Christmas Message

December 23, 2024

A Christmas Message for wherever you find yourself geographically or otherwise this season.

***

It’s been a strange few weeks in the run up to Christmas back in the UK. After almost a decade in the States, all the usual habits and plans for Christmas don’t work here. Cornbread dressing doesn’t really exist, peppermint bark is hard (but not impossible) to come by and if you’re friends with me on Facebook, you already know about the coffee cake dilemma there is on this small island (cf. before/after photos of my first DIY attempt). On the upside, mince pies, mulled wine and other British Christmas delights have been fun to rediscover.

One habit I’ve had through December is to read through some of Luke’s gospel. Sometimes I read the whole thing (it helpfully has 24 chapters to mark each day of Advent), other times I read smaller sections. Sometimes English, sometimes in the Greek. Either way, I find great value in coming back to the basics of the gospel: the story of Jesus, from his birth to his death to his resurrection. The story doesn’t change, regardless of which side of the Atlantic I’m on.

I had a student come and talk to me about an essay she’s writing on Hagar in the book of Genesis. She noted the remarkable similarity between Hagar’s encounter with God and Mary’s (Genesis 16:11 and Luke 1:31, if you want to look for yourself).

But others are quite striking too.

I was held by the comparison between the angel’s appearance to Zechariah versus that of Mary. I’ve often heard comparison sermons between these two figures and the discrepancy between how they responded to the divine message they were receiving (i.e. Mary had faith, Zechariah didn’t). But what really struck me this time was the geographical location of their respective stories: Zechariah was a priest in the temple, Mary was a betrothed young girl in Nazareth.

What difference does that make?

Well let me set you a scene…

In the very presence of God, Zechariah wants to 'figure it out'

Zechariah was a priest. He was trained in the Torah. We’re told he and Elizabeth were righteous and blameless before God, keeping all of God’s commandments. He knew the rules and rituals around temple worship. His section was on duty and he was chosen by lot to go into the holy of holies and offer incense. This was a morning and evening daily practice for the temple clergy (cf. Exodus 30:7-8). With about 8,000 priests in Jerusalem, that Zechariah was chosen would have been a pretty significant moment in his ministerial life. He would be the one to go into to the sanctuary of the Lord, the place of the ark of the covenant, where God himself said he would meet his people (cf. Ex 30:6).

In short: it was a pretty big deal. [The Mishnah Tamid describes what the practice likely involved: m. Tamid 5:3-6:2]

And in the execution of this duty, Zechariah encounters an angel of the Lord. He’s troubled. Terrified. The angel tells him his prayers have been answered and his wife is going to bear a child, despite being barren and post-menopausal.

And he asks how can he know this is really going to happen?

I don’t know about you, but if I was standing in the very place God had promised to reside and be present with his people, I’d hope my response would be a little more faithful. Here’s Zechariah in God’s throne room, questioning how something can be possible.

All that experience. All that knowledge. All that religious practice. But when push comes to shove, Zechariah is slow to catch on. Even when in presence of God himself. If not here, where would be good enough? The shepherds on the hillside might have more reason to question whether what they were seeing was a phantasm.

But Zechariah? In the Temple? Before the altar of God?

It strikes me that this just reveals the dramatic difference there is between the seen and known things of religion and an active and mature faith in God. If religious practice and habits we employ aren’t matched by a growing intimacy and walk with God, we can miss the obvious. Even when we’re the most obvious place in the world for them to happen We get too caught up in the details. We get caught up in the doctrinal weeds. We want to understand and “figure it out” more than we want to believe and receive the gift of faith on offer.

But faith isn’t about figuring it out. It’s about living it out.

In the back-end of nowhere, Mary’s ready to 'live it out.'

By contrast, Mary is in young virgin engaged to be married who is from Nazareth. Nazareth would have been a small village of about 200, maybe an hour’s walk from the much larger Sepphoris. It isn’t mentioned in the Old Testament. It wouldn’t have been well-known. Luke indicates this in 1:26 when says “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth.”

Now no-one needs to introduce Dallas, Austin or Houston by saying “in a city in Texas called…” Everyone knows where they are. But how about Port Lavaca? Or Van Horn? They need a little more context. A little more introduction.

