Nathanael the mystery man

The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”

⁴⁴ Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

⁴⁶ “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.

“Come and see,” said Philip.

⁴⁷ When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

⁴⁸ “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.

Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

⁴⁹ Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

⁵⁰ Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” ⁵¹ He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.” John 1:43-51

 

It’s a puzzling little passage, these verses at the end of John 1, not least because of the enigmatic figure of Nathanael. Jesus mysteriously describes him as “truly an Israelite in whom is no deceit” (verse 47), and, perhaps even more mysteriously, gives him the promise that he “will see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (verse 51). Really? Can you imagine that? Strange.

 

What’s the background?

 

Jesus is out and about at the beginning of his ministry, overlapping with John the Baptist and calling his first apostles, the original twelve. Have you ever wondered, by the way, why half of them are hardly known to us from the Gospels? Certainly, most Christians will know about Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, and of course “doubting Thomas” and Judas Iscariot. But for the rest, well, they rather fade into a hazy cloud in our minds.

 

None more so than Nathanael. Verses 43-51 tell the story of his call, and make him a very real figure, with a particular stamp to his character (“truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit”); but we never meet him again until John 21:2, and even when we do he is no more than a name in a list. Again, strange!

 

If we go back to verse 29 and the ministry of John the Baptist, these events suggest certain fairly clear lessons that we can learn from and apply to ourselves today; but they also pose certain questions which leave us scratching our heads. Let’s start with the fairly clear lessons. I suggest two…

 

First, while not strictly about evangelism, “the passing on of the good news of Jesus from one person to another”, they can help us as we think about it.

 

Whole books, of course, are written about evangelism, and you can go on training courses to learn how to do it. These books and courses may contain real wisdom and important insights. But ultimately there are no set techniques or methods which pin everything down. Taking our cue from John 1, the simplest, and perhaps purest, form of evangelism is a kind of chain-reaction: as the song puts it, “One shall tell another, and he shall tell his friend…”. “Gossiping the Gospel”, it has been called.

 

The chain here starts with John the Baptist (verses 29-36), continues with Andrew, then goes on with Philip (verse 43).

 

Andrew repeats the process with his brother Simon Peter, whom Jesus renames “Cephas”, or “Peter”, meaning “Rock”. But it’s with Philip that Nathanael comes on the scene - Philip told Nathanael: “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law… Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph”.

 

True, Nathanael’s initial response is pretty sceptical: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” But his subsequent turn-around could hardly be quicker or more complete: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel”. Nathanael has certainly been evangelised!

 

So, the lesson for us…?

 

Christian, be ready to tell your personal story.

Both Andrew and Philip begin their message with the words “we have found…”, and if we are likewise ready to say to interested people “I have found… this is my experience…” that is likely to make more of an impact than quoting Bible verses or outlines of doctrine. (I recommend at this point five minutes spent reflecting on 1 Peter 3:15…) Let’s ask ourselves, then… First, have I got a story about Jesus to tell? And, second, am I ready to tell it?

 

A second lesson from the Nathanael story gives us a warning about prejudice.

 

I can’t help smiling every time I read of Nathanael’s response to Philip’s invitation. It’s as if he says: “Nazareth! Huh! Please don’t expect me to be impressed by that! Can anything good come out of that scrubby, backwoods little town? It’s never even mentioned in the Bible…”.

 

That is prejudice, pure and simple. And it’s something we can all be guilty of. I speak, as it happens, as someone who spent 20 very happy years of my life in a small heavy-industrial town called Scunthorpe, in Humberside.

 

Scunthorpe? Really? asks some smart, sceptical person. Yes, Scunthorpe! What’s your problem?

 

Twenty years is a hefty chunk of one’s life, and there were those who seemed to assume I would move on after four or five. But, looking back I don’t regret a minute. Twenty years of happy and satisfying ministry; one wife collected; two sons ushered into the world; some wonderful friends made; a host of warm memories stored away… I warn you; despise Scunthorpe at your peril! - you might end up with a punch on the nose (in Christian love, of course).

 

Being more serious, it’s clear that Nathanael is a blunt, plain-spoken man willing to air his prejudices. All right, his prejudice about Nazareth was pretty harmless and probably pretty common too. But… that isn’t always the case.

