How to Understand the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:1-12 (Epiphany 4 Year A)

Matthew 5:1-12

There once was a church member who claimed that Jesus said we should disregard the Old Testament. This seemed rather strange to others, not least because Jesus spoke of fulfilling it, and so they asked him why he made this claim.

“Well, that’s easy,” he replied. “Jesus once said, ‘Hang all the Law and the Prophets.’”

Now Jesus did say, ‘Hang all the Law and the Prophets.’ The problem is, that isn’t the whole quotation. It came when he was asked about the greatest commandment. He replied that there were two: firstly, love the Lord your God will all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Secondly, love your neighbour as yourself.

And his punchline? “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Quite different! Context is everything. As has been well said, a text without a context is a pretext.

Hermeneutical Basics by Brett Jordan on Flickr. CC 2.0.

Bear this in mind as we look at the opening of the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes today. There are so many theories about the purpose of the Sermon and the meaning of the Beatitudes. There may be up to thirty-six main theories about the Sermon on the Mount[1]! Don’t worry, I’m not going to describe them all to you!

Context, then, is our first tool for discovering what these famous words mean for us.

We begin with the fact that context tells us who the teacher is. Well, you say, it’s Jesus. Of course it is. But context is making some big claims about him. You cannot read the context and just come away with the idea that he was a great religious teacher. He was claiming more.

How so? There are a couple of indications. One is that this is the first of five major blocks of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew’s Gospel. It is a parallel to the so-called ‘Five Books of Moses’, namely Genesis to Deuteronomy. Moses had prophesied that God would one day send one who was greater than him to his people. The Sermon on the Mount is one of the first indications Matthew gives us that Jesus is the One who fulfils that prophecy. He is not just a teacher. He is greater. How great? Keep reading.

The other indication about who the teacher is comes in the fact that Jesus goes up on a mountainside. It’s another echo of Moses, who went up Mount Sinai to receive the commandments from God. But Jesus doesn’t receive commandments, he gives them. And every time he goes up a mountain in Matthew, something important and revelatory happens. Here, it’s the Sermon the Mount. Later, it will be events like the Transfiguration and the Great Commission. Jesus is the New Moses, the One greater than Moses. If you thought it was important to listen to the Ten Commandments, then it is every bit as important, if not more so, to listen to Jesus in the five blocks of teaching and when he goes up a mountain (of which this is the first example of both).

Context also tells us who is being addressed. Hear verses 1 and 2 again:

1 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.

Jesus addresses his disciples, but the crowds are present, too. Right through the Sermon, this is teaching for disciples. But others are watching and listening. It’s still true at the end of the sermon. These are the last two verses of Matthew’s account at the end of chapter 7:

28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29 because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

It’s consistent. The Sermon on the Mount is addressed to disciples, but they are not alone. The crowds are watching.

The influential American Christian thinker Francis Schaeffer once wrote a book called The Church Before The Watching World. You might say that title encapsulates what we’re about here. Jesus is teaching his followers how to be the church before the watching world. Do you want to know what constitutes a good witness in the world, according to Jesus? Then read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Sermon on the Mount.

Dr. Francis Schaeffer. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

And so that means we’re beginning to answer another question that context helps us with: what is the theme of the teaching? This is one of the areas where those thirty-six different theories argue with one another. For example, are these political policies we should demand in our national life? No, the primary focus here is on how the disciples of Jesus live.

In fact, the recent context just before this passage might also help us with this. It comes not long after Jesus has begun his public ministry with the call to repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. If the Sermon on the Mount is for disciples, then it is for those who have responded to the call to repentance. It is a description of what the repentant life looks like. Do I want to know if I am doing what Jesus loves, and have turned from the ways of the world? Again, our answer is to read the Sermon on the Mount. This is a plumbline Jesus holds up for us to examine ourselves as Christians and see how we are getting on with the life of the Spirit rather than the life of the flesh.

To sum up so far: context tells us that Jesus, the teacher of the Sermon on the Mount, is the Great One prophesied for centuries, and that he should be listened to with all the seriousness we give to the Ten Commandments, if not more so. He is addressing his disciples, teaching them what the repentant life looks like, and what it means to live a Christian witness before the watching world.

With all that in mind – which I hope will help you with any part of the Sermon on the Mount that you read – let’s spend the second half looking specifically at the Beatitudes. And here our tool will not be context but structure.

Structure image, Highway Signs 3. Pix4Free.org. CC 3.0.

In the Beatitudes, there is a reasonably consistent structure of each saying. They more or less follow a formula. It’s only the last one, which Jesus expands on, but even there it displays some similarities. It goes roughly like this:

  • Who is blessed?
  • What blessing will they receive?

But let’s just define that word ‘Blessèd’ first. It means, ‘It will go well with the one’ who is named[2].

Then let’s observe that broadly there is a contrast in time between the people who are blessed and when they receive their blessing. The blessèd ones are doing what Jesus commends now, in the present tense. However, the promised blessings generally come in the future[3]. This is not a guide to having an enjoyable life now. Jesus is not promising that if you live your best life now you will receive health, wealth, and prosperity in this life. This is not some manual for successful living.

See it this way. Jesus is saying that here are some of the marks of living the repentant life. These are examples of how he calls us to live before the watching world. Because of that, God is pleased with us. He will bless our obedience. However, that blessing may well only come in the future – perhaps even only in the life of the age to come.

For at present, we live in a time when two different ages are overlapping and clashing with each other. The age of sin is continuing. But Jesus has inaugurated the age of God’s kingdom, which has come but is not yet here in all its fulness. The age of sin and the age of God’s kingdom are incompatible, so they clash. That is why not all the blessings of the age to come are here yet. It is why not everybody we pray for is healed, for example. God’s kingdom has won the decisive battle at Easter – yes! – but the war is not yet finished.

What does this mean for us? Jesus calls us to live the repentant life before the world as a witness. We are not forcing ourselves on the world but showing by our lives what the ways of Jesus are like, knowing that God delights in what we are doing, and that he will show us his favour for responding to him like this. However, we may have to wait patiently to receive the fruits of that approval.

Jesus is calling us to live not as those who choose violence, even in the face of oppression, but who live humbly, seeking peace and reconciliation (which is not the same as caving in). He calls us to be the ones who trust in him, even when we think we don’t have many resources – after all, he doesn’t need a big budget to achieve great things, he just needs surrendered lives. He calls us to be the ones who witness to mercy and compassion; to be the ones who yearn for him above all things, rather than having our imaginations captured by the desires that our society elevates. To become such people, we may well mourn – not only in the general sense of those who are bereaved but mourning for our sin and the sin of the world, which surely leads us to passionate prayer for transformation for ourselves and others. We are the ones to show kindness to others, even if it means we need to carry the burden of unjust suffering.

Such a calling probably sounds unbearable. But a day is coming, he promises us, when God will vindicate us for following these costly choices. We will hear the words, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ We will be blessed.

And in that respect, we shall be following Jesus himself. For surely the Beatitudes describe the kind of life he lived on earth. And he too was blessed in the vindication of the Resurrection.

But isn’t this all impractical and irrelevant? What of when we see the powerful in our world living differently and crushing others, shooting the innocent on the streets of Minneapolis and Tehran? Do we respond in kind? When Donald Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller tells the CNN TV channel,

“We live in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time”

should we not respond with similar use of force? No. We continue to live the Beatitudes. These are the ways of God’s coming kingdom. These show God’s great future. As such, they pronounce God’s judgment in a subversive way on the wickedness of our day. In their peaceable nature they reveal God’s truth and promise the downfall of violence. God will pass sentence on the wicked, but we let him do it in his way.

Let us heed the call of Jesus, to live the repentant lifestyle of peace before the watching world. We must take this seriously, because of the One who tells us that this is his way. The rest we leave to his Father who, as the Psalmist tells us, places the wicked on slippery ground that they might be cast down to ruin[4].

[1] Craig S Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, p160.

[2] Keener, p165.

[3] As Paul Beasley-Murray says, they are a ‘divine passive’. See also Keener, p167.

[4] Psalm 73:18

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The Building-Blocks of Jesus’ Mission, Matthew 4:12-23 (Epiphany 3, Year A)

Matthew 4:12-23

A few years ago, Debbie and I went to the cinema to see the ‘biopic’ Bohemian Rhapsody, about the rock band Queen and their lead singer Freddie Mercury. I expected the movie to end with Freddie’s death from AIDS in 1991, but it didn’t. It climaxed with the band’s triumphant performance at Live Aid in 1985. I guess it was the point that they exploded from being massively popular in the UK and a few other places to being superstars on the world stage.

If you made a biopic about the early years of Jesus, I think this is where it might end. After the amazing birth stories, the escape from Herod, his baptism, and then his trials in the wilderness, here is where it all explodes and the public ministry is launched, as he moves from Nazareth to Capernaum.

And therefore it’s natural that what we see in this story is some of the building-blocks of Jesus’ message. Tonight, we’re going to explore three building-blocks that we find in this passage and what they mean for us.

