Joseph and the shepherds

Just this week I found again my copy Godfrey Rust's Breaking Chains. I heard him give some of his poetry at a memorable evening years ago.  So much imagination to provoke minds and hearts!  Let me quote the last part of his poem on Joseph and the Shcpherds. (This is not the formatting Godfrey Rust gave the poem and that I tried to follow....but my blog post had other ideas.  Still, you can work through its theme!)

No room at the inn. No room anywhere,                                                                                                They gave him the only place they could spare                                                                                            and the promised Messiah was born that night                                                                                          on the floor of a stable without any light                                                                                              where they cut the cord and cleaned up the mess                                                                                          and wrapped him in somebody's workaday dress                                                                                    and while Mary slept there exhausted and cold,                                                                                  Joseph sat by feeling  helpless and old.                                                                                                  This wasn't the way he had thought it would be                                                                                        when the angel had told him that destiny                                                                                              chose them to look after the Holy One.                                                                                                    No, this was a farce. What God had done                                                                                                    was to trust the care of the Saviour instead                                                                                                  to a man who could not even find him a bed.                                                                                              If only he'd planned it more carefully then.                                                                                                  If he only could go back and do it again.                                                                                                  He turned round in his mind the way he had blundered -                                                                        then he looked at the infant and suddenly wondered                                                                                  If it was all a lie, if he was a fool                                                                                                              and the object of everyone's ridicule,                                                                                                          if the dreams of the angels were tricks and not                                                                                      what they promised to be, and his anger grew hot                                                                                when the shepherds burst in all breathless and wild                                                                                and stopped in their tracks when they saw the child.                                                                              They shifted their gaze from the baby's bed                                                                                              and their eyes met his, and he nodded his head,                                                                                standing awkwardly, not knowing quite what to do                                                                                      now they all knew the for certain the story was true.                                                                            They stayed there for minutes. It might have been years,                                                                        Not one of them spoke. Their hopes and their fears                                                                                were gathered around this helpless God                                                                                                      as their minds tried to grasp what it meant. Where he stood                                                                    Joseph was silent as finally                                                                                                                        he saw this was how it was planned to be,                                                                                                that the smell and the dark and the dirt and the pain                                                                                      were not Joseph's mistake but God's choice. As the rain                                                                          ran down on Bethlehem Joseph knew                                                                                                      that men would be saved despite all they might do.                                                                                  He could not control it. He did not understand.                                                                                        He felt like a baby himself in God's hand.                                                                                                He thought of his anger and flushed now with shame                                                                              He remembered the angel had said that his name                                                                                would be Jesus, God saves. He glanced up and saw                                                                                that the shepherds had gone. Day had Dawned.                                                                                    From the floor Mary looked at him, quizzical, on her straw bed.                                                            The tiny God-child cried out to be fed.                                                                                                Joseph moved to the business of the new day,                                                                                        gave the child to its mother, the donkey some hay.

Christmas Tree Decorations

Histon village has a Christmas Tree Festival where many different organizations share something about themselves by creating and decorating Christmas trees.  Our church was urged to take part this year by our minister's wife, who instructed us to be as imaginative as possible.. One member of the church made a wooden Christmas tree with another member painting on each limb descriptions of Jesus...Wonderful Counsellor, Prince of Peace etc.  And each of us was encouraged to make hanging decorations using anything that came to hand.  Like toilet rolls, we were told. 

So, invited to be imaginative, I purchased a couple of plain ceramic decorations from a craft shop. On one star shape I painted with acrylics our church building in the snow (which hasn't yet fallen...actually not for several Winters!)   It was bright and confident in a clumsy way.  Carol did at least seem to recognize it but asked me what I was going to paint on the other side which, honestly, I had thought of leaving blank.

On the reverse I therefore painted a blue sky with snowflakes falling.  But, alas, placing the decoration down to dry it went splat onto a patch of red paint.  Now our church building resembled an apocalyptic scene suggesting serious climate change. Of course I tried to paint over it. This effort plus a village scene on the second decoration were then diffidently offered.

We have just returned from visiting the festival.  What a riot of ideas and different decorations filled the Methodist church venue!   Yes, true imagination shown by so many different village organizations. And mercifully, our tree was bedecked by so many attractive decorations and mine lurked unobtrusively. Another lesson learned - beware wet paint, but try your best!

Saturday Surprise

Last Saturday morning as we were debating what Christmas shopping was still necessary the 'phone rang.  It was our minister warning me that his family had been stricken by a serious cold, especially his wife. and he felt it was now developing in his own system.  'Just to ask you, please stand by if I can't preach tomorrow.  I'll let you know definitely later! said he  cheerfully.  

Just finishing lunch he was on the 'phone again. 'Yes, please.  I am feeling worse and don't want to pass it on. The theme in my series is Gratitude with the Magnificat as the text.'  If he had asked me to work on a less well-known passage it would have been much more demanding.  But an opportunity to preach on such a great text genuinely thrilled me.  Suddenly, Saturday afternoon, sitting at my lap top I was thrust into the joy of preparation.  I say joy...because not only does Mary's song (Luke 1:46-55) begin with such wonder and gratitude but she foretells in revolutionary language what the ministry of Jesus will bring.