 

Prejudices come in all manner of forms. Someone belongs to the wrong religion, denomination or movement… they support the wrong football team… their skin is the wrong colour… their politics are hopelessly wrong… their taste in music is terrible… their dress-style is ridiculous…

 

There is a lot to admire about Nathanael, from the little we know about him. But let him also stand as a warning to us: Christian, avoid prejudice!

 

I’ve run out of space, so please join me next time for some of the more puzzling parts of the Nathanael story…

Father, please help me always to be ready to share my faith with others in clear and respectful ways; and, in a world full of hate and disrespect, help me too to keep my heart clear of the poison of prejudice. Amen.

True witness

Jesus said: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”  Matthew 6:5-6

When I first began to take a serious interest in football (London, SE 25, Selhurst Park, the home of the mighty Crystal Palace, at that time in what was known as “the Third Division South”) the idea of professional footballers having a spiritual life, of being “religious”, was unthinkable. True, the match day programme used to contain little biographies of the players, and I do remember that our left-back, Alfie Noakes, bred bulldogs in his spare time. But beyond that I can’t remember a single detail about any player’s personal life, religious or otherwise.

There was, I think, a Blackpool player called Jimmy Armfield, who was known as a Christian – who in fact played the organ at his local church (and who narrowly missed being part of the 1966 world-cup squad). But his was the only name from top-class football that sticks in my mind.

Today, over sixty years on, it’s very different.

Many players routinely cross themselves as they run onto the pitch, or drop to their knees in prayer when they score a goal, or have a religious slogan on their tee-shirt. We read that some clubs have, alongside resident chaplains, regular prayer and Bible-study groups. (Some people think it’s part of a “quiet revival” that is taking place in this country, particularly among young men. Adherents of other religions, especially Islam, can of course be equally zealous.)

I find myself rather torn when I see these displays of religious commitment.

There’s a part of me that says, “How good to see these young men, thoroughly modern as they are with or without their tattoos, so obviously committed to their faith. Unashamed of Jesus! Good for them! - a great witness!”

And then there’s a part of me that calls to mind the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 6:5-6, where he warns his followers not to aim “to be seen by others” when they pray. No, he tells them, “go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen”. Religious devotion is essentially a private thing, not for display.

Not for one moment would I suggest that these players are “hypocrites”, as Jesus says of those who “babble like pagans” – who am I to judge them? But there does seem to be something of a conflict here with the clear teaching of Jesus.

The question goes deeper, in fact, than the matter of public display. I find myself asking: When these players pray, publicly or not, what do they actually pray for? One player I read about said he prayed once that God would help him to score a hat-trick and… well, guess what happened!

I think this is more serious than the business of making a public display. If a Christian, any Christian, wants to ask for God’s blessing on what they do, surely the top priority is to ask God not so much for “success” in the obvious sense, but for grace to act always with Christlike honesty and integrity.

If you happen to be a professional footballer, for example, how about: “Lord, help me today to play to the highest level of skill of which I’m capable - and to commit no deliberate fouls, to pull nobody’s shirt, to grapple with no opponents in the penalty area, not to argue with the referee, not to appeal for a throw-in when I know perfectly well the ball came off my boot…” (one could go on for a long time!).

In a nutshell: the way to publicly declare our allegiance to Jesus is to live our lives in the likeness of Jesus: humbly, graciously, honestly… to act in such a way as to cause people to notice unawares, not to thrust our allegiance in their faces.

To be fair, the people Jesus is critical of in these verses seem to be people who you might call “professional pray-ers”, synagogue leaders or hard-line Pharisees. And he certainly isn’t teaching his followers for all time that coming together for prayer is wrong. No! You only have to read Acts to see a growing church which was also a church committed to meeting together for fellowship of different kinds: the purely “private” Christian simply doesn’t exist.

But… well, you get my point.

Father, let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me - not only in what I do, but in what I am, and in what your Spirit is making me. Amen.

A Grrr... moment

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow-believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. James 3:1

Oh no! Not another one! Not again! Grrr!

It’s not often I find myself giving vent to sheer angry frustration and disappointment. But it happened the other day: I had heard the news of yet another prominent Christian leader having to “step back” from ministry after it became known that he had been unfaithful to his wife over many years. All right, I didn’t really grind my teeth (as in “Grrr!”), but that’s how I felt.