Firstly, fulfilment:

Verses 12 to 16 tell us that Jesus moved from Nazareth to Capernaum to fulfil a prophecy of Isaiah’s that the Messiah would live in ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’ and bring light into darkness.

This is a continuation of something Matthew has been stressing from the beginning in his Gospel: that Jesus the Messiah fulfils Old Testament prophecies. How does the fulfilment work here? In a couple of ways.

One is that he is now based in ‘Galilee of the Gentiles.’ Although Galilee was filled with devout Jews who were faithful to the religious Law and to the Jerusalem Temple, there were Gentile settlements nearby[1]. This becomes a foreshadowing of the later mission to the Gentiles that Jesus announced after his Resurrection at the end of the Gospel[2].

And hence, there is a hint here of what is to come: to be part of the Jesus Movement will entail not just staying comfortably with people like us but reaching out beyond social and cultural boundaries to share Jesus there. It is no good thinking we can stay with our own kind. It is no good making the church the centre and the circumference of our social lives. There is a mission beyond us, and Jesus was clear about it from the start.

The other element of fulfilment is in bringing light into the darkness. That includes light for people who are struggling in the darkness of despair. Jesus is Good News for them, because he brings a hope in him that not even death can destroy. Whatever the most dreadful of our thoughts are when we are down, Jesus still brings hope. He is the light-bringer.

Let There Be Light!! by Premnath Thirumalaisamy on Flickr, CC Licence 2.0.

But light shines into darkness in other ways, too. Most notably, Jesus shines his light onto the darkness of our sins. When we meet Jesus, we begin a lifelong process of transformation, as bit by bit he casts his light into those areas of darkness that we don’t want anyone else to see. Stage by stage, Jesus calls us to confess our dark deeds and bring them into his light. There he forgives us and begins his work of equipping us to change.

Is it any wonder that the first thing we hear Jesus saying in the passage is these words?

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ (Verse 17)

When Jesus shines his light onto our lives, we will begin to have a list of things from which we need to repent. We need to turn our lives around.

Perhaps like me you often resist this. But it is an essential part of God’s project to make us more like Jesus. So may he grant us the grace to go along with the surgery the light of Jesus performs on us.

Secondly, following:

Red Follow Me beacon at PickPik (Public Domain)

In verses 18 to 22, Jesus calls Simon, Andrew, James, and John to follow him. They leave their fishing nets immediately.

There is something really quite radical here. Rabbis didn’t generally call people to follow them. Instead, young men (and I’m afraid it was only men in those days) would choose a rabbi for themselves. For Jesus to go to these men, who either had not looked for a rabbi or had been rejected when they had applied, turns everything upside-down.[3] What we see here is that Jesus calls some young men to follow him who would not have been accepted by any other rabbi. But Jesus wants them. They will be among his core followers.

The early church followed through with this principle. We are pretty sure that some of the early bishops were slaves. No way would a Roman religion do that! But Jesus calls everyone, including the unexpected and the rejected.

It’s worth us remembering that Jesus still issues the call to follow him to people that we wouldn’t expect. Who would that be in our circles? Who are the people we have dismissed as potential Jesus-followers? Maybe we’ve even dismissed ourselves. Don’t do it. Jesus is calling.

But let’s also be aware that this call comes with a potential cost. Simon, Andrew, James, and John had to quit their family businesses to follow Jesus. They left their nets. They left the boat.

This was probably an act of what we would call ‘downward mobility.’ The fishermen might not have been wealthy, but neither were they peasants.[4] These young men walk out on a steady income generated from a vital profession for a life with a much more uncertain income. What did their families think?

It still happens in our generations. Someone who grew up in the same church youth group and young adults’ group as me trained to a high standard as secretary and PA and landed a job as the PA to one of the directors of one of our most famous upmarket High Street stores. But then God called her into church leadership with a new, fledgling independent congregation. Her parents were not best pleased, after all the money they had poured into her professional training. But she heeded the call.

One of my fellow ministerial students had previously been a solicitor. One day, somebody asked him, how much of a pay cut does entering the ministry mean for you?

‘I’ve knocked a nought off the end of my salary,’ he replied.

I wonder whether there is anyone here who is sensing the call of Jesus to follow him, perhaps in a new way, but that the implications are that it will be costly. You are risking financial loss, or family disapproval. Let us as a church family gather round in support of you so that you can set out on where Jesus is calling you.

Thirdly and finally, fishing:

In verse 19, Jesus says to Simon and Andrew,

‘Come, follow me,’ …, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’

Perhaps this reminds you of the old Sunday School chorus, ‘I will make you fishers of men,’ and maybe you now have an earworm!

The traditional way in which we have interpreted this is to think of this as a call to share the Gospel with people so that they, too, become followers of Jesus. I don’t think that was far from the minds of the early church, because one of the earliest visual images of the church was that of a boat. They saw there was a task to do of bringing more people into God’s boat.

We urgently need to release people into the ministry of evangelism, because there are so many more who need to hear the Gospel and respond. If anyone here is sensing that call, then let’s have a conversation about what we can do to train, facilitate, and support your call.

And let’s do it in a way that keeps a strong link between the evangelist and the church. The call is to fish for people, so they are brought into the boat. Too often in the past, evangelists have become disconnected from the local church. The fault has been on both sides, and we cannot allow it to continue. Evangelism is a ministry of the church.

But I want to take ‘fishing for people’ further. As I said, if you look forward from New Testament times to the early church, you end up with this application of these words to evangelism. But if you look back to the Old Testament, you see another dimension of mission, and it’s about the prophetic announcement of judgment. Here is one example from Jeremiah 16:16:

‘But now I will send for many fishermen,’ declares the Lord, ‘and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks.

What’s that about? The context is about God bringing judgment on his people who have forsaken his ways for worthless idols. This fishing for people is about the bad news, not the good news. It is the warning of what God will do with those who wilfully reject his truth. When Israel left Egypt, the Egyptian army tried to catch them and failed. But now, God’s messengers – his fishermen and hunters – will catch them.

Fishing for people, then, involves not only the winsome call to follow Jesus but also the warning to those both outside and inside the boat of the church to reject idolatry.

What would that mean for us today? I’ll confine myself to one example. There is only one sin that is described as idolatry in the New Testament. Greed. Colossians 3:5:

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

Fishing for people, then, is not only a call to evangelism. It is also a call to a prophetic ministry. This is why it is right the Church condemns so much of what is going on in international politics at present.

But we have a long way to go in much of the church to put to death the idolatry of greed, which is so widely practised in our society. What else would we expect when we follow One who shines his light into the darkness?

Conclusion

Let’s summarise these three building-blocks:

Fulfilment – this happens when we take the Gospel beyond the People of God to others, and when the light of Christ shines into darkness.

Following – let’s be open to surprises in who God calls but be ready for the fact that when he does, there is usually a cost involved.

Fishing – for people – this is both the evangelistic call to join the boat of the church and putting the fishhooks of God’s judgment into those who wilfully reject his ways.

How far are we reflecting the fundamental elements of Jesus’ mission?

[1] Craig S Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, p146f.

[2] Matthew 28:16-20

[3] Keener, p150.

[4] Keener, p151.

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Two Ways of Speaking to Others About Jesus, John 1:29-42 (Epiphany 2, Year A)

John 1:29-42

Teetotalism illustration: Wikimedia Commons, CC Licence 4.0.

If you ask what Methodists are known for, it might be the hymns of Charles Wesley, an expectation that we are teetotal, and regulation green cups and saucers for the compulsory tea and coffee after services and meetings. The more daring Methodists bought blue cups and saucers.

Or there might be the social side of our faith, which leads to our commitment to social action and justice.

But one area where we are less strong today is in talking about our faith to others. It’s strange, isn’t it, that a movement which began with preaching in the open air should lose its ability to speak about Jesus.

And when we don’t share Jesus, the church dies. For how else will people know about their need to follow him and be part of his family? Our actions certainly witness to him, but we then need to explain them.

We need to address this, though, not through guilt trips but encouragement. I’m aware that since I am a ‘professional Christian’, people expect me to speak about Jesus, and that may make it easier for me. However, I think this reading from John’s Gospel gives us a couple of encouragements. Both John the Baptist and Andrew, in different ways, show us a way forward. Let’s look at how they can help us.

Firstly, John talks about who Jesus is:

St John the Baptist. Photographer: Randy Greve on Flickr, CC Licence 2.0.

Everything John says is about who Jesus is. He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (verse 29). This is the One who solves all our needs for forgiveness and a new beginning. Even though Jesus comes after John (which implies the listeners think Jesus is one of John’s disciples) he outranks him because he was before him (that is, John speaks of Jesus’ pre-existence) (verse 30). I came to baptise, says John, but not to draw attention to me: I wanted you to see Jesus, who is the One Israel needs (verse 31). You were used in past times to the Spirit of God alighting on certain people temporarily, but now Jesus is the One on whom the Spirit rests permanently (verses 32-33). The divine mark of approval is on him, and he will bestow the same on his disciples. He is God’s Chosen One (verse 34) – not merely a teacher or even a prophet: there is no human equal to him.

