After almost a year of virtually unmitigated bad news, it is worth stopping this Christmas-time and reflecting once again on the good news of the Christmas story – good news that will bring great joy, as the angels reminded the shepherds. (Luke 2:10)

We will be doing just that, reflecting and celebrating the good news of great joy of Christmas, at our carol service on Sunday 20th December at 6 p.m. The service will definitely be different for all kinds of reasons, but we will be showing our ‘Good News Nativity’ performance on video at the service and it will be livestreamed on Facebook to all those who can’t attend the church building. Members of the church worked hard during lockdown to record their scenes separately and we hope you will enjoy going back in time to that first Christmas and pondering again what fantastic news Christmas is!

No matter what is going on in the outside world, no matter what the weather’s doing, no matter what Government pronouncement comes our way, the truth remains that at this time we celebrate the good news of Jesus Christ, that God came down to earth as a baby, putting on human flesh, so that He could save us from our sins! Join us on 20th December to shout out this good news to all who will listen.

As a child, I learned to count and was immensely proud of being able to count to one hundred. Then I learned a quicker way of doing it: ‘one, two… miss a few… ninety-nine, one hundred!’ I found this hilarious.

Many of us want to apply this childish rhyme to life itself. We see the end goal. We know what we’re aiming for. We’re eager to get there. So we reckon it can’t hurt if we skip some of the boring bits in order to arrive at our destination more quickly. What can be so wrong about ‘missing a few’, after all?

The problem we thus encounter is that God sets things in place and it’s not always possible to circumnavigate His order. Obedience tends not to have shortcuts. We need to learn to work out our salvation (Phil 2:13), letting patience transform us, allowing perseverance to finish its work so that we can be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:4)

As a child, I used to flick to the last pages of a book to see if the story ended happily. As an adult, I’ve learned that knowing the ending is no substitute for reading the whole thing, for the ending (if well written) is even more satisfying in the context of a well-plotted storyline which draws you towards that finale.

Similarly, we want to skip to the last chapter of the Bible and reach the rewards of heaven without the slog of counting ourselves dead to sin, fleeing from evil and maintaining vigilance and obedience in our walk with God. Such shortcuts are doomed to failure. There is no substitute for the ‘long obedience in the same direction’, as Nietzsche put it.

This ‘long obedience in the same direction’ is also known as discipleship. The journey, the process of ‘being made holy’, is as crucial as the end product, for this is what actually determines the end product! Discipleship is vital in the process of being made perfect, for being conformed to the image of Christ requires a daily denial of self, a taking up of our cross and a determined following of Jesus. (Mark 8:34) Nothing else will do. There is no way we can skip steps and arrive at our destination safely. We must follow Jesus every day and do things the Jesus way. That’s one of the lessons of Advent. Waiting is never a waste of time as long as our eyes remain firmly fixed on God.

I love watching my grandchildren learn and especially seeing them begin to order things, listening to them learn to count or to sort shapes by size, for example. Getting things in the right order is indeed a useful skill in life.

I have been reading the Prophets lately, a difficult, often confusing but deeply rewarding task. The Prophets form a major section of the Old Testament, but they are not easy at times to understand. These people, who spoke the word of God they heard or described the visions they saw, were firmly established in historical contexts (most of which were desperate times of sin which often presented challenging circumstances to God-fearing people), but they were also free spirits in that they saw beyond the present times to the future of God’s eternity. Their words seem to alternate between the ‘now’ they inhabited and the future we may well now call the present. As such, they are often confusing, giving us layered meanings that are not easy to interpret, leaving us puzzling over the precise meaning of their words.

Yet the message of the prophets is startling both in its consistency and clarity. The prophets all expose the sin of people unequivocally, not pulling any punches, using shocking language and startling images, stripping away the veneer of respectability and the layers of excuses which mask our sinful motives. They hold up God’s law and expose how far we fall short of it. They describe the consequences of our rebellion and disobedience vividly and they issue the clarion call of repentance. “Return to Me!” (Zechariah 1:3) is the central message of the prophets, followed by an assurance of comfort and blessings if we do.

The prophets, without fail, operate in this order: Realisation. Repentance. Reward.

Most of us only want to focus on the ‘reward’ part. We like the prophets when they are assuring us of God’s presence, love, faithfulness and support. We are not so keen when they speak of God’s wrather, jealousy, judgment or condemnation. It’s worth remembering this has always been the case. The prophets were never popular people in their own time, even if we revere them now.

Yet just as we teach our children to count in a logical order and to sort according to logical criteria (size, colour, shape), so we must learn to follow God’s inexorably logical order so that we can reach a place of restoration.

Before we can enter into the rewards, we must realise and recognise sin and we must repent and turn back to God. There can be no other order. Just as night follows day and we cannot alter that, there are no shortcuts to God’s blessings, and we can thank the prophets for this reminder, even if we do not fully understand every detail of their prophecies.