This was a man, known as a wise and solid evangelical, whom I had come to admire and respect from reading his books. I’ve been around long enough to know that it shouldn’t come as a surprise when a famous Christian in the public eye turns out to be – how shall I put it? – a touch flaky. But… this particular man? No! No! Who would have thought it? Grrr indeed..

What right did I have to be angry? None at all, of course. Aren’t I too a sinner? Yes, indeed. If everyone who loved and possibly even respected me knew my weaknesses and secret sins no doubt they would be grinding their teeth at me. But when this kind of scandal involves someone in the Christian spotlight it seems such a victory for the devil, such a disgrace on the church. Grrr!

How should we as Christians respond when someone – prominent or not - falls? I’ve drawn together three New Testament passages which can help us to find our way.

First, Galatians 6:1: Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.

The emphasis here is all on restoration, on bringing the person back.

It’s worth noticing that, in what seem to us those heady early days of the church, things were anything but perfect – no, bad things happened, so let’s not be so naïve as to idealise the early church! Likewise, we too shouldn’t be overly shocked when it happens among us, but recognise that if someone has indeed lost their way spiritually it simply demonstrates that while they are sinners saved by grace (“Hallelujah!”), they are nonetheless still sinners (“Lord, have mercy!”).

Two matters of attitude are worth noticing.

First, there’s that word ”gently”. If we are concerned to restore someone who has lost their way there is to be no high-and-mightiness, no holier-than-thouness. Loving compassion is the order of the day.

Second, look out for yourself: “watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted”. Yes, never forget that you could be next!

The second passage is 1 Corinthians 5:1-13: It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate… And you are proud!...

The emphasis here is much more severe: in effect, it is all about holiness.

If we read the whole passage we see how Paul concludes that this man’s fall is so scandalous that he must be “put out of the fellowship” – or “handed over to Satan (“excommunicated”, to use the official word). That sounds pretty grim! So while the situation in Galatians 6 called for compassion and gentleness, the Corinthian crisis called for much stronger discipline: “Expel the wicked person from among you”. The church may not be perfect, but it is called to holiness, to Christlikeness, and we must never forget that. God is a truly gracious God: but he is not a soft, indulgent God. Is this a reminder some of us need?

But wait a minute. Even here the ultimate aim of this harshness is to restore the sinner, not to damn him: “so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord”. Quite how Paul sees this working out in practice is not entirely clear; but let’s just notice that the aim is positive rather than negative: salvation, not condemnation.

The third passage is Matthew 18:15-17, where Jesus lays down quite a detailed procedure for handling disputes in the body of the church: If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen  even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

The emphasis here is on unity and harmony in the body of the church. Everybody involved has the right to speak and be heard, and the issue is not to be made public unless really necessary.

How many churches have suffered serious damage through misunderstanding, gossip, even quite spiteful talk? The word “toxic”, poisonous, has become a bit of an in-word in recent years to describe a bad, destructive atmosphere in a community. Well, a lot of damage in churches might be prevented if we learned the discipline of keeping our mouths firmly shut and our thoughts resolutely pure. Do I have a poisonous influence in the life of my church?

Perhaps we can sum it up like this: God loves to forgive; but he also expects holiness and purity.

Father, even those of us who have known you many years still sin and fail. Please forgive us as we truly repent, and please help us to become truly those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Amen.

The pool at Bethesda

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethesda, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralysed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. John 5:2-9

It must have been one of the most wretched, miserable places in Jerusalem.

The pool of Bethesda (or Bethzatha) was surrounded by a “great number of disabled people… the blind, the lame, the paralysed” lying there (can you picture them?), in the forlorn hope that a miraculous healing might occur.

Apparently from time to time the waters of the pool would be mysteriously “stirred”, and the belief was that if you were lucky enough to get into the water at once you might be healed. This was no doubt pure superstition, perhaps growing out of a one-off coincidence that had got talked around; but a belief in fake cures (“hope springs eternal in the human breast”, after all) is a feature of human nature throughout history – don’t be taken in by the snake-oil salesman!

