At our ‘Little Big Church‘ tonight, Garry asked us all questions about journeys (including our favourite forms of transport and how we had come to church.) At this time of year, we think about the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem and also how the angels, shepherds and wise men all got there. For Jesus, His journey was from heaven to earth through a miraculous pregnancy – perhaps the most amazing journey anyone has ever done!

Some journeys are difficult and dangerous; we watched a video about the Caminito del Rey in Spain, which is known as the world’s ‘most dangerous walkway’. Some journeys are boring and uneventful. Life is often described as a journey, with heaven our destination. As Doug Horley reminds us, we won’t get to heaven on the back of a camel, or a sheep, jeep, pogo stick or even by going to church! We can only get to heaven through Jesus; He is the only way to the Father. (John 14:6) But even when life’s journey brings grief and difficulties, if we persevere, there is joy in the journey and freedom to those who obey (‘Joy In The Journey’, Michael Card.)

‘There is a joy in the journey,
There’s a light we can love on the way.
There is a wonder and wildness to life,
And freedom for those who obey.

All those who seek it shall find it,
A pardon for all who believe.
Hope for the hopeless and sight for the blind

To all who’ve been born of the Spirit

And who share incarnation with him;
Who belong to eternity, stranded in time,
And weary of struggling with sin.

Forget not the hope
That’s before you,
And never stop counting the cost.
Remember the hopelessness when you were lost?’ (‘Joy In The Journey’, Michael Card)

This morning we looked at Isaiah 9:6-7 and saw how this prophecy of a ‘Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’ who will reign on David’s throne forever was fulfilled in Jesus. Christmas is a time when the light dawns on those living in the land of deep darkness (see Isaiah 9:2, John 1:5); it’s a time when we see God working miraculously in many ways, but we also see that there is much that is also strangely mundane about the Christmas story.

A miracle was needed to save the world, because sin has separated mankind from God and there is no one righteous, not even one. (Rom 3:10-11) Only a sinless human could bridge the gap between humanity and God, but because of sin, no human is capable of doing this. God, therefore, sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law. (Gal 4:4) The first miracle we see is the fact that the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son who will be called ‘Immanuel’, ‘God with us.’ (Is 7:14, Luke 1:31) That just doesn’t happen naturally!

Jesus is both fully human and fully God, a miracle we celebrate each year at Christmas. There are other miracles in this story: angelic messages and a star to guide the wise men from the east being the most notable ones. But there is also much that is mundane in the story: Zechariah’s months of being unable to speak (Luke 1:5-24), the inconvenience of a trip to Bethlehem because of a Roman census (Luke 2:1-3), the fact that there was no room for Mary and Joseph at any guest house and so the birth of Jesus took place in a stable (Luke 2:1-7). We might have expected the birth of God’s King to be at a palace amid great fanfare, but despite the miracles of Christmas, there is a sense of ordinariness which is shocking. This reminds us that Jesus had to learn and suffer, just as we do (see Hebrews 2:17-18, Phil 2:6-7). He is our great high priest precisely because He has shared in our humanity and knows what we go through. We have so much to celebrate because of Christmas!

The second week of Advent looks at ‘peace’ as its theme. Peace is one of the central messages of Christmas; the message of the angels to the shepherds was ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.’ (Luke 2:14) Zechariah, rejoicing in the birth of his miracle son, John, reflected that God’s light would then ‘shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.’ (Luke 1:79) Peace is, therefore, a central theme in the Christmas story.

But peace is not simply the absence of war. We live in times when conflict and war appear to be inescapable, and the current situation between Russia and Ukraine adds to the feelings of anxiety and uncertainty people experience. Any student of history will tell you that wars have been going on for many years and that conflict seems inevitable in some part of the world. Jesus Himself spoke of wars and rumours of wars (Matt 24:6), so it would seem we cannot expect to live in a world without wars. Nonetheless, we can still know peace, even if there is no peace around us.

The path of peace which Christmas shines a light on is ultimately an inner peace and peace with God which gives us n eternal perspective to life. Paul says, ‘since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.’ (Rom 5:1) Inner peace and peace with God are great blessings available to us all.

