd, especially not as far as our faith is concerned.  Instead, we must ensure that our faith is based on something solid – the teachings of Christ and wider scripture.  Make sure that you don’t allow yourself to mislead by the false teachings of others.

Look around you

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He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it.”

Mark 8:12

A couple of summers ago, my girlfriend and I had a fantastic holiday in Canada.  We flew to Toronto, then took a train to Montreal, and another to Quebec, where we picked up a hire car to drive to Prince Edward Island and onto Halifax, before flying back to Toronto.  It really was an amazing trip.  We did have a few issues with navigating in our hire car, though, particularly driving to Halifax.  There seemed to be a distinct lack of road signs, which made life rather difficult!  At one point, we thought we had arrived in Halifax, only to find ourselves in Dartmouth, on the other side of the river!  Eventually we found ourselves in the right city, and had a great time, including a trip on an amphibious tour bus!

Signs to Halifax would have been very useful.  They might have helped us to see whether we were on the right road or not.  Similarly, if there were plenty of signs to reassure us that God exists, that Jesus did in fact die and rise again, and that heaven is real, it would be so much easier to be a Christian.  That is exactly what the Pharisees asked Jesus for in the verses before today’s reading.  They want a sign to prove that Jesus is the Son of God.

The Pharisees, of course, were trying to catch Jesus out, and to prove that he was a fraud.  Jesus was wise to their trick, though, and refused to play their game.  He was rather exasperated by their demand for a sign, when in actual fact, if they cared to look, there is more than enough evidence to support Jesus’ claim.  The whole Old Testament, which the Pharisees should have known well, prophesied exactly what the messiah would be like.  Jesus as fulfilling the prophecies.  Jesus’ teaching and miracles should have demonstrated that his claim was true.  Their hearts were hard, though, and they did not want to accept Jesus as their saviour.

The same is true today.  Yes, it is sometimes difficult to be a Christian when all around us people are telling us our faith is simply based on a story.  That’s the beauty of Christianity, though.  It is a faith.  We have to have faith.  We can then chose for ourselves whether or not we follow God.  There is so much evidence to support our faith, though.  The Bible is packed with evidence.  The history books support many of Jesus’ claims.  The way God works in our lives and the lives of people we know.  Creation itself is testament to God’s love for his people.

Look around you.  There are plenty of signs to support Jesus’ claims – if only we saw them.

Trust in the Lord

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The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

Mark 8:8

I used to be a Crusader leader at a group in Redhill.  Several of my school friends were also leaders, and as well us providing us with a great opportunity to learn more about God, it was also a great social occasion.  My group of friends was nicknamed ‘the mafia’ by Mick, the senior leader, presumably because we used to operate as a group, and carried out all kinds of activities.  One of the activities we used to run was a small tuck shop.  In the summer months, I would visit Iceland (the freezer shop, not the country!) with my mum before the meeting, and buy up lots of ice creams to sell at our tuck shop.  We invariably had too many, and at the end of the meeting had several left over.  Faced with the problem of having lots of ice creams, but no freezer, we usually ended up eating them ourselves.  This was a sure fire way of ensuring that we made very little profit!

We usually started off with too many ice creams in the first place.  When Jesus fed the four thousand, however, he started off with just seven loaves of bread and a few small fish.  Now, I’m no expert in catering, but I would think that seven loaves and a few fish is probably, under normal circumstances, not going to be enough to feed four thousand people.  Yet, when Jesus is around, it does exactly that.  In fact, not only was there enough food for everyone to eat their fill, but there were seven baskets of surplus food!

We can see from both this passage and the feeding of the five thousand that if we are prepared to listen to God, and to put our trust in him, he will provide for us.  It is clear, though, that he will not just provide sufficient to sustain us, but more than we need.  That is not to say that things won’t necessarily be difficult at times – some of the most famous believers have gone through periods of hardship.  But if we trust in the Lord, he will ensure that we are provided for and cared for.  He may not always respond to our needs in the way we are expecting him to, but if he cares for us enough to send his own son to die on a cross for us, he will watch over us and look after us.