John tells us that Jesus visited this desolate place, presumably surveyed the scene with compassionate eyes, and then focussed his attention on a man who had been coming to the pool for thirty-eight years. Within moments the man was up and walking, in response first to Jesus’ penetrating question, “Do you want to get well?”, and, second, his sharp command, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk”. (No mumbo-jumbo, no “stirred water” there!) Various questions arise…

First, why did Jesus choose to visit this particular place?

John tells us it was “for one of the Jewish festivals”, but he doesn’t tell us which one. All we know from the Gospels as a whole is that he loved to be among ordinary, and especially among needy, people. That thought alone presents us with a challenge.

At Christmas we celebrate the fact that when he “came down to earth from heaven” he didn’t come to a palace or to a rich family’s home, but to a make-shift birth-place, and that set a pattern for his earthly life (he “had nowhere to lay his head”, Matthew 8:20). Not that he neglected or ignored the rich and powerful; not at all. He valued all people alike, but frequently chose to be among those right at the bottom of the pile.

So?

Well, we might not be in a position to devote our lives to looking after “the poor and mean and lowly”, but what we can do is come honestly before God to ask if there is anything practical he might want us to do, not least in terms of financial support for charities and other organisations, Christian and otherwise, which work at the sharp end of human need.

The church, especially in the western world, is sometimes accused of being “middle-class”, biased in favour of the relatively well off. Would we, in Jesus’ place, have wrinkled our noses and kept well away from Bethesda?

Second, why did he choose this particular man to talk to?

It seems likely that somebody had drawn his attention to him – he “learned that he had been in this condition for a long time” - at 38 years probably the longest-suffering person in this sad place. But more to the point, we notice that Jesus approaches the man rather than vice versa – usually the person in need comes to Jesus in faith. Was Jesus wanting to make some particular point?

This leads to a third question: does Jesus’ very direct question “Do you want to get well?” imply an element of criticism? Is it something of a rebuke?

Why would Jesus feel the need to ask that question? Is he suggesting that, while not doubting that the man has a real problem, he suspected him of having got used to being overly dependent on the kindness and good will of others? All right, he has nobody to help him into the waters when they stirred, but presumably there were people who brought him food and looked after his basic needs? How else would he have survived? And thirty-eight years is a very long time!

The ancient world was familiar with people we might call “professional beggars” who had discovered that, while a disability might be genuine, it could perhaps be taken advantage of rather than struggled against, especially given the lack of any welfare state.

Likewise, GP doctors in Britain today report the rising numbers of patients who come to see them virtually demanding a sick-note so that they need not work – sometimes even with threats. You hear too of prisoners leaving prison and immediately committing another crime because life inside is preferable to life outside. Had the man in the story slipped into that frame of mind? Is Jesus’ sharp question intended to put him on the spot?

We need to be very careful here, of course, especially those of us who have been blessed with good health and strength (and never seen the inside of a prison), because certainly there are genuine, honest people who lack the ability to work, and who should receive all the support they can get. Who are we to judge them?

But, putting it bluntly, Jesus didn’t call his followers to expect an easy ride. “Take up your cross and follow me” is no invitation to ease and comfort! Reading the lame man’s character that day at Bethesda, could it be that he decided it was time to address him with a deliberately abrupt command: “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk”?

This is only speculation, of course, but it can’t be ruled out. And so we are reminded that Jesus calls us to salvation from our sins, not to an insurance policy against all the troubles and hardships of an uncertain world. (Paul reinforces this robust attitude in 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat”: no messing there!)

We may live a long, long way from the lame man at Bethesda, our circumstances very different from his. But we too can be lazy, too content with settling for second or third best when there is no need. Could Jesus’ words “Pick up your bed and walk!” (or as we might put it, “Time to get off your backside!”) be a word for some of us today?

Father, thank you for the mercy and compassion of Jesus, especially for those in greatest need. Thank you too that he expects his followers to sometimes endure hardship: Lord, save me from laziness and self-pity when the way is hard. Amen.

Soften my heart, Lord,/ Soften my heart,/ From all indifference/ Set me apart./ To feel your compassion,/ To weep with your tears. / Come, soften my heart, O Lord,/ Soften my heart. Amen. Graham Kendrick.