Someone wrote to me and asked whether I used old material.  Well, not exactly, but I remember preaching on these verses as Jesus the Great Leveller - levelling DOWN the proud with haughty thoughts, kings with absolute power, the rich with self satisfaction and levelling UP the lowly, and the hungry,  ( Have you heard the expression 'levelling up' recently?) 

I believe so much in the promise of God's Holy Spirit to work with the preacher (and it helps that I have had a few decades of practice) but when I preached I sensed how God had used those few hours of preparation.  I cannot recommend leaving sermon writing until the Saturday before but I was so glad to experience God's grace in action. Anyone who would like to see it - it's short (19 mins.) - and you can find it on Histon Baptist Church web site. Just google the church's name, hit the church site, move cursor to resources and go down to sermons!   Blessings!

Off-centre sparklet 5) You are not your own ( 1 Cor. 6:19)

This is the last I am taking from John Hutton's book.  He recognizes these words 'You are not your own' belong in a passage about sexual immorality but he sees it as a big principle on which to stand.  That we can never act as though we are independent of one another and certainly of Jesus Christ.

He concludes by including the next words in 1 Cor. 6:20. We are not our own, for we are bought with a price even the passion and sacrifice of our Holy Redeemer...It is not a matter to argue about.  If you do not feel that so it is then in the meantime nothing more is to be said. I am quite sure that if any of us knew all the love, all the care, that a loving mother had felt for us, all the pain she bore for us first and last, we should feel it as our deepest act of honour to spare that mother the grief of a broken heart.

What St. Paul meant to say, I take it, was in effect just this: if people had only the imagination, the seriousness, the detachment from their own hot interests to see the Son of God, bending in Gethsemane, and bleeding on Calvary in order to bring God into our lives, they would understand the shamefulness of all careless and useless and sinful living; they would see that is was like striking Him on the cheek, crucifying afresh the Lord of life and putting Him to an open shame.

Off-centre sparklet 4) Hold fast (Heb 10:23)

This is a less off-centre two words!  Hold fast occurs several times in the AV and Hutton particularly focuses on Heb 10:23: Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering.  He begins: The first word of God to us is always 'believe'; the second and last word of God to is is 'hold fast' 'hold on', 'endure' to the end. At first we may need no extra motivation but as we get older, or certain things happen, the pull of circumstance can be away'.

He warns how easily we can drift from early enthusiasm in matters of the soul...to grow cold,...at least cool and careless...to become tired of the strain, of the little duty here and the little scruple there and the little self-denial all the time....the danger of becoming indifferent, becoming less easily excited...yielding ourselves to the powers of decay and death which threaten our thoughts and religious principles long before we die.

To this depressing reality he says: First,  be forewarned: 'When this happens the need has come for us to think, to deal firmly with our own moods and half-formed purposes'.  Be put on our guard.

And second, remember how Heb 10:23 ends 'for he is faithful that promised.'  If this fails everything fails. Jesus will never let us go as we hold fast.

I am reminded of the words Spurgeon took as his Latin motto for his college: Et teneo Et teneor - 'I hold and I am held'.  The two sides of God's grace in action.  That he holds onto us in his faithful love yet needs us to hold fast too.

Off-centre sparklet 3) At that time (Matt. 11:25)

I know I mentioned some statistics and my discouragement..,...but I am easily cheered up by humans!  Just a couple of people said try again!  So I have with these three words: AT THAT TIME.  Who would base a sermon on these?  

Jesus is about to praise his Father because he has hidden truths from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children.  Matt. 11:25 begins 'at that time',  For John Hutton these words are worth pondering.

First, it's 'as though it were just then and not before that Jesus reached a new understanding of his future. The whole passage bears the interpretation that, just there and at a certain point our Lord saw clearly and accepted it as the will of God....that his message would find a welcome NOT in all hearts'. Was it part of Jesus' experience that setting out with happy confidence that people only needed to hear his words about God to accept them with joy he was later amazed at people's unbelief and rejection?  And at this time it breaks in how God's truths are hidden from some self-confident people.  This is the moment of learning a new truth as he praises God. Jesus was living and learning.  And so are we.

Second, he challenges about us seeing the principle that 'truth lies not upon the surface of things, but always beneath the surface, and nearer to the centre.' True, there is much 'darkness to dishearten careless people...but at the same time there is light enough for those who are patient and humble and sincere.'  And this principle means that we must keep awake. "The true purpose of life is that there shall remain alive within us a reverent and awakened attitude, our reach ever beyond our grasp.'

You never know what fresh truth will break into your life. 

Statistics!

It's (somewhat cynically) said that statistics is the art of never having to say you are wrong. There's a BBC radio programme called "More or Less" which examines the veracity of statistical claims and it is fascinating when experts drill down into the realities behind headline statistics to discover how misleading they can sometimes be.

However, with my blog I have daily statistics about viewings.  I cannot be sure how they stand up to a reality check but I have had to take it seriously when my last postings received zilch viewers day after day. I had wondered whether I was beginning a lively series of 'off-centre sparklets.' Certainly it would pump a little life into some of these volumes of old sermons before they are pulped.  But the statistics have brought down to earth.  So, I bury this idea. 

But what else could I move onto next  that might create more interest?  I have been thinking about an all together different theme on growing older successfully/ So, perhaps that will appear shortly.  Perhaps!