Advent One Gods messengers

God promised in Genesis 3v15 that through the seed of Eve that the world 

would be saved. The mother of all the living would give birth to hope. 

This promise came through her descendants. At various stages the line was 

broken or diverted as people returned to God and became God s 

messengers. So Eve, Shem, Noah, Abraham, Issac, Jacob were physical 

messengers of Gods promise. Jacob had twelve sons and it was Judah who 

carried the promise. The tribe of Judah 10 generations later, led to David, the

shepherd king. (Ruth 4:18-22).

Isaiah 9:6-7 reads “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And 

the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called 

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” 

So ordinary people who were faithful to God leaders and prophets were Gods 

messengers. 

Through the virgin birth Jesus became the legal son of Joseph by adoption, 

but the physical descendent of David through Mary. Joseph, who was in the 

royal line of David through Solomon, gave Jesus legal title to the throne of

Messiah (Matt. 1:1-17). Mary, made Jesus a literal son of David through 

Nathan another one of David’s sons (Luke 3:23-38).

Malachi 3:1 “Behold, I am going to send my messenger, and he will clear the 

way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His 

temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He

is coming,” says the LORD of hosts. 

And in Micah 5v2-3 we read: 

“But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of

Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth 

are from long ago, From the days of eternity.” Therefore, He will give them up

until the time When she who is in labor has borne a child. “

So the Old Testament prophets all pointed to Jesus and from them before he

was born we discover that he would be: 

1.A male child, a son (Gen. 3:15; Isa. 9:6)

2. A child born in the line of Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Jesse, 

David, and Solomon. 

3. A physical descendant of David and legal heir to the throne through 

Solomon, 

4. A child born of a virgin

5. A descendent of David, son of Jesse, but not until the tenth generation after 

Perez. 

6. Born around 4 A.D. in accordance with the prophecy of Daniel 9:24f. 

7. One who would be preceded by a forerunner who would prepare the way 

(John the Baptist Mal. 3:1; Mark 1:1-4). 

8. Born in Bethlehem of Judea (Mic. 5:2).

9. Born of circumstances that would identify Him as the Savior and the Star of

David (Luke 2:9-14; Num. 24:17; Matt. 2:1-9).

10. His life would fulfill Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah. 

Zechariah and Elizabeth 

Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth, loved God. Zechariah was a *priest. He

was on duty at the *Temple twice a year. Zechariah and Elizabeth had no

children. For Jews to have no children was very sad. They also felt ashamed. 

They had prayed for a child for a very long time. 

One day Zechariah was on duty in the *Temple. He had a very special duty. 

He would do this only once in his life. He had to burn incense to God at the 

*altar in the *Holy Place in the *Temple. [This incense would have a very 

lovely smell. The Jews believed that the smell carried their words to God.] 

When Zechariah was doing this, an *angel suddenly appeared to him. The 

*angel had a message for him from God. 

Luke 1:13: Do not be afraid, Zechariah; God has heard your prayer. Your wife 

Elizabeth will have a son. You are to call him John”. 

Zechariah and Elizabeth were now old. So Zechariah could not believe the 

*angel’s message. The angel made him unable to speak until Elizabeth had 

her son, John. The words of the angel referred to the *prophecy of Malachi: 

And the Angel was Gabriel! 

The *angel also said this: John was to be a Nazirite as long as he lived, (see 

Numbers 6:1-21). This meant that John would not drink any wine. And John 

would not cut his hair. A Nazirite promised to live only for the *Lord. We know 

about two other men who were Nazirites for all of their lives. These were 

Samson and Samuel. John was to be a very special person. To be a Nazirite 

helped him to remember this.

Mathew 1v18-25

An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Mary and Joseph ended 

up in Bethlehem where the birth took place. In Hebrew Joseph means 

increaser. In the Bible, the name Joseph was first mentioned as the eleventh 

son of Jacob, and the first of Jacob’s wife, Rachel. Joseph had the coat of

many colors, and he served God all his life with integrity. Mary’s husband, 

Joseph, was more than likely named after this Joseph from the Book of

Genesis. 

“After he had thought about it, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a 

dream. “Joseph, son of David,” he said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your 

wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will 

give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he is the one

who will save his people from their sins.”