John has gathered the crowds, and his popularity has grown among the ordinary people, to the point where the religious authorities had felt the need to set up a committee to investigate and report on him. But he is not interested in his own legacy. This is not about the setting up of John The Baptist Ministries, Inc. His sole aim is to point not to himself but to Jesus. And now that Jesus is on the scene, he can back out. He really doesn’t mind when two of his own disciples respond to his testimony by leaving him to follow Jesus (verses 35-37). In fact, that’s what he wants. Job done. It’s time to wind down the operation.

As I have been fond of saying over the years, the job of John the Baptist is to be the compère who introduces Jesus. Last weekend, Hollywood held the annual Golden Globes movie awards ceremony. A lot of the anticipatory talk in the media was about how good the jokes would be by the comedian hosting the ceremony, Nikki Glaser. But the job of the compère is not to point to themselves and enhance their reputation. It is to introduce the star of the show. That’s what John does.

Nikki Glaser at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick, NJ, Wikimedia Commons, CC Licence 2.0.

And that’s our task, too. Perhaps we are grateful that it’s not about us. John reminds us to put Jesus front and centre. Maybe that’s particularly important for those of us who witness in a public and formal way, such as preachers. The late American pastor Tim Keller, who developed a remarkable ministry in what was thought to be highly secular New York City among young adults, said in his book on preaching that every time you preach you should include the Gospel. You should hold us to that. Have we focussed on Jesus? Have you heard the good news this morning? Because that’s our priority.

Most of us are not preachers, though. For us, it means that when we get an opportunity to commend Jesus to someone, we say something about who he is and how he can help them. There are so many things we can say about Jesus to people, depending on the circumstances of those with whom we are conversing. It’s not necessarily about memorising the Gospel in four easy points, although some find that helpful. It’s more what the late W E Sangster, Superintendent minister at Westminster Central Hall through World War Two, said. He spoke of the Gospel as a many-faceted diamond. We need to find the facet of the diamond that reflects Jesus the Light of the World to the people or the situation where we find ourselves.

Therefore, when we are in a conversation with someone, and we sense it would be good to say something about our hope in Jesus to help them, it pays to pause and think, what aspect of Jesus would it be most helpful for them to consider? Do they need to know about Jesus, the forgiver of sins? Would it help them to know about Jesus the healer? Or do they need to encounter Jesus who is Lord of all? Or Jesus, through Whom God made all things good? Or is it some other element of who Jesus is that would be constructive?

We could make this part of our praying for these people, too. Something like this: ‘Lord, I sense my friend needs to know about Jesus. Please show me what would be most attractive or challenging or relevant to them. And please help me to share that in an appropriate way.’

Secondly, Andrew talks about what Jesus means to him:

Saint Andrew MET DP168806.jpg, Wikimedia Commons, CC Licence 1.0.

Andrew is possibly the most significant example of being a witness to Jesus outside of Paul and Peter in the New Testament. In fact, I once helped on an evangelistic mission where the preparatory training of local Christians was called Operation Andrew. Because Andrew is the character in the Gospels who speaks to friends and relatives and brings them to Jesus. He doesn’t preach, but he introduces people to Jesus by his personal and private conversations.

We see that for the first time in this reading:

41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (that is, the Christ).

In John 6:8-9, Andrew introduces the boy with the five loaves and two fish to Jesus, even though he doesn’t expect that small quantity to go far. But he still does it.

In John 12:20-22, some Greeks want to meet Jesus. It is Philip and Andrew who tell Jesus about them.

Andrew is that quiet, personal witness. We don’t see him preaching to the crowds, instead we see him in these private interactions that facilitate the possibility of people meeting Jesus.

And within that mode of operation, Andrew speaks about what Jesus means to him. ‘We have found the Messiah.’ Not just, ‘Jesus is the Messiah,’ but ‘We have found him.’ It’s the truth about who Jesus is, as per John the Baptist, but it’s personal. This is who Jesus is, and I’ve found it to be true in my life.

Is that not the essence of Christian witness for most of us? We have discovered that the claims of Jesus are true, but not merely in theory: we have found them to be true in our own lives. That gives us something we can share with others, not by preaching, but in the to-and-fro of respectful conversation.

Again, it is not about bigging up ourselves, it is about promoting Jesus. He is the focus. Many of us will not have dramatic stories to tell, but we shall have that knowledge that Jesus has been at work in our lives, and we can share that. Others of us may have known times when Jesus did indeed work in a remarkable way in our lives, but when we tell it, we don’t emphasise all the gory stuff about ourselves: rather, we put the emphasis on what Jesus did.

Therefore, whether or not we have had the sort of life that can get written up as a dramatic religious paperback, every Christian can reflect on their lives and think of the times when they have known for sure that Jesus was at work by his Spirit, and we can bring that into conversation when the time is right. It won’t be by making a formal, prepared speech, it will be in the way that friends and family tell each other stories about their lives. We do that, and then we let the Holy Spirit do the work of making this real to the people with whom we share. We pray, of course, for the Spirit to do that.

At this point, if this were a seminar rather than a sermon in a church service, I would want you to take a pen and paper, and spend some time thinking over the story of your own life, then writing down those occasions when you have known that Jesus did something particular for you.

A pen on paper, Wikimedia Commons, CC Licence 4.0.

But since we are not in a seminar environment, I want to suggest that you find half an hour for yourself at home to try that very exercise. Recall and write down the times when Jesus has done something special in your life. And when you have done that, I want you to work on memorising it. Not necessarily in a word-for-word way, because if you just regurgitate that to others, you will sound stilted and unnatural. In fact, they will feel like they are being preached at, and not in a good way.

One approach that some find helpful is to turn that story of Jesus’ work in you into a series of short bullet points that you can remember. What are the essential parts of the story?

What I have in mind here is, I think, in harmony with something the Apostle Peter said in his First Epistle. Writing to a group of Christians who were fearful of a negative response to their faith that would have been far worse than anything we might face, he said this:

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15).

This is a way in which we can have a reason for our hope: by recounting the ways in which Jesus has shown his faithful love to us over the years. I am sure that if I asked you, Christian-to-Christian, whether Jesus has been good to you over the years, you would probably say ‘Yes.’ What comes to your mind is helpful in witness, too. We can avoid flowery, churchy language, and share with people in a simple way what Jesus has done for us.

Conclusion

Let’s go from here and conduct an experiment. Let us meditate on the many things that are true about Jesus, so that we can offer an aspect of him in conversation with others.

And let’s reflect on our own experiences with Jesus, so that we are ready to share them when the Spirit prompts us that to do so would be helpful.

May it be that the Holy Spirit encourages us through this to speak about our faith as well as demonstrate it.

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Shame and Honour in the Baptism of Jesus, Matthew 3:13-17 (Ordinary 1 Year A)

Baptism of Christ. Wikimedia Commons, CC Licence 3.0.

Matthew 3:13-17

When David Cameron was Prime Minister, there was a big public debate about ‘British Values.’ Some very conservative Muslims had been accused of undue influence in Birmingham schools to promote militant Islam. Mr Cameron said that anyone living in the UK should abide by ‘British Values’, by which he meant things like democracy, the rule of law, personal and social responsibility, freedom, and tolerance of other beliefs. He cited things like the Magna Carta – although that was a little awkward, as the Magna Carta was an English, not a British document.

Whatever you think of that debate, it shows the reasonable assumption that a nation, a society, or a culture has certain shared values. We may argue about what they are, but the basic idea is sound.

That means, when we come to the Bible, that it is helpful to know about the values of the culture in which a story is placed. Doing that this week with the story of Jesus’ baptism has helped me see it in a new light. The culture into which Jesus was born was

A traditional Mediterranean culture where society stressed honour and shame[1].

Middle Eastern societies have reflected those values of honour and shame right up to modern times. My late father spent a couple of years in Arab countries when he was in the RAF, and I remember him telling me that no matter how much one might disagree with someone from that region, one should never shame them: that was a terrible insult. You should always treat them with dignity and never shame them.

Today, I want us to read about the baptism of Jesus through the lens of honour and shame. It is something we can do throughout the Bible with great profit[2], but today we shall just think about Jesus’ baptism in this way.

Firstly, we’re going to consider shame:

Shame. Wikimedia Commons. CC Licence 2.0.

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, ‘I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?’

15 Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfil all righteousness.’ Then John consented.

John knows that Jesus is superior to him. Immediately before this, he has been prophesying the coming of Jesus, saying that Jesus is more powerful than him, and that he is not fit to untie Jesus’ sandals (verses 11-12). Whether he fully understands Jesus’ divine status at this point we don’t know, and whether he knows Jesus is sinless we also don’t know, but he does recognise that he is outranked by Jesus. Therefore, he says, he should honour Jesus, not the other way round.

But Jesus does not pull that rank. He takes a place below John by submitting to his baptism. He takes the place of humility, but more than that, he takes the place of humiliation, of shame. Baptism was for those who were ashamed of their sins, and Jesus identifies with the shamed.

