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.
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?
Today, on a day when one of my churches celebrates its Church Anniversary, is a good day to consider the theme of God’s faithfulness. ‘Great is thy faithfulness,’ indeed. And when we come to the Lectionary today with Psalm 23 about the Lord being our shepherd and we also read from John 10 where Jesus is the good shepherd, we have an appropriate theme for considering God’s faithfulness. The Lord, our Good Shepherd, is the epitome of divine faithfulness.
And as we reflect on that now, we are going to recognise God’s faithfulness in the past, present, and future. Yes, Psalm 23 is written to express these truths to individuals, but they also work in terms of God’s faithful love to his people corporately, the church.
Firstly, we consider God’s faithfulness in our anxiety:
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.
As I wondered over the last few days what held some seemingly different ways here in which God provides for our needs, I came to the conclusion that the common thread was that these were all situations that can promote anxiety in us, but that God in his faithfulness gives us what we need, our anxiety subsides, and we learn to trust more in him.
Anxiety is there when we lack something, be it necessary income or food. I know that when my grandfather was out of work for five years in the depression of the 1930s, my grandmother would go without a meal herself for the sake of the children and would be on her knees praying that God would provide what they needed as a family. We know there were times when even at the very time she was praying someone would anonymously leave a food parcel by the front door.
Today, we live in a world of anxiety. You will all have seen the discussions in the media about the rise in mental health issues, especially since the Covid pandemic and particularly among younger people. Prescriptions of the relevant drugs are on the increase, and costing the NHS more, leading some politicians to make cruel statements about over-diagnosis of certain conditions.
It is something I recognise in myself. When something troubling happens, my body reacts in negative ways before my mind gets the chance to analyse whether the presenting issue really is so bad after all and whether there is a solution anyway.
We are not immune from a corporate anxiety in the church, as we worry about the future.
It is surely, though, part of the Good News we offer to the world as the church today that the Lord our Good Shepherd is faithful to us in our anxiety.
In recent weeks, the Bible Society released a report that claimed there was what they called a ‘quiet revival’ of faith among young adults. There are probably many reasons for this, including a rebellion against the atheism of their parents. But could it also be true that as they were notably afflicted by the anxiety of the Covid pandemic as I said, that a Gospel which emphasises a Good Shepherd who is faithful to the anxious, who enables them to cast all their cares on him, is appealing to them?
So on a day when we rejoice in God’s faithfulness to us, let us consider how that might be a relevant message to new generations.
Secondly, we consider God’s faithfulness in our darkness:
4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Now I know we’re used to hearing not the words ‘the darkest valley’ but ‘the valley of the shadow of death’, but ‘the darkest valley’ is increasingly thought to be the best translation, and that surely includes ‘the valley of the shadow of death.’ In the very darkest times of life, the psalmist says, God is with me and he comforts me. For the psalmist, the experience of darkness does not mean that the light is absent. Jesus the Light of the World is still present with us even at the worst of times. No wonder we often read this psalm at funerals.
Perhaps this is one of the deepest examples of the fact that Jesus is Immanuel, ‘God with us’, as the Christmas stories tell us. He came to share human life, and did so to the very worst, when he suffered that cruel and unjust death on the cross. And because he was later raised from the dead, he can be with us in our darkness.
And that is the simple promise: he is with us. Often in our dark times that’s all we want and all we need. Clever explanations can wait. The people who come up to us and blithely tell us that everything happens for a reason are no help at all. What we need is presence. And we get that from Jesus, the Good Shepherd.
We may say, ‘But God is silent!’ Yet he may be the silent friend who is just sitting with us in our sorrows. Are they not sometimes the best comforters? But simply by being there, Jesus the Good Shepherd is our comfort. He does not have to shout from the rooftops, and if he did we would probably not be able to cope with it. For his presence now shows that he has conquered death, and in our bleakest time that may be all we need to know.
You may have heard preachers talk about the medieval mystic Mother Julian of Norwich. In her lifetime she witnessed the devastation of the Black Death, and at one time, around the age of 30, she was so ill she thought she was on her deathbed. But she recovered – or was healed – and afterwards wrote down her account of some visions she received from God when she was close to death. Out of that experience came perhaps her most famous words: ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’
That is the testimony of one who knew the presence of the faithful Good Shepherd in the darkest valley.
And that too is part of what we proclaim to the world. Jesus suffered and died in the very worst way, but he was raised from the dead, and will faithfully accompany all who trust in him in even the worst seasons of their lives.