Advent is a time of waiting – and we often find waiting very difficult. Time can seem to go so slowly when we are waiting for something; we even can find it quite hard to count and wait for a minute! James 5:7 reminds us that we need to wait like the farmer who has to learn patience when growing crops. First of all, he must prepare the ground and then sow seeds:

After this comes irrigation (watering the seed, often easy in this country because of our frequent rainfall!) and using fertiliser to feed the crops:

Only then, after about nine months, does the farmer reap the benefit of all this hard work in harvesting the crop.

Waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled can take a very long time! For Abraham, it was 25 years between God first giving him promises and the birth of Isaac; for those waiting for the promised Messiah, it was more like 700 years between Isaiah’s prophecy in Is 7:14 and the birth of Jesus. We have to wait with expectation, however, for God always keeps His promises (see 2 Cor 1:20)

Advent is the period of time when we wait for the birth of Christ; we remember again that first arrival in Bethlehem. But James 5:7-8 is written in the context of us waiting for the Lord’s return, and James urges us to be patient as we wait for His coming. We wait also in our everyday lives for God’s help (Is 64:4) and cry to God out of the depths of our despair at times (Ps 130:1-6).

What can we do as we wait? Jude 1:20-21 reminds us of the need to build ourselves up in faith through God’s word (see also Acts 20:32). We pray in the Holy Spirit (see Eph 6:18), engaging with God, and as we pray, we ask God to guard our hearts and keep us track so that we are not derailed (e.g. by a love of money, as 1 Tim 6:9-10 warns). If we wander from God, we will not wait, but if we learn to wait with expectation for God, confident in His promises, we will receive all that He has promised.

Stephen spoke this morning from Ex 33:14, where the Lord, speaking to Moses, said, ‘My presence will go with You, and I will give you rest.‘ December is a busy time of year under normal circumstances and we often feel as though we have so much to do in terms of preparation for Christmas. This year has been so unusual that the sense of dislocation and busyness is probably greater than ever, so it is profoundly important that we learn to spend time in God’s presence and learn to rest in Him.

Pentatonix’s version of the carol ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ conveys something of the flurry and hustle and bustle of this tme of year, but the carol itself reminds us that there is rest to be found in the good news of Jesus Christ and tidings of ‘comfort and joy’ (which we surely all need at this tumultuous time.) If God Himself rested on the seventh day as an example to us, then we too need to take the time to rest in Him, to lay aside our busyness and the distractions which abound and come in simple focus on Him, knowing that His presence with us is what will carry us through.

God rest ye merry gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r
When we were gone astray
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy

In Bethlehem, in Israel
This blessed Babe was born
And laid within a manger
Upon this blessed morn
The which His Mother Mary
Did nothing take in scorn
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy

Fear not then, said the Angel
Let nothing you affright
This day is born a Saviour
Of a pure Virgin bright
To free all those who trust in Him
From Satan’s pow’r and might
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy

God rest ye merry gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r
When we were gone astray
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy. (‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’)

This week’s additions to our Jesse Tree at church continued to tell the Christmas story which stretches way back in time, long before the New Testament was written.

Jacob’s ladder reminds us of God’s covenant with Jacob (grandson of Abraham), who dreamed of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending. (Genesis 28:10-22) Jacob’s later encounter with God earned him the name Israel, the name by which the whole nation came to be known.

The sheaves of wheat remind us of the story of Joseph (Gen 37-50). This important Old Testament story shows how God can use every situation for good, for Joseph was sold into slavery and later thrown into prison, even though he was innocent, yet God used him to protect Israel from famine. The story of Joseph reminds us that God is always working for our good, even when bad things happen to us. Bad things happened to Jesus too (King Herod wanted to kill him because of jealousy and Jesus was later crucified by the Romans), but God was able to work out His plan of salvation even through these terrible events.

Moses’s staff reminds us of this great Old Testament leader who rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt. The parting of the Red Sea was one of the greatest miracles recorded and this great rescue looks ahead to the rescue from our sins which Jesus’s death and resurrection bring.

The stone tablet reminds us of God’s Ten Commandments, given to Moses. These were God’s rules for how to live at peace with God and with each other. God spoke to Moses face-to-face and made a covenant or promise with him to be with His people always. (Exodus 24:4-8). These are the Ten Commandments:

1. I am the Lord your God, and you shall have no other god before me.

2. You shall not worship any statues or other images.

3. You shall not use the Lord’s name without reverence and respect.

4. You shall keep the Sabbath day holy.

5. You shall respect your father and mother.

6. You shall not kill other people.

7. You shall not be unfaithful to your husband or wife.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not speak falsely about other people.

10. You shall not envy or want what someone else has.

These are good rules to live by (Exodus 20:1-17). Ultimately, though, none of us can keep these rules perfectly, which is why we need Jesus. He is both fully God and fully human, and therefore He can live a perfect life and give Himself as a sin-offering for us.