No indifference! It's time to choose

He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God… John 1:11-12

I knew a man (I’ll call him Dave) who never missed church on a Sunday morning. He was fulsome in his praise of the church: “They’re wonderful people, I don’t know what I would do without them.” I only had to stand and watch how he related to the people there - plenty of banter and simple friendliness – to see how the church had taken him to its heart.

But he wasn’t a Christian.

He was probably around 60 and, I think, lived alone. But he had never made that “step of commitment”, as we sometimes put it. “Oh, I can’t be doing with all that stuff,” he told me once. “Just not interested. I’m quite happy as I am, thanks very much.”

Well, all credit to the church – it was lively and informal, and from my occasional visits I knew that it was a church where the gospel was preached. You sensed the love of Jesus among its people. But as I chatted to Dave I didn’t know quite how best to respond to what I can only call his cheerful indifference to the gospel.

The last time I visited that church I noticed that he wasn’t there. Apparently he had died some weeks earlier.

Oh. I felt quite deflated - that wasn’t how this story was meant to end! I wanted to hear that he had eventually seen the need to be baptised (the church was a Baptist church) and fully entered the family of God’s people. But, it seemed, that was not to be.

Well of course I cannot know what thoughts – and prayers? - Dave may have had in “the secret place of his heart” since we last talked. Perhaps he had come to a fuller understanding of who Jesus was and all that he has done for us.

However that may be I sense, especially at Christmas time, that there are many people who are quite like him, though perhaps not quite so relaxed and open about their feelings: grateful for the existence of the church (in spite of failures and scandals) even to the extent of attending an occasional service - but who, like Dave, keep Jesus at arm’s length: “Well, that will do for another year”.

I wonder if you are one of them? Have you, perhaps, just made your annual visit to church?

The question arises: What in particular had Dave failed to grasp about Jesus? Whether he had consciously closed his mind to the gospel or whether, for some reason, the church had failed to spell things out clearly enough is neither here nor there. What matters is that for some reason he had decided that while the kindness of that church was to be welcomed and appreciated it wasn’t something he needed to respond to; his attitude was, in effect, “thanks but no thanks”.

The first chapter of John’s Gospel makes plain that that is very mistaken. To borrow the title of a book which was popular some years ago, the Christian message is “evidence that demands a verdict”: it puts us on the spot, asking the question “So what are you going to do about it?” It’s summed up perfectly in verses11-13.

The key word is “receive”: “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…”.

No gift, even a box of chocolates or a pair of socks at Christmas, is of any benefit if it isn’t received. Which means, if we apply it to God’s gift of his Son Jesus, that even this supreme gift is, so to speak, wasted if it is not received. This, as far as I could tell, was what Dave didn’t understand. Certainly, he admired Jesus – you could tell that by his praise for Jesus’ people; and I think he must have respected him in the same way. But, so far as I knew, he never received him.

What does “receiving him” mean in practice? John uses the word “believe” in order to spell it out (verse 12): those who receive Jesus are those “who believe in his name”. And if we go one step further and ask what that means, the answer is: to believe in the name of Jesus means to accept him on his own evaluation - the Word of God made flesh (verses 1 and 14), the very light of the world (verses 4-9), plus various other self-descriptions scattered through the rest of the book.

Whenever I meet people who are polite and even warm towards the church but not prepared to go any further I feel like shouting, “Look, sorry, but that just won’t do! The Christian message requires a response! If it isn’t true – if Jesus isn’t the Word of God made flesh, if he isn’t the light of the world, if he isn’t the good shepherd, if he isn’t the living water, and if he didn’t die on the cross for our sins and rise again for our salvation - then the whole thing is just a web of fancies, a conspiracy theory gone mad, and it should be denounced as such and exposed! Have nothing to do with it.

Ah, but if it is true, as millions of Christians today and throughout the centuries have testified… what then? Receiving him by an act of faith brings you to a whole new life – you become a “child of God”, a new you, gradually becoming more Christlike day by day, and one day assured of being with him in a place of perfection. It’s not easy, but it is the ultimate joy.

So… a word to anybody seeking to be neutral about Jesus. It’s time to decide, to respond, to “receive” him by faith, and to start to become the person you were always meant to be. What holds you back?