Of course, this is a foreshadowing of the Cross, the deepest example of Jesus identifying with the shamed, when he suffered one of the cruellest forms of execution ever devised. But for now, notice that Jesus puts himself alongside the shamed. He could pull rank, but he doesn’t. No wonder the tax collectors and ‘sinners’ loved him.

Shame takes many forms. In part, it is the shame we experience for our sins, if we have any moral compass. Here, by identifying with those who are ashamed of their sins, we see the Jesus who will pronounce divine forgiveness to some of the most outrageous of sinners, those who commit some of the most socially unacceptable sins.

It’s been my privilege on occasion to assure people who have secretly carried the guilt of awful sins that they were too ashamed to admit publicly that God in Christ forgives them. I have seen a burden disappear from someone’s face. And it is all made possible by the Jesus who identifies at his baptism and later at the Cross with those shamed by sin, and who in between those two episodes spends time befriending such people.

But there is more to shame than this. Some people have shamed foisted onto them. These people are not so much those who have sinned, but those who have been sinned against. Somebody else has done something dreadful to them, and they have been told they must keep it secret, or there will be terrible consequences for them. Sometimes, the perpetrator engages in what we call today ‘gaslighting’, where they manipulate their victim to the point of them doubting reality. This is incredibly damaging to someone’s self-esteem. I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate too much.

When Jesus identifies with the shamed, I believe he identifies with these people, too. Jesus is for those who have been sinned against. He has love, compassion, acceptance, and healing for people who have endured such trauma.

The Christian Church is called by Jesus also to identify with the shamed, whether that shame is caused by sin, being sinned against, or some other cause. It is our calling today to bring the love and healing of Jesus to those carrying shame.

It includes prayer as well as action. In Daniel chapter 9 verses 1 to 19, Daniel confesses the sins of his people that led to the Exile in Babylon, even though he personally was not responsible. He identifies with the shamed.

One of the problems Jesus had with many of the Pharisees was that they did not do this. Instead, they made it very clear that they distinguished themselves from the shamed. In Luke 18:9-14 Jesus tells the famous Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, where the Pharisee begins his prayer with the ominous words, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people’ (verse 11). It is so easy for us to fall into that trap, too. We don’t want to be tarred with the same brush as others whose actions are wrong. But Jesus tells us to resist that. Let us come alongside the shamed with the love of God in Christ, rather than setting ourselves up as being above them.

Secondly, we move from shame to honour:

OBE – George 6th. Wikimedia Commons. CC Licence 4.0.

16 As soon as Jesus was baptised, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’

Well, can you get a better way of being affirmed or honoured than that? Already, John the Baptist – a prophet – has honoured Jesus. Now heaven speaks, and quotes Scripture in doing so. A prophet, Scripture, and the direct voice of God. Top that if you can.

But why is Jesus being honoured like this at this time? There is more than one way of looking at this.

One is to say that God is honouring Jesus for what he has just done in humbling himself to identify with the shamed at his baptism. God is pleased that Jesus has given a preview of his mission. God honours the way Jesus humbles himself, or ‘made himself nothing’, as Paul was to describe it in Philippians 2. This is God setting his seal of approval on the way in which Jesus will conduct his ministry. When Muslims deny the suffering of Jesus because that would supposedly be beneath the dignity of a prophet, let alone God, we say no: this is the glory of God, that there is no depth too low that Jesus will not stoop to bring salvation.

Another way of looking at the Father honouring Jesus here is to say that this happens just before Jesus’ ministry begins. He will go from here into the wilderness and then he will start his mission. On this reading, God is unconditionally affirming Jesus. If we take this approach, then Jesus goes into the difficult conflict in the wilderness and then into all the challenges of his mission having heard the ringing endorsement of the Father, who had underlined his status (‘This is my Son’) and that he loves him. This could be important too, because if you are going to face difficulty as Jesus was, then what could be better for helping your resilience and perseverance than remembering that you are God’s Son and you are loved?

Is that not something we need, too? Yes, Jesus was the Son of God in a unique way, but we are also children of God in a different way – we are adopted[3] – but nevertheless we have incredible privilege as a result. And we are loved. We are not earning God’s love. It is already there for us to accept and receive.

If we put these two approaches together, we get an application for us. We remember that – as in the words of John – ‘We loved because he first loved us.’ Anything and everything we do as Christians is a response to God’s love for us in Jesus. He loved us first. We only go into our discipleship as those who are already loved, already affirmed, already honoured with that love. We are honoured too by the fact that God has adopted us as children into his family, bearing his name – Christians, little Christs. This is our foundation. We bear the honour of God.

Yet that calling we have, and which we take up bearing the honour of God, is to bear the shame of the world. It is to live humbly among the shamed, witnessing to God’s great love for them, too. We have the strength to do this, not only because God gives us the Holy Spirit but also because he has honoured us with his love and adoption of us.

And further, following this calling to live the love of God among the shame, will rarely earn us the adulation of the world. It will more likely earn us the reproach – and yes, the shaming – of the world, for bringing dignity, belonging, love – and yes, honour – to those who are despised by the world.

Conclusion

We began by talking about the values that different societies have. We have seen that the ways of Jesus challenged the values of his culture. Our society is not the same: it might be that we have more sympathy for those who have been shamed, at least when it has been inflicted upon them.

But even so, if we live out the baptised life of Jesus, identifying with the shamed and sharing God’s love with them because we have been honoured with receiving the love of God ourselves, that will still be a challenge to our world. Some will like it, others will not.

However, as adopted members of Jesus’ family, it is incumbent upon us to follow this calling, when it finds favour with others and when it doesn’t.

May God give us such a deep experience of his love through the Holy Spirit within us that we have the fortitude to do so.

[1] Craig S Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, p131.

[2] See Judith Rossall, Forbidden Fruit and Fig Leaves: Reading the Bible with the shamed.

[3] See Rossall, pp 127-135.

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The Fourfold Action of the Covenant Meal (Covenant Service Sermon, January 2026)

Mark 14:22-25

Worship: Last Supper Celebration of Holy Communion. Public Domain from PickPik.

In a book called ‘Liturgy and Liberty’, an Anglican priest named John Leach tells a lovely story about coming in to find his children having lined up all their cuddly toys. Asking what they are doing, they reply that they are ‘Playing Communions.’ And they move from cuddly toy to cuddly toy, giving each some bread, with the words, ‘A piece of the Lord.’

Now you may say that this is an example of children not understanding Holy Communion, confusing ‘The peace of the Lord’ with the giving of the bread. But of course, the rejoinder is surely that many adult Christians also do not understand what is happening at the sacrament.

And where better to reflect on the meaning of the Lord’s Supper than at the Covenant Service? For Holy Communion is the Covenant Meal. As ancient covenants were sealed with blood, so God’s covenant with us in Christ is sealed in his blood, and we remember that at the Lord’s Table.

That said, I am not going to discuss theories of what does or doesn’t happen the bread and wine. I could do that one day, although I’d have to be careful that I was still preaching a sermon and not just giving you a theological lecture. I am content with the broad Methodist position that Christ is present at the sacrament, but exactly how he is present is a mystery that resists definition.

What I want to do instead today is consider what God does with us when we receive the bread and wine. I am following a pattern suggested by the late Catholic priest Henri Nouwen. Listen to the four things Jesus does with the bread at the Last Supper in verse 22:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take it; this is my body.’

Took. Gave thanks. Broke. Gave. Go back to ancient communion liturgies and they make those four actions central to their structure. We do it, too. The minister takes the bread and prepares it for use. Then we give thanks. The bread is broken, and finally it is given. In 1945, an Anglican Benedictine monk, Gregory Dix, said this was the fundamental shape that mattered, and this is why a lot of modern communion services of different denominations look similar, even if the words vary.

Henri Nouwen took this one step further. He said that what Jesus did with the bread is what he also does with us. Let’s see what that means for us.

Firstly, as Jesus takes the bread, so he also takes us:

The bread is taken and prepared for holy use. It is set apart for its special purpose in the sacrament.

We too are taken and set aside by God for his special, holy purposes. We are not merely forgiven and given a ticket to heaven that we cash in when we die. We have been chosen and brought into the family of God so that we may play our part in the work of his kingdom.

Each Christian has a calling. Sometimes it involves laying down what we are doing to take on something else, just as Jesus called the fishermen, who left their nets to become disciples and then apostles. For others, the special purpose simply involves living for Christ in the place where he found us in the first place. In 1 Corinthians 7:20 Paul says this:

Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.

If there is no specific call to move to something else, then we recognise that God in Christ has called us to be content where we are, and faithfully serve him in that place and those circumstances.

But let there be no doubt either way that God has set us aside to be his holy people. That’s what holiness is – to be set apart. A certain distinctive lifestyle flows from that, but the essence of holiness is to be set apart for God’s purposes. It is not unique to those ordained by the church, it is what God does with every single one of his disciples.

Secondly, as Jesus thanks God for the bread, so he also thanks God for us:

This is the one where I find most people struggle. How can Jesus thank God for me? I’m a sinner. He knows that! I’m weak and frail. He knows that, too! We come up with a whole series of ‘But’s to object to this idea of Jesus giving thanks to God for us. But, but, but.