Thirdly and finally, we consider God’s faithfulness in our mistreatment:
I’m avoiding the word ‘persecution’ here. It is that for millions of our brothers and sisters around the world, but for those of us in the west, the opposition that comes our way is really not strong enough or fundamental enough to warrant the word ‘persecution.’ So I have settled on ‘mistreatment’: that may not be a perfect word, but I hope you get my sense, when the psalmist says,
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
We do face opposition and ridicule, and occasionally some forms of discrimination because of our faith. Many older Christians grew up in a society where there was more common acceptance of values that had some connection to the Christian faith, even if the faith was only honoured more in the breach. But that common acceptance and understanding has not been present in our society now for some decades. So it shouldn’t be surprising that when we are explicitly faithful to Jesus Christ today, that will sometimes attract enemies to us.
What we have here is that in the face of the ridicule and humiliation that comes with being treated unjustly for our faith, Jesus the Good Shepherd in his faithfulness to us honours us. That’s why there is a table for us in the presence of our enemies. That’s why the psalmist speaks of having his head anointed with oil: that was what happened to the honoured guest at a banquet.
So, when elements of the world turn against us – and they will, from time to time – God in his faithfulness still dignifies us with honour. He values our costly witness. He is proud of us when we stand up for him and it hurts. He knows when we have paid a price to stay faithful, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.
Naturally, we would like the situation remedied. Sometimes we shall get justice in this life, but not always. If what happens is we simply get the strength to stay true to Jesus under duress, we can be sure that there is another and greater banquet coming in God’s New Creation when he will prepare a feast for us and honour those who have continued to say yes to Jesus even in the most demanding circumstances.
In conclusion, what is our response? The final verse of the psalm gives us a pointer:
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Here we have in summary this promise that the Good Shepherd will faithfully continue to be with us, as his goodness and love pursue us. The believer ‘will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever’ – that is, we shall do all we can in response to live in the presence of God. Yes, God pursues us, but also yes, we pursue God in gratitude for his faithful love. In worship, prayer, and Scripture, both together on Sundays and in small groups, and on our own during the week we seek to draw close to the presence of our faithful God.
But not only that: the ‘house of the Lord’ language should not deceive us into thinking this is purely in the context of the church building or merely of overtly religious practices. Since Jesus is accessible everywhere since the Resurrection and Ascension, we can live in his presence everywhere, too. And so our pursuit of the God who has already pursued us is an activity and a discipline that we follow not only in the church but also in the world. Yes, we ask, how would Jesus want me to love him in the church, but also, yes, how would Jesus want me to love him in the world?
From time to time, I have told you little episodes from the bigger story of how God led me to an Anglican theological college in Bristol when I was exploring what my sense of calling was.
A significant part of that story concerns the fact that in those days we were still in the time of educational grants for further education. My Local Education Authority turned me down for a grant.
I lodged an appeal against that decision. The college gave me a deadline to guarantee to them that I had the funds for my first year.
Forty-eight hours before their deadline expired, I learned that I had lost my appeal.
Forty-eight hours to go, and no money. Of course, I had been saving every month, but on its own it was nothing like enough for tuition and accommodation.
You can imagine that in that situation I started to wonder whether I was called to college after all. I had a collection of all sorts of notes of Bible verses, things trusted friends had said to me, and passages from books that had jumped out at me, which collectively pointed the same way.
But now it was all collapsing. Like I said, forty-eight hours to go and no money.
I’m sure you can see some similarities with the story of John the Baptist here.
He has been so sure of his calling. He has preached his heart out, without fear or favour. He has heralded his cousin Jesus as the Messiah.
But no longer. He’s in prison. Soon he will be executed. And so our reading begins,
2 When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples 3 to ask him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’
Note how two things here conspire to lead to John’s sense of doubt. One is that he’s in prison. The other is that he asks these questions ‘When … he heard about the deeds of the Messiah’. It’s as if what he hears Jesus is up to doesn’t fit with his ideas of the Messiah’s job description.
You wouldn’t think that someone with John the Baptist’s calling would be so full of doubts, but he is. The negative circumstances push in on him and create doubt.
Does that in any way sound familiar? Are there bad events in your life that have had an effect on your faith? The loss of a job which had seemed so right for you. An early bereavement. A child going off the rails. A significant injustice. A beloved church leader falling into serious sin. A great dream for your life manifestly not coming to fruition.