Here’s a prayer you might like to pray. Please read it through carefully first, for if prayed from your heart it will change your life for ever…

Father, please forgive me for having held Jesus at arm’s length for so long. Enable me now to receive him by faith, no longer just an example to be followed or a teacher to be respected, but a Saviour and Friend who has forgiven my sins and gives me a whole new life. Amen.

The poor and meek and lowly? Who cares?

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke 2:8-12

My mother was a farmer’s daughter. I remember visiting the farm on childhood holidays, in what seemed to me - born and brought up in London - the backwoods of southern Ireland. A city boy through and through, I’m afraid that nothing of that rural way of life has left its mark on me. So the story of the shepherds and the angels doesn’t strike any particular chords with me.

The farm had dairy cattle anyway – big lumpy, floppy, smelly cows, I remember – rather than sheep. So, probably like most of us, I have to work hard with my imagination to picture these unnamed men Luke tells us about, “living out in the fields” as they “kept watch over their flocks” by night.

The scholars tell us that probably they were looked down on by their more prosperous neighbours because their work routine prevented them from fulfilling their religious duties – just as in our world there are those for whom standard Sunday service times are simply not possible. (I began my ministry twenty years later in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, a “steel town” which functioned according to a shift system that imposed a sleep pattern quite alien to anything I had known.)

I wonder what that night-shift was like for the shepherds of Luke 2? I picture them huddled up against the cold, struggling to stay awake and longing for morning to come.

Then something odd happens: a stranger appears as if out of nowhere. Who can he be? Why has he come? How has he come? A sense of something uncanny creeps over them, but it doesn’t last long, for it becomes apparent that the visitor is a messenger of God himself (that’s really what an “angel” was), and “the glory of the Lord shone around them”. Puzzlement turned to terror.

The angel’s first words are simple: “Do not be afraid…” Then he goes on to tell them about the birth of “a Saviour”, the “Messiah”, in Bethlehem; and just to ensure there’s no risk of mistaken identity, that they will find the child “lying in a manger” (there can’t be too many new-born babies in Bethlehem answering to that description!). Whereupon a heavenly choir appears, filling the night sky with awesome light and the sound of glorious singing. It doesn’t take the shepherds long to agree to visit Bethlehem “to see this thing that has happened” (verse 15). So off they hurry. (I wonder what happened to the sheep?) And sure enough…

There’s much to encourage and challenge us in these few verses.

Number one: the first people to receive the message of Jesus’ birth were low on the social scale, on the margins of society.

He wasn’t made known to the religious leaders in the temple at Jerusalem, or to the political leaders like King Herod in his palace. His parents were nobodies – and the news of his birth came first to nobodies.

What does this have to say to us in the church today? I speak as a pretty “middle-class” Christian belonging to a pretty middle-class church. Well, to be middle-class is no sin! But there’s something important to ponder here. We only have to read through the New Testament to realise that the early Christians were, many of them, slaves – lower in status even than those shepherds.

So… thanks be to God for Christians who have heard his call to make his love known to those at the bottom of the pile, and have rolled up their sleeves for serious action! – whether we look back to people such as William Booth and his Salvation Army, or in our own time to those who serve as Street Pastors, or who run food banks, or who sit with addicts and alcoholics in our city centres, or who establish little Christian communities (churches in embryo?) in run down parts of cities.

Lord, forgive us if we have come to value respectability, correctness, even doctrinal precision, rather than the practical outworking of love!

A second encouragement: the first word of the angel to the shepherds was “Do not be afraid”. 

Isn’t that precious! Certainly, a heavenly vision of angels is likely to result in a need for a bit of reassurance. But I fished out my heavy Bible concordance a little earlier to discover that this same exhortation, or something very like it, occurs more than 100 times throughout the Bible in all sorts of different situations.

“Religion” has often been used to instil fear in people – Am I good enough?… Am I doing enough?… Am I measuring up?… Might God be angry with me?…

There is, no doubt, a time and place for such questions – sin certainly needs to be “called out”, to use the current expression. But let us never forget that the first word is one of love and reassurance: “I bring you good news that will cause great joy…” Christianity is a “don’t-be-afraid!” religion.

Am I living a life of good news? Is my church a community of great joy? If not, are we worthy of the description “Christian”?