But nothing. We thank God for other people. We thank God for other objects, just as Jesus thanks God for the bread. There is nothing impossible here.

Yes, God cares about our sin, and he disciplines us and forgives us, but none of that is about having a grudging attitude to us. It is about the love of a Father who longs for the best in his children. If I may so reverently, God is crazy about us. Think of the father running to meet the Prodigal Son. That just wasn’t done in those days. Any other father would have waited at home for the errant son to return, grovelling. But God the Father runs to meet his children.

The prophet Zephaniah puts it this way:

The Lord your God is with you,
    the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
    but will rejoice over you with singing.’
(Zephaniah 3:17)

I saw a cartoon over Christmas which claimed to depict ‘Calvinist Santa’, where everyone was on Santa’s naughty list. And while it’s true that we are all sinners in need of salvation, if we just imagine God like Calvinist Santa as some mean, stern, miserable character, we shall have missed the truth that God rejoices over us and lets the angels throw parties for us in heaven. And it is this God, not Calvinist Santa, that we come to, even at such as solemn service as the Covenant Service.

Thirdly, as Jesus breaks the bread, so he also breaks us:

OK, here’s the tough, painful stuff. Is that what you’re thinking? Jesus has to break the bread to distribute it. And to get the Body of Christ where he wants it, he has to separate us.

But he also uses our brokenness for good. As Charles Haddon Spurgeon said,

God gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.

We resist brokenness. We think we must have our act together – or at least a public face that suggests that. We hide our brokenness for fear of shame or rejection.

But God doesn’t reject us for it. He can take our brokenness and deploy it for good. Like the risen body of Jesus still showing the marks of the nails from the crucifixion, God works with our brokenness a little like the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken fragments are restored with gold, silver, or platinum and shine more beautifully than they did before.

In his song ‘Anthem’, the late Canadian singer Leonard Cohen has these words:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

You’ve heard me talk about some of my experiences of brokenness. The lung surgery in my twenties, the broken engagement, walking with my father’s Alzheimer’s, and the depression. I wish every single one of those things had not happened. I would prefer the ‘magic wand’ God many people wish for, who would instantly remove these things. But usually when I talk about them, people come up to me afterwards and say, ‘You might understand what I’m going through. Can we talk?’

There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. This year, let us allow God to work for good through our brokenness.

Fourthly and finally, as Jesus gives the bread, so he also gives us:

The bread is a gift of God to us. It is not something we give to him, and that’s why I don’t have the bread and wine brought up to the table with the offering. Jesus offered his body and blood for us, and the bread and wine are analogous to that. The bread is therefore his gift to us and to the world.

And it follows that we too are a gift from Jesus to others.

Again, you may resist that thought. How can I be a gift of God to others? Who would want me?

Yet this says more about our low estimation of ourselves than it does about God’s love for us. God only gives good gifts. He loves us so much that he gives us to others.

Somewhere in our circle of contacts, there is a person who needs us if they are to be blessed according to God’s kingdom purposes. Joining in the Covenant Prayer today is about us assenting to those good plans God has for us to bless others with his love. It is our version of standing with Isaiah, who encountered God in his holy glory in the Jerusalem Temple, and heard him say, ‘Who will go for us?’, and responded, ‘Here I am, send me.’

It is more blessed to give than receive, said Jesus. But today, the giving is not only about our money, our time, our talents, or our possessions. It is about God’s desire to give us to others in the cause of holy blessing.

Many of us here are, or have been, married. We have taken that step of giving ourselves wholeheartedly to another human being in love. At the Covenant Service, God in Christ calls us to co-operate with another act of total self-giving in love. Because in his love and by the power of his Spirit, we are a valuable gift to others in his cause.

We have just celebrated the fact that God gave us the gift of his Son. Let us respond by being available as a gift to be given to others.

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Where is the Hope in the Slaughter of the Innocents? (Matthew 2:13-23, Christmas 1 Year A)

Matthew 2:13-23

Peter Paul Rubens, The Massacre of the Innocents; Wikimedia Commons, CC Licence 4.0

Sometimes, Christians tell stories of miraculous answers to prayer where they are saved from a disaster. Around the time of 9/11, I heard one about a Christian who should have been on one of the planes that crashed into the Twin Towers, but whose circumstances changed unexpectedly and they missed the flight.

Here is one I read recently, from a respected pastor:

I remember once almost booking a trip to Prague. I’d planned it perfectly—a romantic getaway for Vicky and me. My finger hovered over the “Book Now” button, but something in my spirit said no. It didn’t feel right. I hesitated and didn’t book it. Weeks later, there was a massive explosion in the very square where we would have been staying.

Admittedly, that pastor is making a different point, about how God sometimes says ‘no’ because he is preparing something better for us. But I still read the account and wondered about who might have been present at the site of the explosion.

And something like this is one of the concerns we bring to the disturbing account of Herod the Great’s order to kill babies and toddlers in Bethlehem, whereas Jesus, Mary, and Joseph miraculously escape.

How are we going to tackle this troubling story? It naturally falls into three acts: the escape, the slaughter, and the return. These will be our guide to the flow of the story and what Matthew is saying.

Firstly, the escape:

Just as he did when Mary fell pregnant by the Holy Spirit, Joseph hears an angel of the Lord in a dream, and they escape to Egypt. That would have been financially easy for well-off Jews of their day, but it was certainly not a preferred option[1]. And while it is debatable whether Jesus’ family was poor, they were certainly not wealthy, so this was not an easy decision.

And yes, that makes Jesus, Mary, and Joseph refugees, something we might remember in today’s fevered politics of immigration. The fact they returned later does not negate that, as some have tried to claim.

Right from the beginning, then, pain and suffering cast their shadow over the life of Jesus. It will also be so for his followers.

In doing so, Jesus is like Moses, who was also rescued from certain death as a baby at the hands of Pharaoh. It is one sign that Jesus will be the One greater than Moses, who was prophesied.

That gets further underlined when Matthew, as he does so often and especially in the birth stories, quotes Scripture as being fulfilled. In verse 15 he cites Hosea 11:1,

Out of Egypt I have called my son.

In other words, he makes a parallel to the Exodus, which again was led by Moses. And just as in Old Testament texts such as this one Israel was called God’s son, so now Jesus is supremely God’s Son – not only because of the virginal conception by the Holy Spirit, but also because Jesus will fulfil all that Israel was meant to be, but failed to be, due to sin.

Even – and perhaps especially because – suffering and injustice are at work, what we see here is that Jesus’ ministry of salvation is being foreshadowed, maybe even beginning, in his infancy. The One greater than Moses, the True Israel, will lead his people through and from suffering to salvation. In the midst of the darkness, the light of Christ is shining.

Is that not reason to praise God? Even in this darkest of stories, God is working his purpose out.

And if God has preserved us through trials, are we listening to know what our place in those purposes is?

Secondly, the massacre:

There is a lot to say here. There are those who think the story didn’t happen, and that Matthew made up this story to fit with the fulfilment of a Scripture. However, if that’s what he did, then that makes Matthew a pretty awful person, and I don’t think that’s sustainable on the tone of the rest of his Gospel.

The big objection is that there is no historical record of the ‘slaughter of the innocents.’ All sides agree that it is consistent with Herod’s vile character. We know he had family members whom he regarded as political rivals killed. We know he even arranged for a number of nobles to be executed on the day of his own death, so that there would be grieving in the land. He obviously knew that few would grieve his own death.

But the reality is, horrible as it sounds, that the killing of male babies and toddlers in Bethlehem was probably political small fry in comparison to all his other atrocities. The violent acts that get reported by ancient sources like Josephus tend to be ones of national importance. This would not have been so, especially given that working from our best estimates of Bethlehem’s population at the time, probably around twenty youngsters in an insignificant town were slain[2].

That is still twenty too many, and it is still unbearably wicked. And I am working from the assumption that Matthew has given us an entirely plausible account.

Building on that, this is not the only place in Scripture where we see a juxtaposition of deliverance for some but suffering for others. To give one other example, when persecution breaks out against the early church in the Acts of the Apostles, many are imprisoned, Simon Peter is freed from his cell by an angel, but others are executed.

Many years ago, I heard a story about a massacre of some missionaries, who lived together in a compound. Many were killed, but others escaped. The survivors returned to their homeland, where a memorial service was held. As you can imagine, people struggled there with the fact that some were murdered but others were not. A speaker at the memorial service said, “God delivered all the missionaries. He delivered some of them from suffering, but he delivered others through suffering.”

The slaughter of the innocents is the most graphic telling of why Jesus needed to come. This is the level of wickedness in our world. Human sin and depravity is such that we will even not spare the most vulnerable and the most innocent for the sake of our own comfort, status, or financial gain. It is just as true today. While some abortions do happen because of serious medical complications and other distressing reasons, there are others that happen because of couples who are unwilling to make the financial sacrifices necessary to raise a child. If the Assisted Dying Bill gets successfully through Parliament, there will be elderly people in this country put under emotional pressure to end their lives so that greedy relatives can get their hands on their inheritance sooner.