As the story progresses, we see that Mary (who will be the mother of Jesus) is related to Elizabeth, and so the reason for this other angelic announcement about a boy called John becomes clearer. (Luke 1) The hopelessness of Israel is about to be changed, starting with just two individuals (John the Baptist and Jesus.)

One of the terrible things about hopelessness is the sense of apathy and lethargy it induces. We shrug our shoulders and say, ‘There’s nothing to be done.’ We give up. The truth is that God has always worked through individuals who refuse to accept the status quo is all there is and who are determined to do all they can to change situations. Jonas Salk reminds us, “Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.”

God’s people need to be people who dream, who imagine what God can do, who have the courage to do what He says and who understand that ‘those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.’ (Isaiah 40:31) God gives us hope. When we look at Jesus, we realise that no situation is hopeless; He not only died but rose again! Therefore we have hope.

The Gospels do not always plunge straight into the birth of Jesus, again showing us God’s preparation in giving us a Saviour. Matthew’s Gospel starts with a family tree, showing us that Jesus is connected with people right back to the first man, Adam. Luke’s Gospel starts with the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth. (Luke 1)

Zechariah and Elizabeth were devout people who loved God, and yet their lives had one major dissatisfaction: they had no children. (Luke 1:6-7) They were religious and yet they did not have this evidence of God’s blessing. One day, Zechariah was at work in the temple when an angel appeared to him to tell him ‘Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. ¹⁴ He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, ¹⁵ for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.’ (Luke 1:13-15) Not only would they have a son, he would be significant in turning people back to God: ‘to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.’ (Luke 1:17)

For four hundred years, God had been silent and His people were feeling hopeless. Suddenly, there is hope again! We can’t always know what God is doing behind the scenes, and it can be hard to wait through days, weeks, months and even years of silence. But as we go about our daily lives, God can step into our situations with swiftness and miraculous means.  As Sherlock Holmes was wont to say, ‘the game’s afoot.’

My son, from a very early age, was fascinated by numbers and very able at mathematics (totally unlike his mother, whose mathematical abilities are very decidedly countable.) His mental maths is excellent and he can deal with square numbers and cubed numbers quite swiftly; one of his favourite games is Triolet, which involves combining three numbers to make 15 and which it’s quite pointless for me to play as it always ends in ritual humiliation for me (I get my revenge at Boggle!) When I was starting to swim, he used to spur me on by telling me idly how many lengths made up half-a-mile or a mile or some other distance, which proved quite an incentive for me. His knowledge of numbers does not lead to punctuality, but it does lead to some interesting discussions in our family!

Numbers feature frequently in the book of Revelation, and it’s hard to know if they are meant literally or metaphorically. There were, for example, twelve tribes of Israel, so the number twelve and its associates (twenty-four, 144) feature on more than one occasion. In Revelation 7, we meet the infamous ‘144,000’ (12,000 from 12 tribes of Israel). Debates about who these are have raged throughout history and form the basis of heretical beliefs (Jehovah’s Witnesses contend that exactly 144,000 faithful Christians from Pentecost until the present day will be resurrected to heaven as immortal spirit beings to spend eternity with God and Christ. They believe that these people are “anointed” by God to become part of the spiritual “Israel of God”, a view which is clearly incompatible with the rest of the Bible which affirms the numbers of believers spending eternity with God will be much greater than this!) Just to make life even more puzzling is the fact that the usual twelve tribes are not the same in this chapter (Dan is omitted, Levi included; usually, Joseph is replaced by his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, but only Manasseh is mentioned in Revelation 7) and that within a few verses, the number of worshipping believers is given as a ‘great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.’ (Rev 7:9)

If we take this passage literally, it would seem that God will save a specific number of Jews who will become evangelists for the gospel and will be ‘sealed’ or protected by God from all that the Antichrist would seek to do during this period of tribulation. Paul speaks of Israel once again turning to God (Romans 11) and God has always kept a remnant from the twelve tribes of Israel who trust in Him (see 1 Kings 19:18). But it is also clear that the numbers worshipping God in heaven are greater than anyone could count. Whether we fully understand the numbers involved is debatable, but one thing seems clear from this chapter: God knows those who are His and will protect and keep them from eternal harm.