We never meet those shepherds again in the Bible, so we have no idea what became of them. But perhaps a day will come when we will meet them in heaven, and they will tell us their full, joyful story…

Father, thank you that your great desire is not to crush us but to lift us up, not to condemn us but to forgive us. May even my everyday life convey something of the good news and the great joy which can be ours in Christ. Amen.

Make it personal

Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit.  Sing and make music from your hearts to the Lord. Ephesians 5:19

When it comes to Christmas carols, I must admit that my feelings are rather mixed. I quite seriously dislike the ones that strike me as slushy and sentimental (“Little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes”, for example: why…?), and likewise the ones that rest largely on traditions that have little to do with the actual events described in the New Testament (all that stuff about “sleepy cows and asses”, for example: who says…?).

But others I find very helpful, in fact I regret that we only ever sing them at this time of year. Especially, I appreciate those that retell something of the familiar story, and then, towards the end, morph into direct prayer; which, surely, can only be good.

An example is “As with gladness men of old /Did the guiding star behold…” It climaxes in this prayer: “Holy Jesus, every day / Keep us in the narrow way…”, a prayer which, surely, any sincere Christian can say Amen to.

Of course these poems are designed “for congregational use”, but I have found that, especially if I have become a little sluggish spiritually, they are good for personal use too. It’s easy to change the “we”s and “us”es of a gathered group to the “I”s and “me’s” of, well, just I and me. Doesn’t this, for example, constitute a beautiful and very meaningful prayer (notice the italics, please)?... “Holy Jesus, every day/ Keep me in the narrow way;/ And, when earthly things are past,/ Bring my ransomed soul at last/ Where it needs no star to guide,/ Where no clouds your glory hide.”

I’m not suggesting that we should focus too much on ourselves with our  songs and hymns – that, in fact, is a modern trend in church life which I find it hard to identify with – but there are times when our personal spiritual lives need something of a kick-start, and tailoring the words of a gifted song-writer to our own situation in the privacy of solitary prayer can be very helpful.

By the way, the man who wrote “As with gladness” was William C Dix (1837-1898). He nearly died at the age of 29, and was confined to bed for many months, subsequently sinking into depression. Yet many of his best known hymns date from that dark period. I don’t know when he wrote “As with gladness”, but I like to think that composing hymns for others to use helped him to pull through.

Another favourite carol is “O little town of Bethlehem”. The final verse, adapted for personal use in the way I have suggested, goes like this: “O holy child of Bethlehem,/ Descend to me, I pray;/ Cast out my sin, and enter in;/ Be born in me today./ I hear the Christmas angels/ The great glad tidings tell; / O come to me, abide with me,/ My Lord Immanuel.”

If you are of a pedantic frame of mind you might object that you are praying here for something you have already received (Jesus has long since “descended to me”, hasn’t he? he has already “cast out my sin” and “entered in” and “been born in me”). Well, yes, if you insist; but I don’t think there’s any serious inconsistency in praying such a simple, basic prayer. Don’t we all in fact need to come afresh to God day by day? And can’t we be confident that God understands us and doesn’t get impatient with us? He knows the true state of our hearts – hopefully, an honest yearning after more of him - and isn’t too worried about a little superficial doctrinal inconsistency!

I sometimes think that hymns and songs can be wasted on us when we sing them; might we not derive far more benefit from slowly and thoughtfully reading them, even in the context of corporate worship? Too often it’s just the tune that carries us through, and we barely notice the words which, after all, are what really matter.

I knew a wise pastor who adopted the practice of pausing before the singing of a song or hymn to allow individual members of the congregation to read the verses out loud. There was a kind of magic in hearing those four or five voices lifted up in turn to read – and I’m sure that, when the music started, the words were sung with far greater meaning and appreciation than usual. Lord, preserve us from mindless singing!

But whether sung or read, may the message of Christmas become alive  for us in these coming days. May our souls be “meek to receive him”… How silently, how silently,/ The wondrous gift is given!/ So God imparts to human hearts/ The blessings of his heaven./ No ear may hear his coming;/ But in this world of sin,/ Where meek souls will receive him, still/ The dear Christ enters in. Thanks be to God!

Father, thank you for the gift of music, for those who compose and play, and for those too who write words which are challenging, stirring and moving. As I sing Christmas hymns and songs over the coming days may my dull spirit be refreshed by the moving of your powerful Holy Spirit. Amen.