Make no mistake, the slaughter of the innocents is not just something terrifying that happened two thousand years ago. Parallels are still happening today. And they will continue until people bow the knee to Jesus.

For Jesus is God’s remedy for all the violence and hatred in the world. Jesus, who escaped suffering here, would one day go to the Cross where he would absorb the sin of the world for all of us.

God had planned this from the beginning. God had created this world out of love, but love is something that takes risks, including the risk of rejection. God knew from the outset that it could and would go wrong, and that a rescue plan was needed. That is why Revelation speaks of Jesus as ‘the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.’

Even here, there is hope. For when Matthew looks for an appropriate Old Testament text, he finds one in Jeremiah 31 that imagines the matriarch Rachel weeping in her grave as the exiles are marched off to Babylon. That sounds relentlessly bad, doesn’t it? But in that chapter, the disaster of the Exile leads to God’s rescue plan. For it climaxes in the promise of the New Covenant. And for Christians, that means Jesus.

Even in the darkness, God’s light in Christ is still shining. May we remember that.

Thirdly, the return:

Once again, Joseph has an angelic visitation during a dream. What a man Joseph was, for being open to God speaking to him. We laud Mary for her example of discipleship in agreeing to carry the Messiah in her womb, but Joseph deserves praise, too. He is an example of true faith to us as well.

When the family returns, Joseph also shows he is astute. Not Bethlehem, because although Herod is now dead, his son Archelaus is in charge of that area. He was every bit as bad, if not worse, than his father[3].

Joseph opts for Nazareth, where according to Luke he and Mary came from. It was politically insignificant, a small settlement of about five hundred people[4]. There is no way the sophisticated urban elites from Jerusalem would have ever had Nazareth on their shortlist for the upbringing of the Messiah.

But if the town was inconsequential to them, it certainly wasn’t to God. In his eyes, Nazareth was spiritually significant – something Matthew makes clear with a quotation that is a wordplay[5]. That quotation, ‘He will be called a Nazarene’, in verse 23, does not appear anywhere in the Old Testament. However, it was a common practice to make Hebrew puns by what was called ‘revocalising’ a word, which basically meant putting in a different selection of vowels. The best theory is that Matthew has revocalised the Hebrew word ‘nezer’ to make ‘Nazarene.’

If he has done that – and I think he has – then ‘nezer’ is the word for ‘branch’ in the prophecies that the Messiah will come from the ‘nezer’ or ‘branch’ of David’s line. The Messiah growing up in obscure Nazareth? Oh yes. What is insignificant in the world’s eyes is significant to God.

Now if that is true, what about those of us who do not live in our great metropolis or indeed in another major city today? Who cares about these places? God does. Let others write off the places we live in. God doesn’t. He cares about them and has plans for them.

For our part, let us be open to God’s leading in the places where he has called us to serve him. Let us be modern-day Josephs, attentive to the voice of God in our lives, especially in the Scriptures.

People who know their Methodist history should get this. We make a lot of the fact that John and Charles Wesley grew up in Epworth in Lincolnshire. For many years, we even had a publishing house named after Epworth. But who would have heard of Epworth were it not for the Wesleys? God had other ideas, just as he did for Nazareth.

What does God want to do here, and who does he want to raise up as his servants in this place, who might even go on to have a wider influence for Christ?

Let us be on the lookout.

[1] Craig S Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, p109.

[2] Keener, p111.

[3] Keener, p113.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Keener, pp113f for this and what follows.

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A Brief Sermon For Christmas Eve: Unto Us A Son Is Born, Isaiah 9:2-7 (Advent In Isaiah finale)

Isaiah 9:2, 6-7

RHS Wisley ‘Glow’ event, 3rd December 2020. Image copyright (C) Dave Faulkner.

Merry Christmas. I guess some of us could do with a Merry Christmas this year. It might be because of the national and international situation. The cost of living. Having to work longer before retirement. The difficulty of getting on the housing ladder. The threat of AI taking people’s jobs.

Or it might be that a Merry Christmas would cheer us up in the face of personal circumstances. A loved one has a serious illness. Family troubles.

Are we too ‘The people walking in darkness’ that Isaiah spoke of? It certainly feels like it at times.

The people of Judah in Isaiah’s day had all sorts of political troubles. They feared invasion by Assyria, who had already taken over the northern kingdom of Israel. And it was worse for them, because they had no way of voting in a new government. Imagine what good news it is to hear Isaiah saying that ‘The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.’

And Isaiah describes the one who is that great light:

6 For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

If the government were to be on his shoulders, they will think this is a political leader, a king. But they will be disappointed. No king in their day fulfils these hopes. Just like us, they pin their hopes on politicians, only to be let down.

The prophecy is only fulfilled in Jesus. He came as the hope of Israel. He is our hope, too. He is the

Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

But what do those titles mean? And what do they mean for us?

Well, they go in pairs. The Wonderful Counsellor is the Mighty God, and the Everlasting Father is the Prince of Peace.

Firstly, the Wonderful Counsellor is the Mighty God:

The word ‘counsellor’ here doesn’t so much mean an adviser or someone who listens to your problems. It is to do with someone who makes plans. It is a ‘wonder planner.’[1] The mighty God makes wonderful plans for his people.

And you might be cynical about that, especially if you are going through bad times.

But let me tell you about someone who went through terrible times but still had faith in this God. Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch woman who, along with her father Casper and sister Betsy, in World War Two, hid Jews from the Nazis. When they were discovered, they were arrested. Casper died ten days later. The sisters were put in a concentration camp. Betsy died there. Corrie survived.

After the war, she spoke widely and wrote about her experiences and her faith in those dark times. Towards the end of her life, she said she had lived by the promises of God in the Bible while in the concentration camp and found them all to be true. She observed,

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off.[2]

One of her most famous quotes about God is this:

There is no pit so deep, that He is not deeper still.

She lived and died by that faith. She knew that the good plans of the mighty God for her were seen in Jesus, who came into the darkness of this world, and even died unjustly. But God worked for good in that.

Are you in a deep pit in your life? I invite you to trust Jesus, who is deeper than your pit. God sent him to be with you, to be alongside you by his Spirit, and to bring hope and light in your darkness.

Secondly, the Everlasting Father is the Prince of Peace:

How do we Christians understand the title ‘Everlasting Father’ when Jesus is not God the Father but God the Son? ‘Everlasting Father’ here is an extravagant ancient description of a king’s relationship with his people[3]. The king who ultimately fulfils Isaiah’s prophecy will be the Prince of Peace.

And that is Jesus. ‘Peace on earth, goodwill to all on whom his favour rests.’

Do you need peace in your life? Perhaps you feel you can never be forgiven for something that has left you with deep shame. Jesus can resolve that. He died on the Cross for you. Nothing is too big for him.

Perhaps you are dealing with the pain of broken relationships. Jesus can help. He can show the way to reconciliation through forgiveness, bearing one another’s burdens, and a commitment to truth and justice. And if the other parties will not respond, he can hold you in the certainty of his love.

Or maybe you are worried by the state of the world, as warmongers and aggressive and violent national leaders take centre stage. We can’t control the actions of others, although we can pray. We know that if those who made a lot of their support for Christianity would actually follow Jesus, things would be different. In the meantime, this too is another case of there being no pit so deep that Jesus isn’t deeper still. He will hold us in the storm.

And one day, as the mighty king, he will put all things right.

Conclusion

I don’t want to give you a long address in a Christmas Eve service. But I do want us all to know as we head towards Christmas Day that Jesus is the best present ever. We can begin and have a lifetime of unwrapping all that he is.  

[1] John Goldingay, Isaiah (New International Biblical Commentary), p73.

[2] Corrie ten Boom quotes sourced at https://explainingthebible.com/corrie-ten-boom-quotes/

[3] Goldingay, p72.

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A Brief Address For A Carol Service: Immanuel, God With Us (Advent In Isaiah 4, Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25)

Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25

There’s a story I tell sometimes that some of the church regulars may recognise. If you do, I just ask you to smile in the right places.

Source: Pexels (Public Domain)

Before I met my lovely wife Debbie, I had a broken engagement. Or, as my sister called it, a narrow escape.

One lunchtime while I was still grieving the end of the relationship, two friends of mine called Kate and Sue turned up on my doorstep. “We’ve come to take you out for a pub lunch,” they announced.

When we got to the pub, they explained why they wanted to take me out. Before each of them had met their husbands, they too had been through broken engagements. They had a good idea how I would be feeling.

And because of that, they were able to come alongside me in my sorrow in ways other people couldn’t.

For me, this is a picture of what Jesus does for us. The Christmas story says he is called Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’ God takes on human flesh. He is born into modest, if not downright poor circumstances. He lives as one of a nation suffering an occupying army from a powerful empire. He dies an unjust death.

Perhaps you are troubled by personal circumstances or what’s happening in our world. Figures say inflation is down, but the prices we are paying, especially for our food, seem to be a lot higher. How many of us have had to rethink our Christmas meal because bird flu means a turkey is too expensive? More seriously, how many of us are struggling with affording just the basics? Many will be choosing between food, heating, and presents this year.