In Gabriel’s second appearance in Luke, he shows up in a very different place. From the holy of holies to the middle of nowhere. From the centre of religious worship to a unknown town.

I remember Stephen and I driving around Nottingham where we lived when we were first married. We drove through a very ordinary suburb. Not the kind of England you see on Morse or Endeavour or Christmas movies like A Very British Christmas (yes, we’ve just watched it). There are no cobblestone roads, historic pubs or fields of bleating sheep where we were. These were pretty generic homes in a pretty generic neighbourhood. People walking their kids to school. Waiting for a bus. Dealing with a flat tyre. Nothing to see of note.

Stephen turned to me and explained that since living in the UK, he’d realized this was far more the real England than the stuff you see on TV. And he was right. Nowhere-ville.

Maybe Nazareth was like that. Nowhereville, in Galilee.

It is here that Mary receives Gabriel’s message. A place you wouldn’t expect a divine visitation. And certainly not to a teenage girl about to be married. Mary hears she’s to conceive and bear a son.

And Mary, unlike Zechariah, believes. “How will this be?” she asks. She’s confused like Zechariah was, but she believes. And you know the rest of the story.

Where are you this Christmas?

There’s a lot of room for reflection here. I invite you to think about them for yourself. Where do you find yourself in this story?

There are lots of ways we could connect these two places. We could think about the two boys promised: one the last OT prophet in John, who would call for religious change and repentance in anticipating of the second, not a prophet but a promised one, God in the flesh, coming to dwell with his people not in the religious establishment but in the middle of nowhere and nobodies.

We could talk about those of us with long histories of serving in church, whether as clergy, vestry/PCC members, lay leaders, outreach workers or children’s pastors. How we so pre-occupied with the business of God we doubt the power of God when it is revealed. We could contrast that with those who encounter God in nowhere places, in their dreams and on the streets, that would challenge religious sensibilities and propriety.

But I want to leave you instead with this: God worked with them both. He had patience for Zechariah’s figuring it out alongside Mary’s readiness. He revealed himself in the Temple and in Nazareth. Perhaps the message isn’t only in the contrast but in what they share and they embody: God’s levelling purposes at work in the world. Zechariah’s doubt left him mute for months. God confounded his expectations and then shut him up. Zechariah was disciplined, humbled. Brought low. Mary was raised up from nowhere. Honoured. Now heralded as a figure of faith.

God works with us. Correcting. Disciplining. Humbling. Raising up the lowly. Bringing honour where the world might see shame.

My hope is that wherever you find yourself this Christmas, that you encounter something of this God. The God who brings down and builds up. The God who doesn’t rule in the way the religious elite ruled (then or now). The God who works in the hidden and the unseen and the insignificant. Let yourself be brought low by it all if you need to.

Be humbled by the scandal of the nativity where you’ve got caught up in religious practice.

Be open and receptive to the promise of a present God, even if you think you’re not qualified.

And be ready not to 'figure it out,' but to 'live it out.'

Merry Christmas!

******

Photo by Rick Oldland on Unsplash

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Ascension, Star Wars and the work of the Church: A (Very Short) Sermon on Acts 1:1-11

