It’s always nice to get Christmas presents early!

The adults didn’t get left out, though they’d had to buy raffle tickets to get their prizes! (Most had contributed to the prizes as well; our thanks to all for their support of the group.)

Yesterday morning (which already seems a lifetime ago!), we had our Parent & Toddler Christmas Party. It was lovely to see the children enjoying the play and party food and, of course, their Christmas outfits!

For some of the younger ones, it all got a bit overwhelming…

We had help from Laura and Colette from the Family Centre, making reindeer food as well! We’re very grateful for their weekly support, providing craft activities for the children and advice and help for parents.

Then it was on to party games before the presents and raffle prizes…

God is never early and never late, but always on time. I like to be early to events (perhaps the most famous occasion in my family is when I made everyone turn up for a Christmas meal two hours early because I thought the journey to the restaurant would take much longer than it did…) My son is usually late (a source of contention between us, as you can imagine.) God is never early (which frequently irritates me…) and never late (which I’m glad about!) He created time and though He dwells outside of time, He always does things at the right time. (Gal 4:4)

We may not always appreciate God’s timings (the Psalms are full of prayers beginning ‘How long, Lord?’ – see Ps 6:3, Ps 13:1-2, Ps 35:17), but we can be grateful for the fact that God knows the right time and will always be there at that time.

One of the hard things about waiting for God to fulfil His promises is that we can only see with our natural eyes. God is actually working behind the scenes all the time, but so often we can’t see what is going on behind the scenes.

Children eagerly anticipate getting presents on Christmas Day, but for parents and family and friends, this means hard work beforehand! Nothing happens without preparation and we can be grateful for the fact that God is a God of preparation. Rev 12 tells us the behind-the-scenes Christmas story (regular readers know that I think this should be a compulsory reading at Christmas time!) and even in our more traditional Christmas readings, we think about the preparation that went into Christmas: God moving in secular hearts to create a census that would take Joseph and his family to Bethlehem so that prophecies would be fulfilled, God putting the star in the sky that would guide the wise men from the East, for example. We can be utterly thankful that God works behind the scenes and is still working in history (and in our stories) to complete His plans and His purposes!

There are elements in the passage we studied tonight (Acts 8:4-25) which are very confusing and have been divisive throughout history. The confusion arises over why the Samaritans did not receive the Holy Spirit when they believed Philip’s message but only when the apostles laid hands on them (Acts 8:14-17); the commentator Howard Marshall says of this phrase that it is ‘possibly the most extraordinary statement in Acts’. In other places, belief and receiving the Holy Spirit have been simultaneous and Paul is later to make it clear that ‘if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.’ (Rom 8:9) The reason for the difference in experience here is unclear and has led to some people believing the Samaritans did not really understand the gospel Philip preached (and therefore were not really converted until the apostles arrived) or that there can be different stages in the Christian experience (the classic Pentecostal view) whereby regeneration (new birth, whereby we receive the Spirit of God) is differentiated from the baptism in the Spirit (which can take place at a later date.) There has been debate as to whether the Samaritan experience is repeatable in modern-day experience and though we see in this chapter unusual happenings which are hard to explain, it is not enough to be dogmatic based on just one incident.

Many believe that the apostles needed to visit Samaria and validate Philip’s evangelism there, commenting that they publicly welcomed the Samaritans into the church, confirming that they were indeed bona fide Christians – and maybe this was why the Holy Spirit was not given until the apostles laid hands on them. There were perhaps dangers of a split in the early church between Jews and Gentiles and the breakthrough in evangelism to those outside the Jewish faith needed corroboration from the original apostles. Geoff Ashley comments, ‘Had the apostles not authenticated the work in Samaria, people would have thought that the works in Samaria were disconnected with those in Judea, that the work among the Samaritans was different from the work among the Jews. Such thoughts would have only fostered the centuries old wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles (see Ephesians 2:11-22). Instead, we find that they are explicitly connected and are both of the same Spirit working throughout the book of Acts.’

No one could accuse Luke of glossing over confusing and unappealing parts of the story! We have already seen how Ananias’ and Sapphira’s actions led to judgment and death (Acts 5:1-12), and now we have the story of Simon the Sorcerer, whose name gives us the word ‘simony’ (‘the buying or selling of spiritual or ecclesiastical privileges.’) (Acts 8:4-17) Simon was obviously someone used to influence and power (he amazed people and boasted of his greatness and was even called ‘the Great Power of God’ by some), but even he was impressed by Philip and responded to the gospel message. (Acts 8:10,13) Nonetheless, when the apostles arrived in Samaria and he saw people receive the Holy Spirit after they laid hands on them, he asked the apostles for that ability too! (Acts 8:17-18)

Peter’s rebuke was swift and to the point: ‘May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!’ (Acts 8:20) He pointed out that wrong heart attitudes were behind this request (Acts 8:21) and urged Simon to repent immediately. Bitterness and sin have a captivating effect on us, and it can take a lot to deliver us from these things.

Some have wondered why Simon was given a chance to repent, when Ananias and Sapphira apparently were not. Perhaps this is because given their background, they ought to have known better, whereas Simon represents one for whom conversion from such a corrupt background really did mean a complete turnaround. Tradition has it that Simon’s repentance was short-lived and some said he was really an antichrist who continued to practise sorcery, but the Bible has nothing more to say about this character other than in this passage, when he appears to repent and take notice of Peter’s warning.

We are grateful for the fact that the gospel offers us all ‘countless second chances’ (‘Second Chance’, Rend Collective). Repentance is a vital – and ongoing – part of our response to God. Simon may have been led astray by his misguided view of the spiritual world as a place of bargaining; in truth, we are all tempted to believe that we can earn God’s favour instead of understanding the truly radical nature of grace. When we grasp the truth of God’s unearned favour, that He loves us and blesses us because of His generous nature rather than anything we can do, we are set free to live thankful and grateful lives.