Or look at the world. Will members of our younger generations have to fight in a war? Some nations are becoming more aggressive. Others think they only become great again when they put others down. It all feels very uncertain and unstable.

And that’s without terrorists shooting people on a beach, a man with a violent temper driving into football supporters, a nine-year-old girl stabbed to death and a fifteen-year-old boy charged with her murder, and numerous other horrific stories that fill our news sources.

I think God knew we needed someone to come alongside us. Someone who would embrace the human condition and experience it from its very best to its utter worst.

Because that’s what the birth, life, and death of Jesus are about. Immanuel, God with us, comes alongside us in the joys and sorrows of life. He knows from the inside what they are like and what they mean to us.

Immanuel, God with us. That’s what each of us can have when we invite Jesus into our lives. With us in the trials of life. With us in the joys of life. With us when we’re just plodding along, too.

Immanuel, God with us, who knows our hopes and fears, our doubts and faith from the inside of human existence himself.

My friends Kate and Sue helped me by their example to know God was with me in the disappointment at the time of that broken engagement. I have gone through the struggles of bereavement and then found he was there with me. In the bleakness of depression, I have found God there at the bottom of the pit with me. Not judging me, like some would, but holding me.

He can come close to any one of us. When Jesus was on earth, he could only be physically present with a limited number of people at a time. Now, he comes to us by his Spirit, and that means he can with all of us simultaneously.

Wouldn’t it be your best Christmas present ever if you asked Jesus into your life?

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Joy-Bringer, Isaiah 35:1-10 Advent With Isaiah 3 (Advent 3 Year A)

Isaiah 35:1-10

One popular Christmas carol, especially among American Christians, is ‘Angels we have heard on high.’ Its first verse reads,

Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly singing o’er the plains
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their joyous strains
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Unfortunately, one source of the music misprinted ‘Echoing their joyous strains’ as ‘Echoing their joyous trains.’

Source unknown. From the Church Service Typos group on Facebook.

I don’t suppose anyone who commutes would readily think of ‘joyous trains.’ I know my wife didn’t on Thursday evening when her train from Waterloo didn’t initially have a driver, when the passengers were told to disembark to find another train, only then to be told to stay on board. They left twenty-seven minutes late. Joyous trains, indeed.

But if the trains were transformed, that truly would be reason for joy.

The theme this week is ‘Joy’ but it is connected with transformation. So maybe a better title might be, ‘Joy in Transformation.’ These verses in Isaiah give five examples of the transformation the coming Messiah will bring, which lead to joy. It was something the southern kingdom of Judah needed to hear, nervous as the nation was due to the military power of Assyria, which had already conquered the northern kingdom of Israel.

But as so often in Isaiah, we shall see that no earthly king could completely fulfil the prophecy. Even with Jesus, the true Messiah, he would begin the transformational work prophesied, but it will only come to complete fruition with his return in glory.

However, in the meantime, in our in-between time, these point to our work for God’s kingdom today. There are five arenas for joy in the reading; I shall deal with each one briefly.

Firstly, joy for the desert:

The desert and the parched land will be glad;
    the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom;
    it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
    the splendour of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
    the splendour of our God.

In the Middle East, the people know all about parched deserts in the heat. But God will restore life to the desert as he breaks the drought and beautiful plants bloom and flourish there.

Our droughts today are often caused by our failure as the human race to fulfil the command we were given when God created us: namely to rule over the created order wisely on his behalf. Instead of caring for it, we have exploited it. Now we pay the consequences – but worse, it is the poorer nations who are suffering first and most.

As Christians, we have common cause with those who are concerned for our environment. But we have a unique reason for being involved. It is that we are doing so as stewards of God’s creation, and as a prophetic sign that God will make all things new in his creation. We agree that the world is in a mess, but we engage out of a spirit of hope, not panic.

So let us engage in our creation care as an act of worship and of witness to the Messiah who will renew the earth. And if we listen carefully, we may catch the sound of the world rejoicing, too.

Secondly, joy for the fearful:

3 Strengthen the feeble hands,
    steady the knees that give way;
4 say to those with fearful hearts,
    ‘Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
    he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
    he will come to save you.’

At the time of the prophecy, Israel could well have been afraid of Assyria. But as we know, fear comes in many flavours. Fear of war. Fear of death. Fear of other people’s expectations. Fear of losing someone. The list of fears is long.

In the specific context, Isaiah promises that those who are afraid of wrongdoers can take heart, because God will judge the wicked who are scaring them.

And yet there is still a universal application. It is often said – and I confess I have not checked the veracity of this – that the words, ‘Do not be afraid’ occur three hundred and sixty-five times in the Bible. One for every day of the year. You can have one day of fear in a leap year!

God does not want us paralysed by fear. He wants us animated by love. And so, he promises to banish the forces and the people that cause us to fear. The life of the messianic age to come will not be characterised by fear. It will be an eternal age of love.

And if God promises that for us, we can ask ourselves, what can we do to help remove fear from the lives of other people? Sometimes we can banish the cause of fear. In other circumstances, we may not be able to do that, but we may be able to show how to live without fear when unwelcome things happen.

I know how easy it is to panic. My body goes into panic mode before my mind catches up with the truth. For me, God’s message of peace and love comes through human beings, not least my wife. There has been more than one occasion when people who didn’t like me in churches have made up false and malicious Safeguarding accusations against me. One time, my Superintendent phoned me and said, ‘Watch your back on Sunday morning.’ Debbie has helped me be anchored in truth when lies have flown about.

Thirdly, joy for the silenced:

5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
    and the mute tongue shout for joy.

There is more than one way of reading these words. Some take them literally as a promise of healing, and we saw in our Gospel reading from Matthew: Jesus did heal the blind, the deaf, and the lame. I wouldn’t want to deny that, nor the promise of full healing when Jesus comes again and makes all things new. I would encourage us to pray for the sick, just so long as we don’t treat chronically ill or disabled people purely as prayer projects rather than people with dignity. As the title of one book puts it, My Body Is Not A Prayer Request.

But I will say there is a wider meaning to these words. Why did I introduce this point as ‘joy for the silenced’? For this reason. Our English translations say at the end of the quote, ‘the mute tongue [will] shout for joy.’ But the words ‘for joy’ are not there in the Hebrew. The mute will shout. That’s it. People who have been silenced by those who oppress them find their voice in the kingdom of God. The persecuted are vindicated and set free. The people that society does not value are of great worth and significance to Jesus.

The early church did this by the way they gave importance to slaves and women. Jesus calls us too to value those who would not be elevated by our society. He longs for them to find their place in his family and his kingdom purposes. Let’s not evaluate people by worldly standards, but by the fact that they are loved and cherished by God in Jesus.

Fourthly, more joy for the desert:

Water will gush forth in the wilderness
    and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool,
    the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
    grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

We’re back in the wilderness, but to make a different point. This time, we see the conditions coming together so that life can flourish. Water to drink. Papyrus to make documents. Reeds to make household items.

In this context, artisans, craftsmen, and business can flourish. Their raw materials are plentiful again.

And so, I want to suggest to you that one way we can be a sign of the Messiah’s coming kingdom is by supporting human flourishing, including our local businesses.

Is that a Christian thing to do? I think so. Remember how later the people of Judah were taken into exile in Babylon. The prophet Jeremiah wrote a letter to the exiles. You can find it in Jeremiah 29. In that letter, he tells these Jews who have been separated from their own land and temple that were so vital to their understanding of salvation that they were to seek the prosperity of the city to which they had been taken. Yes – even a pagan city. Go and bless the pagans, says Jeremiah: it is a sign of God’s covenant love.

Let’s cultivate our relationships with local shops and businesses. Not only by giving them our custom, but that when we do so we take an interest in them and we build relationships with them. I have known ecumenical groups of churches in a village take boxes of chocolates to every business in that village at Christmas, with a card thanking them for all they do, and offering to pray for them if they would like it.

Which shops, businesses, or community groups do you appreciate here? Can you bless them? I’m sure you can. Maybe it will provoke questions.

Fifthly and finally, joy for the temple:

8 And a highway will be there;
    it will be called the Way of Holiness;
    it will be for those who walk on that Way.
The unclean will not journey on it;
    wicked fools will not go about on it.
9 No lion will be there,
    nor any ravenous beast;
    they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
10     and those the Lord has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
    everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
    and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

The highway of holiness, on which only the redeemed and not the unclean may walk, is surely the road to the temple in Jerusalem.

This reminds us that when Jesus is present among his people, there is joy. Yes, of course we will be reverent: I am not calling for some religious chumminess with God. But for all that, to have the Messiah in our midst will be a cause for joy and it will reflect in the way we are together in worship and in the sharing of our lives together. With Jesus, church is to be a place of joy.

Today, we only have that experience of Jesus by the presence of his Spirit within us and in our midst. But part of the fruit of the Spirit is joy! And one day, we shall all be together in the presence of Jesus and his Father, too.

It’s nice that we look forward to seeing our friends at church. But that doesn’t make us any different from anyone else. Do we have a sense of joy that Jesus will be present with us, and indeed that we are each bringing him with us to our gathering? That is what the messianic community is like.