By Suse McBay • May 29, 2025

****** “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” I’m not sure if it’s true, but George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, is credited as popularizing a big change in film production: not having opening credits. Instead of old Westerns and black and white films that began by naming the director, producer, key stars and so on, Lucas began the Star Wars films with the very famous line: “ A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away .” And then came the opening “crawl” that sets up the viewer for the story to come: "It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire..." And so it sets up the story of Luke, Leia and Han Solo. Well, I want to suggest this morning that here in Acts 1 we have the opening words and “crawl” to the Book as a whole. And what sets the scene? Jesus’ ascension. *** In Acts 1, Luke recaps from where his gospel left off in Luke 24, with similar talk of the spread of gospel to the ends of the earth, that his disciples will be his witnesses, and his instruction to wait for the promise of God to come that is His Spirit, as well as, of course, Jesus’ ascent into heaven. But the Acts version has a specific focus: repeatedly mention the watching and looking of the disciples, the taking and lifting up of Jesus and the repeated mention of his destination: heaven. So why this attention in Acts' “opening crawl”? How does this set the scene for the story of the church that is told in Acts and continues today? Well, in contrast to the first victory in the opening of Star Wars, perhaps preparing for more victories to come, the Ascension grounds us in the defining, cosmic-shaping victory of Jesus that began with his resurrection and conlcudes with his exaltation in the spiritual world. Echoing Daniel 7, Jesus is taken up on a cloud, the chariot of the warrior-God, and is now enthroned to rule in heaven. The work of the church is done in light of this all-encompassing victory that has already been won. Christ is already King. But it’s not only that. Often we talk about Jesus’ ascension from a human perspective: his physical departure from earth. Here the disciples see for themselves Jesus’ exaltation and the opening of heaven: they are gripped by it. Through Christ’s entrance into and rule in heaven, he is made more readily available to us on earth. T he work of the church is done by living in a new space that recognises this opening of heaven: consider God’s promised Holy Spirit who comes in Acts 2, how angels appear here and throughout Acts, as well as people being healed, delivered from evil spirits, miracles taking place and people coming to faith . The spiritual realm is breaking in. So, this Thursday of 5th week, with deadlines, looming exams and soon-to-come ordinations: where will we look? Will we stare upwards and wonder where Jesus went? Or will we look outwards, and live in the light of the one who rules the heavens and has opened heaven to us, and for whom we wait to rule the earth as well? ******

