On a journey...

I suspect that on every reality show on TV the phrase 'I've been on an amazing journey' is heard more than once. I always hear and think "what a stupid thing to say!". This morning I have been wondering about this phrase as part of my reflecting on Advent - which is a journey of hope and discovery. 

In order for their to be a journey you need to move from commencement to destination, passing through "touch-points" or staging posts along the way. Most journeys are not a simple straight line, and this journey through Advent is no different.

As we travel towards Bethlehem and the arrival of the Messiah we travel through uncharted territory such as the existence and belief in angels, the prospect of a virgin birth and the vague possibility that Jesus was born in a cave not a wooden stable. These, and many others, cause us to stop, pause, reflect and move on. If we don't then the journey falters or possibly ends there and then.

Some things we need to take more time over, or return to, so that we can understand them a little better - it's not a straight road without detour, twist or turn. It is a journey of faith.

In fact our own journey of faith in Jesus is equally meandering and turning as we are challenged by His teaching, the giving of and use of Spiritual gifts, whether we display Spiritual fruits, how we live in community, whether my worship is about my preference or my motivation. Our hope rises and falls, our adoration likewise. We walk the road less travelled so there are few to help us on our way.

Perhaps a little Advent gift we could treat ourselves to is to find a travelling partner - or acknowledge the ones we already have - because travelling with a companion is always more pleasurable than travelling without.

If the reality contestants have experienced many or any of these feelings then maybe they are right - they have been on a journey.

Have you?

Lost things

Listening this morning to a devotional on sheep I was driven to thinking about the fact that the first people that are recorded as visiting Jesus, when he was born, were shepherds.

My recollection is that shepherds were not in the high class of society, not well to do, not even regarded as working class even - they were the roughest of the rough and the toughest of the tough. Frequently smelly, often without other friends, they were almost social lepers because of how they made their living.

I remember when we lived in London, leading a large Salvation Army Church, we had a drop in morning on a Thursday when anyone could come and have a drink and a chat, watch some television, or simply stay warm. Our youngest son was not yet old enough to go to school and so he came along with us almost wherever we went. These men - and one or two wome - became his friends. Often they were estranged from their own families and so the presence of a child was something they rarely encountered. As he played with his toys and talked to them he had his own ministry of innocence to them.

After a couple of years, when he had started school, he was taken on a school visit when he had to walk with his class to the destination. Following the trip the school contacted us concerned because he talked to everyone and went out of line to speak to the 'tramps'. We told the school that we trusted them to keep him safe, as we had done, but that these people were his friends and we could no more discourage him from talking to them than we could stop him playing football in the playground with his playmates (ironically the school managed to prevent the latter in due course!).

In a child's innocence is repeated the action of the Messiah. The lost, the last, the least and the lonely are welcome - in fact they are sought after by angels to come and worship.

As I #adventwonder this morning I can't help but think that I may have not been as intentional in seeking the lost as I could have been.

The Gift of Giving

My friends at Stewardship who run the #adventwonder programme threw me a bit of a curve ball this morning.

Their message today is about angels and how they were used to give the message of the birth of John the Baptist and then Jesus, how they spoke to the shepherds, how they could not help but reflect the glory of God such was the wonder of this message. Then they sucker punch me by turning this on it's head and challenging me about giving. Nice move - didn't see that coming! And it did challenge me significantly.

You see in my ministry knew of the things I have to do is challenge people about their giving - never comfortable but very necessary. The challenge is one that I take to myself, but when you hear it coming from elsewhere it has added power.

I'm not thinking here of my gift giving at this time of year - I try to be generous and thoughtful (especially to my wife who has a birthday four days after Christmas: always difficult to make it special). No, this giving is about my regular contribution to my church and other important worthy causes, generally charities.

I try to work towards giving a tithe (10%) but often miss the mark.

I try to support charities that are underfunded but often misjudge.

I try to support young people who go on mission trips but often they've been and gone before I know it.

I try to give cheerfully but, honestly, sometimes I do so begrudgingly.

And that last one is the key - the attitude of giving is as important as the amount. In real terms there are some occasions that to give more financially would put my family at risk (The Lord may love a cheerful giver but He also expects we will pay our heating and lighting bills and feed our children). But a generous attitude in giving what I can is about the motivation, and this is the spirit of the angels: sent to give a message to smelly shepherds in a draughty field, they could not help but praise God in the highest!

I am focusing on my attitude of giving as well as the amount of my giving - and that includes time and talents as well as financially. 

Thanks for the reminder!

Can I borrow your cave?

Can I borrow your...cave?

Really? Borrow my cave? What's this got to do with #adventwonder?

Everything!