If you are struggling in some way like that this Advent, then consider with me what Jesus offers in this passage in response to John the Baptist’s dark night of the soul.
Two things. Firstly, focus on Jesus.
How does Jesus respond to John’s disciples when they come to him with their leader’s questions?
4 Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 6 Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.’
Look at what I’m doing, says Jesus. I’m fulfilling prophecy. This is straight from Isaiah 35, which is the Old Testament Lectionary reading paired with this Gospel reading.
Listen to Isaiah:
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.
It corresponds closely with what Jesus describes himself doing here, and other parts of what Jesus says here show him fulfilling parts of Isaiah 61.
And if you started singing ‘O for a thousand tongues’ when I read those words from Isaiah 35, then bonus points for you, because these were part of Charles Wesley’s inspiration for that hymn.
Now these were probably not the verses John the Baptist had in mind for his cousin Jesus. He had described his cousin in quite fierce terms at times, and he might have wanted to go just before the healing of the blind, the deaf, the lame, and the mute in Isaiah 35:5-6 to the preceding two verses where the hearers are told not to worry, because their God will come with vengeance.
And John might have expected Jesus to go beyond the part of Isaiah 61 about proclaiming the good news to the poor to subsequent verses that talk about the day of vengeance of our God.
But as we know, Jesus postpones the talk of vengeance to the Last Judgment. It is there in his teaching, but he is clear that his incarnation, which we celebrate at Christmas, is about coming with the offer of salvation.
I don’t know, but maybe John could have done with a bit of vengeance as he sat in the dungeon of Herod Antipas. Perhaps it was easy to lapse into that way of thinking given the popular expectation of a military Messiah.
But sometimes what helps us when we are in our metaphorical dungeon is to be able to see a different part of Jesus’ character or ministry. Essentially, that’s what Jesus does here. Roughly speaking, he says to the disciples of John, look at the evidence and see that I’ve come to bring the promised salvation. That’s what my advent is about.
There is always more to Jesus than we have fully appreciated. The part of Jesus’ ministry to which he refers the disciples of John may not be what helps when we are in darkness because a loved one has not been healed. At those times it may be the way Jesus embraced human suffering himself that brings light to our darkness. Or the wonder of the Resurrection may be what brings us hope when we walk in the valley of the shadow of death.
More Jesus is always a good thing. We might want to read the Gospels more fully. We might find that a trusted Christian friend leads us to the aspect of Jesus that we need to lift us during our troubles.
The late Dr W E Sangster, the famous minister at Westminster Central Hall, once wrote that the Gospel is like a many-faceted diamond. We need to find the facet that shines the Good News into our particular situation.
We could adapt that very slightly and say that Jesus too is a many-faceted diamond, and that we simply need to find the facet of his Person and Work that shines his light into our situation.
Secondly, focus on Jesus’ estimation of you.
7 As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 8 If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. 9 Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written:
‘“I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.”
11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Undoubtedly in Jesus’ eyes, John the Baptist was the one prophesied by Malachi to be like Elijah come again as the forerunner to the Messiah, or the messenger in Isaiah who prepares the way. In other words, he was someone who had a profoundly important rôle in God’s plans.
Yet matched with that greatness was the humility of his standing, where even the least in the kingdom of God was greater. John was familiar with the humility needed, for as he had said of Jesus, ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’
In other words, John was exactly who he thought he was before his crisis of faith. His call remains. God’s estimation of him remains.
How might this apply to us? I don’t know the calling of every individual who watches this video. I can’t even tell who watches it, only the overall numbers who do so.
But what I can say about all of you is that what hasn’t changed even when you had a crisis of faith, even when you doubted the very goodness of God, is that you remain beloved of him. You are still made in his image, carrying special dignity and responsibility for him in the world. You are still one for whom Jesus Christ came, lived, died, and rose again, that the barrier of sin between you and God might be removed and you be usefully employed in the service of his kingdom. You remain one whom your God will never forsake.
Your circumstances may make you question God’s love and God’s purposes for you. But remember that even Jesus expressed a sense of God-forsakenness on the Cross, and what could be darker than that? Yet his Faither brought him through that, using the Cross for good, and vindicating him in the Resurrection. Wait through your night for the dawn that God will bring.
Christ-followers do more than believe some things are true, they trust that SomeOne is here.
She goes on to say,
This is a heart-broken planet, but this is not a forsaken planet. …
What electrifies all the dark is that Emmanuel is with us, and the current of His love holds the power to transform the darkest parts of our story into light.
Big Circumstance 