Matter(s) of Integrity: A few thoughts

By Suse McBay • May 13, 2025

*** True Colours I was in a situation a few years ago where someone I trusted and expected to act in a certain way didn’t do so. In fact, they did they did the opposite. It hurt. It hurt because there were consequences that affected me, but it also hurt because I thought I knew the person, that I knew how’d they’d respond to pressure. When the rubber hits the road and things get real. Instead, their true colours emerged, and I was wrong. Who I thought this person was, and who they told me they were, was in reality quite different from who they actually proved themselves to be . The specifics aren’t for posting online, but I’m sure you can relate. Most of us can recall some kind of experience of someone we love, someone whose character we trust, letting us down. Someone who you might have believed in—maybe even defended to other people—choosing to do something that shows they weren’t worthy of that trust. Showing that your assessment of them was, essentially, quite different from the reality of who they are. They lacked integrity. Esther’s Example This term at Wycliffe, my colleague John is teaching his way through the book of Esther for the Bible expositions in chapel. Now the book of Esther famously doesn’t even mention God: so what is its purpose? Well, in part (as my colleague has been discussing), it’s a book about wisdom. Will we learn from the wise in the story: Esther (and Mordecai)? Will learn from the foolish: King Ahasuerus? The wicked: Haman? At the start of the book, Esther is a young, timid woman, who’d been through a lot. She was orphan and had been raised by her uncle. But she shows willingness and some social savviness and does what Mordecai tells her to do. By the end of the book she’s bold and courageous. Yes, she knows how to play the political game, but she does so in order to stand up for her people who are being persecuted by Persian imperial policy. She exposes Haman’s duplicitousness. Esther has a remarkable integrity and commitment to who she is and what she values. She is willing to risk her life to stand up for what is right, even knowing the cost. She has integrity. Her insides match her outsides as her character develops through the book. When We Fail Stephen and I go to a large Anglican church in the centre of Oxford. A couple of weeks ago, we had a visiting preacher (who is also a poet and philosopher) preaching about baptism. In the course of his sermon, he reminded us that who we really are is who we are when no-one is watching. And that Jesus died for us, knowing exactly what we do when the curtains are closed and no-one can see us. Again, it speaks to integrity—and that Jesus has come to deal with it. If everyone else thinks I’m a model Christian, but at home, by myself, I’m angry, compulsive, critical, selfish or greedy, the latter is a far more honest assessment of who I am and needs some spiritual help. It exposes a lack of integrity: I have an exterior self who looks one way, but an interior self (that I hide away) that looks quite another. What will happen when the pressure is on? That interior self will come out, one way or another. The good news is Jesus went to the Cross, even for that interior self. And with his help I can be forgiven, heal and become whole. That’s in part what baptism symbolises: me dying to all that ugliness and ungodliness. Naming it, owing it and leaving it with Jesus at the Cross, and then rising to a new life that where my insides match my outsides. A person of integrity. Learn from the Wise: Daniel 11-12 But what of the original situation: when others we trusted in and believed in have let us down? I’ve been teaching my way through the book of Daniel and its been fascinating to muse on this topic. Daniel 7-12 describe a series of visionary experiences that give God’s perspective on the political problems and extreme religious oppression that led to the Maccabean revolt in the 160s BC. These were largely due to the decisions of the Antiochus IV who was on the throne of the Hellenistic empire, a Greek of Seleucid descent. You can read about Antiochus IV in 1 and 2 Maccabees, but the snapshot version is that he installed puppet high priests in the Temple at Jerusalem, looted it for money to fuel his military campaigns, outlawed the Torah (including Sabbath observance and circumcision) and, most egregiously, desecrated the Temple with pig sacrifices and an altar to Zeus. These orders resulted in many faithful Jews having to try and keep Torah secretly. When discovered, those who had done so were public shamed and then executed (e.g. 2 Macc 6:10). It was miserable existence (2 Macc 6:9). Antiochus IV’s diabolical political rule was one thing, but the book of Daniel also wrestles with this: what do we do when our religious leaders let us down? When their outsides don’t match their insides? When we discover they are white-washed tombs (Matt 23:27)? The high priest and many other religious establishment figures were swayed by Antiochus IV at the expense of their loyalty to the Lord Most High. Daniel 11 and 12 in particular speak to this situation. Daniel 11:32 says that Antiochus will “seduce with intrigue those who violate the covenant” in contrast to “the people who are loyal to their God.” A few verses later we learn why: “Those who acknowledge him [Antiochus] he shall make more wealthy, and shall appoint them as rulers over many, and shall distribute the land for a price” (v.39). Antiochus used his power and means to get what he wanted, and those who showed more fidelity to him than to the God of Israel, got to share in that wealth themselves. So, what is Daniel’s answer to when the stewards of God’s covenant and teachers of God’s law reveal their true colours? When their words and who they’ve said they are don’t match up with who they have shown themselves to be? When those around us lack integrity, what are we to do? Well, it’s not to keep hanging on and believing in religious leaders who have proven themselves to be corrupted by political power (they are destined for shame and contempt, Dan 12:2). Daniel’s suggestion is to fix our eyes elsewhere instead: “ The wise among the people shall give understanding to many; for some days, however, they shall fall by sword and flame, and suffer captivity and plunder. ” (Daniel 11:33) Look to the wise. Look to those with understanding. Come to understand for yourselves. But this is not an easy answer. For these are the folk that get into trouble. Who perish by the sword. They don’t look like winners. This is perhaps why Daniel’s own response to the visions is one of weakness, fear and trembling. To understand and see reality for what it is can be deeply disturbing. In Daniel, understanding revolves around knowing God is God of all and all kings should have limits to their power. Even when kings like Antiochus IV trample on what is sacred, and transgress into the holy of holies—divine space—God through his angels is contending with powers beyond human ones and will bring all to judgement. But the waiting in the meantime will not be easy or pain-free. That’s why the promise of resurrection is so important in Daniel 12: it’s reassurance for the faithful—for the wise—to keep going. It is they who will be raised and will be like angels: "Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever." (Dan. 12:3) When those we’ve trusted and believed in fail us, God is at work. There may not be easy answers, and sitting with the reality of betrayal is painful, but God is not done yet. Sometimes what is happening is part of a much bigger, cosmic picture and God will intervene. Others’ words and actions may not line up, but ours can. Our insides can match our outsides and our words match our actions. With God’s help we too can become “ people who are loyal to their God ,” those who “ shall stand firm and take action. ” (Dan. 11:32) ****** Cover picture: John Everett Millais, Esther, 1863–65, Oil on canvas, 77.4 x 106 cm, Private Collection