Jesus was born in a cave on the edge of Bethlehem. No great surprise there - the farming folk and the livestock owners used the caves to store all sorts of things, including the life stock etc yes it was a stable - but it was a stable created from nature. And it was borrowed, or probably freely given out of desperation, by an innkeeper (possibly also a family member - don't forget that Joseph had to go to his ancestral town of origin) who didn't want the highly expectant and about to deliver Mary making his own dwelling ritually unclean by giving birth there - he had no rooms anyway! Add to that the fact that the cave would have been one of the cleanest places to take the fragile Mary to give birth because it was regularly cleaned and swept (not sure whether they used disinfectant) because the animals that normally inhabited the space were a precious commodity. You look at any farm today when the animals are out of the barn or the stables they get really cleaned!

The cave, borrowed, was the obvious place - the best place - for Jesus to be born. 

Humble, utilitarian, unadorned.

And how does the world celebrate this ?

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions (but I #adventwonder if we will ever really understand Christ's coming without equally remembering that he left earthly life in the same way: wrapped in cloths in a borrowed cave...)

Waiting, anticipating...

Today I found myself wondering about Anna, the lady who spent time day after day at the temple in order to see the Messiah when he came.

There's a lady with a life full of hope - elderly and yet still looking forward with anticipation! Can you imagine her joy when it was confirmed to get that the baby she saw in his mothers arms was the prophesied Messiah?

Advent is all about waiting, patiently anticipating.

Waiting...

Anticipating...

Waiting...

Anticipating...

For Anna this took more than eighty years.

Catherine, my wife, doesn't like to queue, she is not blessed with patience, neither is she a great anticipator - yet she is full of faith and hope. I have learned from her to wait and anticipate things that are worth waiting for, the things not of this earth but the things of faith. She knows through discernment when it is time to see God at work and this she does actively.

This is where Anna comes in - she 'waited actively'. Watching all the time.

My #adventwonder today, inspired by two women of faith one ancient and one modern, one old and one young, is to wait actively on The Lord and to dwell in his house forever.

Angels with bagpipes

Nine years ago, while shopping for an advent wreath in North London, we received a telephone call asking if there was any reason why we could not take a ministry appointment in North Scotland (for perspective remember that, at the time, we had three sins in education, one had recently started a job, they were part of a large, young church in the suburbs of the most exciting city in the world). Almost without hesitation our reply was 'yes, of course'. It was a response that changed all of our lives - I am sure for the better. Within a few minutes I sat with coffee in my hand in the restaurant (it was a Garden Centre after all - not much about plants but lots of books, furniture, and Yankee candles) and let the news sink in to my heart and mind as I discussed it with Catherine. We resolved the next day to do what we always did  on a Wednesday morning - we would walk across Hampstead Heath from Kenwood to Parliament Hill Fields and pray and talk the issue through.

The next day duly comes and we did exactly that. This was a walk we took almost every week for a five year period of our lives, we frequently saw the same people and the same sounds. But this week was different. This week someone else turned up: an angel playing bagpipes! Yes, in the middle of our walk we started to hear the sound of the pipes and as we reached the brow as you approach the bandstand on the heath there, ahead of us, was an individual in highland dress playing the pipes. 

We had never witnessed this before, and we never saw or heard him again, but this day looking for surety about a move to Scotland an angel reassured us that we would be fine - simply by his presence.

My Advent Wonder today is about angels - we get to meet them when we are unaware, they herald the goodnews (of the Gospel not just of appointment changes), they reassure.

I wonder if I have missed an angel at some point when God has sent one? I wonder if Zechariah, Joseph, Mary and the shepherds could possibly have missed this wonderful visitation?

I wonder if you may have missed God's reassurance as well....

(It's also #givingtuesday - be an angel and be generous to those around you today- an early gift, a compliment, the giving of time, go on!)

His mother's son

The Magnificat is Mary's song. 'My soul magnifies The Lord...' She sings when she visits her older and, oh so different, cousin Elizabeth. This performance of joy, this exclamation of blessedness comes from a young woman, barely more than a child because something has happened to her that, by all rights, should end in her public disgrace and stoning.

A few years ago a read a first hand account of this practice from one of the modern day eastern countries. It is a barbaric practice visited on those women who live a life away from the holy writings of the country. It is both public spectacle and religious warning - 'act in this way and this is the outcome'. The man, I believe generally gets a slap on the wrist. 

With this in my mind I read the account of Mary and Elizabeth again... Mary's life is in danger before she has really lived but, and this is the thing that has really made me be filled with wonder, she is not only able to be composed about the whole thing she performs a song to praise God in the presence of her cousin who is the epitome of religious and social conformity.

My moment of #adventwonder has stirred in me the desire to look for and rejoice in the most extreme circumstances and decisions of this season. To observe, and even experience, adversity and see it as a blessing, to focus specific prayers for those who could not publicly declare their faith, and for those young girls who find themselves 'with child' and are full of fear of the reactions of others.

For myself, in this moment, My soul magnifies The Lord.