God speaks not only to Mary through miraculous means, but also to Joseph. (Matt 1:18-25) His intervention means that Mary and Joseph are once again united in purpose and in peace. Joseph is reassured of Mary’s integrity and God’s miraculous work in their lives. It may indeed be an unprecedented situation, but actually, this is foretold in Scripture (Isaiah 7:14) and both individuals have a part to play in the situation.

We can be reassured that when God speaks, He will confirm His word to us and will work in families. He does not ride roughshod over individuals, but invites us to participate in His plans. If we are struggling with situations, we can bring our anxieties and worries to God, and His word promises us that His peace, which transcends understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:6-7)

The Christmas story does not initially appear to have much to do with peace. Zechariah and Elizabeth’s news comes as a great shock. Then we have the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary, a young girl in Nazareth. (Luke 1:26-38) She is a virgin who is pledged to be married to Joseph, but she is told she will conceive and give birth to a son. (Luke 1:31) She shows great maturity and faith in accepting this truth, but Joseph (not surprisingly) finds it incredible. He has to wrestle with feelings of rejection and betrayal, assuming she has been unfaithful to him, musing about what to do and how to divorce her without causing disgrace to her. (Matt 1:18-19) Their happy relationship is under threat. God’s intervention in their lives must have meant great upheaval and very little peace initially.

Jesus, one of whose names is the ‘Prince of Peace’, does not always seem to bring peace to us (see Matt 10:34). He disturbs our routines and our everyday lives; He makes demands on us that can seem utterly unreasonable. He tells us to forgive our enemies and to bless those who persecute us. (Matt 5:43-48) He urges us to love the unlovable and to do good to all. He reminds us that everyone is our neighbour and that we have a responsibility to all. (Luke 10:25-37) Those of us who become Christians are sometimes surprised by the animosity this arouses in friends and family. Peace can seem a long way off, an unattainable goal.

And yet as we continue, we will see that peace does come. If it’s not yet yours, wait for it. God brings peace into turbulent situations.

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.