Conclusion

Joy to the world, we sing at this time of year, the Lord is come. And when the Lord comes, there is joy. Joy for the broken, joy for God’s people and joy for all creation.

And when he comes again, the joy will be magnified and sorrow banished.

Let us, the followers of Jesus, then, also be joy-bringers.

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Regime Change, Isaiah 11:1-10 (Advent With Isaiah, 2) Advent 2 Year A

Isaiah 11:1-10

Here are some extracts from a friend’s Facebook post:

3 WISEMEN KILLED ATTEMPTING TO ENTER U.S.

(Bethlehem) The 3 Wisemen were killed attempting to enter the U.S. early this morning. They were still hundreds of miles away from the actual border, but the White House determined there wasn’t time to actually investigate their suspicions.

A White House spokesperson said, “We could tell from the satellite photos that these were bad people. They had gold (probably stolen), myrrh and something that was possibly fentanyl.  It was hard to tell from the picture, but the President knew just enough to kill them without an actual investigation.”

…

Also arrested were two immigrants named Joseph and Mary, an unnamed child, and an angel. The White House elaborated, “We can tell you that the two suspects were trying to check into a hotel. When asked if they were married, they responded that they were “betrothed.” We can’t have people flaunting Christian moral conventions at this sacred time of the year.

“The undocumented mother was also secretly recorded as saying “(God) has brought down rulers from their thrones, and has lifted up the humble. God has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” That sounds like communism, pure and simple. These were probably Antifa terrorists.”

I could read you much more, but I don’t have time!

In amidst all our cosy preparations, with Christmas adverts that tug at the heart-strings like this year’s Waitrose ad, we miss the fact that the coming of the Messiah is much more messy and radical. And I don’t mean the mess in the manger.

It’s about regime change.

Sometimes, we get so fed up with our leaders we want change. Maybe we don’t do it like some powerful nations do, where they act nefariously in another country to change the leadership. But look at last year’s General Election here. Broadly speaking, the country was so fed up with the Conservatives that people voted for anyone who wasn’t Conservative. It wasn’t so much a vote for, as a vote against. No wonder the Labour majority was called a ‘loveless landslide.’

In the ancient world, of course the general population didn’t have a say, but kings were replaced and sometimes entire dynasties were removed. It was their version of regime change.

Isaiah 11 proposes the most radical regime change of all. A regime change that brings in the Messiah. Verse 1:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

Not even a shoot from the stump of David, for he was far from perfect. An adulterer, it not actually a rapist, and a murderer. The greatest king of all had his faults. Instead, Isaiah prepares us to sing

Hail to the Lord’s Anointed,
Great David’s greater Son![1]

So what will characterise the much-needed Messiah, who alone can bring true regime change?

Three qualities:

Firstly, wisdom:

2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him –
    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and of might,
    the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord –
3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

Do you recognise these words? We have adapted them for the laying-on of hands at Confirmation and Reception into Membership of the Methodist Church. The minister prays this for the candidates:

By your power and grace, Lord,
strengthen these your servants,
that they may live as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.
Increase in them your gifts of grace,
and fill them with your Holy Spirit:
            the Spirit of wisdom and understanding;
            the Spirit of discernment and inner strength;
            the Spirit of knowledge, holiness, and awe.[2]

And doubtless we expect the Holy Spirit to impart these qualities: wisdom, understanding, discernment, inner strength, knowledge, holiness, and awe. I’m sure it’s right to expect that.

Wisdom: Public Domain Pictures

But there is a specific context to these qualities of wisdom in Isaiah 11. All of the qualities he lists – wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, the knowledge and fear of the Lord – are lacking in the people of Judah and also of their enemies, such as Assyria. There are various quotes in the preceding two or three chapters that illustrate this.[3]

The Messiah is the One who brings true godly wisdom without lack – we might say it’s wisdom, the whole wisdom, and nothing but the wisdom of God.

When Jesus comes and begins his ministry in the power of the Spirit, we see this without a shadow of a doubt. In Matthew’s Gospel, there are five blocks of Jesus’ teaching, reinforcing the fact that here is the ‘One greater than Moses’ who was prophesied, given that there are five books colloquially known as ‘The Five Books of Moses’ in the Old Testament.

We can gain wisdom from other sources, but nothing is like the wisdom of Jesus. It’s why our high church friends stand for the Gospel reading in worship. They are saying, here is the centre of divine wisdom and revelation in the life and teaching of Jesus.

If we believe we are living under the regime change of the Messiah (which Christians are as citizens of God’s kingdom) then there is a clear application of this truth to us. To honour Jesus as the coming Messiah, our calling is to immerse ourselves in the wisdom of his teaching and commit ourselves to following it more fully.

For that, we too will need the Spirit – just as even Jesus himself, the Son of God, did, at his baptism.

If we are citizens of the coming kingdom, then this is what we do.

Secondly, justice:

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
    or decide by what he hears with his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
    with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
    with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness will be his belt
    and faithfulness the sash round his waist.

Justice. We all want that, don’t we? Our governments should deliver justice. Just so long as we are the ones who are in the right, and those we don’t like are condemned. And we’d like just to leave us feeling comfortable.

Lady Justice Silhouette: Public Domain Pictures

If those are our hopes, then the justice of the Messiah’s regime change will not be what we want. He will bless the poor and the needy (verse 4) – well, that won’t be so great for those of who are used to living with comfort and privilege. For to elevate them, to give them what they need and what is rightfully theirs will means less for us.

And as for all that uncouth talk about striking the earth with the rod of his mouth and slaying the wicked with the breath of his mouth – oh, we don’t like all that violent stuff, do we? Isn’t this one of those parts of the Bible we’d rather strike out? Where’s gentle Jesus, meek and mild? Where’s inclusive Jesus in that?

Or let’s be honest: where’s nice, cosy, liberal, middle-class Jesus?

I’m sorry: he doesn’t exist.

But show passages like these and the similar ones in Revelation that we like to dismiss as altogether too gory to those who are suffering for their faith, and they will rejoice in them. Through the Messiah, God will put things right! If we believe in a God of justice, we must not deny that he will deal with the impenitent.

However, it will be delayed. When Jesus comes and gives his manifesto as Messiah to the synagogue at Nazareth in Luke 4, he reads from Isaiah 61, but he stops before it goes on to talk about ‘the day of vengeance of our God.’ That is coming, but not yet.

Why? Because in his mercy, the Messiah offers the opportunity for even the most reprehensible to repent and amend their ways.

But Jesus is indeed coming to bring good news for the poor. He is coming, as his mother prophesied in the Magnificat, to bring down rulers from their thrones, lift up the humble, fill the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. This is what regime change under the Messiah looks like.

And so again, our duty as citizens of that coming kingdom can be stated very simply, even if it is challenging to implement. It is to advocate for the poor and challenge the powerful.

Thirdly and finally, peace:

6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
    the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
    and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear,
    their young will lie down together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
    and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

The thought of peace between different animals is appealing. As you know, we are dog lovers, and our cocker spaniel can be a bit of a grumpy old man with other animals, especially other dogs, and most notably on his night-time walk. There’s something about the dark. We have taken to referring to one other dog on our estate as ‘Enemy Dog’, because ours has taken a particular dislike to the red flashing light he wears on his collar at night. The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf, the lion, and the yearling together? I’d vote for that.

Sadly, we’re dealing with prophetic imagery here rather than a literal prediction. As John Goldingay, the scholar I cited last week, says here:

Context suggests that the talk of harmony in the animal world is a metaphor for harmony in the human world. … A literal interpretation of verses 6-8 would also have difficulty in explaining how wolves and leopards can remain themselves if they lie down with lambs and goats.[4]

So what is the metaphor saying? Goldingay again:

The strong and powerful live together with the weak and powerless because the latter can believe that the former are no longer seeking to devour them.[5]

The Messiah brings together and reconciles the strong and the weak, the powerful and the powerless. They are not divided, they are family. No-one takes advantage of anyone else. What matters in relationships is everybody’s well-being. The ‘goodwill to all on whom God’s favour rests’ that the angels spoke about to the shepherds becomes ‘goodwill among all’.

Peace dove: Wikimedia Commons CC 2.0

What does this sound like? Well, to me it sounds like what Jesus always intended his church to be. The redeemed community, the colony of God’s kingdom, is to be the place where the rich and the poor, the highly educated and the barely literate, Europeans, Africans and Asians, the neurotypical and the neurodivergent, old and young, male and female, all care for one another and promote each other’s welfare. Because that’s what Jesus does. That’s the sort of society the Messiah builds.

And imagine not only enjoying a fellowship like that (even though it entails hard and painful work at times). Imagine also inviting someone in to experience it, and being able to say, this is what life is like when Jesus is in charge.

Indeed, this is what regime change under Messiah Jesus brings.

[1] James Montgomery (1771-1854)

[2] Methodist Worship Book, p100.

[3] John Goldingay, Isaiah (New International Biblical Commentary), p84.

[4] Op. cit., pp 85, 88.

[5] p85.

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