The angel is not named. 

Matthew 1v22 “Now all this happened to fulfill what was declared by the Lord 

through the prophet when he said, “See, a virgin will become pregnant and 

give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel,” which means, “

God with us.”

Luke 1:26-38

“In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 

to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of

David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, 

'Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.' 

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting 

this might be. But the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, you have 

found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you 

are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of

the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and

he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.' 

'How will this be,' Mary asked the angel, 'since I am a virgin?' 

The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of

the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called 

the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old 

age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is

impossible with God.' 

'I am the Lord's servant,' Mary answered. 'May it be to me as you have said.' 

Then the angel left her. 

So God through his story his golden thread in human history used women, 

men, prophets, kings, shepherds, old people and angels to be his messngers. 

That means we all can be messengers of God! 

Tracing these predictions and prophesies is really amazing. May that give us

joy this Christmas ! 

Advent 1, Beat your swords into ploughshares, Isaiah 2v1-5, Peacemakers

“The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 

In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house 

shall be established as the highest of the mountains, 

and shall be raised above the hills; 

all the nations shall stream to it. 

Many peoples shall come and say, 

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, 

to the house of the God of Jacob; 

that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. 

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 

He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; 

they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; 

nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 

O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah gives an amazing prophecy that has been the foundation for peacemakers for generations. Was this a one off prophecy? Well no because it is repeated in Micah and Hosea and in the Beatitudes. The call is simply for us to be peacemakers wherever we find ourselves. It is however no easy task to be a peacemaker and there are difficult, complex, situations we may not be able to tackle because they are too destructive for us. “Be wise as serpents”. Also many have argued against this as a mandate for Christians, undermining its seriousness for those of us who want to create a new way of being. It is a however a mandate I think we should take seriously.

This peacemaking calls for arbitration between peoples and nations, mediators called to resolve disputes; a role for diplomacy that is highly valued. But it is also a call to what the theologian Walter Brueggermann calls "The Prophetic Imagination". A new differently imagined future.

In our own lives this is a real challenge, to be peacemakers, in our relationships, our cities, our nations, our world. It is the absence of peace we often feel and fear that drives us to stockpile weapons and threaten others. We are not peaceful in our environmental destruction and greed. Isaiah’s words call us to a new way of being that pulls at our deepest heart strings, resonates with deep yearnings for a better way of being. But this is real peacemaking not just lying down and being walked over, but working out peace in a context of justice for individuals and communities. You cannot have peace without justice and perpetrators really hearing the stories of their victims, something Desmond Tutu was trying to do in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.

These words come to us at the beginning of Advent when we are waiting, waiting for the Christ to come again into our lives to strengthen and inspire us to go beyond the norm, to dream unbelievable dreams of peace and live them out in the cut and thrust of real life's dramas and conflicts. We are being told to turn away from whatever constructs of destruction we have around us and even are part of, and build constructs of peace within the context of justice and righteousness, that great Old Testament pairing, however difficult. It is mind boggling in its scope but it is the best and highest way for us as Christians and will lead to peace in our innermost beings if we can in any way measure up to the call.

I have met some amazing peacemakers; the Quakers with their legacy and their study centre at Woodbrooke in Birmingham; The Forgiveness Project; The Mennonites with their commitment to mediation; two Presbyterian ministers in Northern Ireland who at great personal cost took to meeting regularly with Gerry Adams and Martin MacInnis and formed the foundation for the Good Friday agreement; reconciliation work in Bradford between Muslims and Christians involving a joint pilgrimage to Jerusalem; a Catholic priest who facilitated international mediation between nations.

Isaiah’s words are carved into the wall across from the United Nations building as the UN debates on Syria and Afghanistan rage, a high calling to non violence that strikes at the heart of our calling as Christians both as individuals and as a global community. The vision is weapons of war turned into agricultural tools, turned into food producing tools, a promise for “the days to come.” But these visions should shape our today, our future. They call us to change, to be more peaceful, to channel our energies to providing food, not war and destruction, to turn our attention on the agrarian environment.

I believe we are challenged to make peacemaking a priority in our everyday lives and in a context of social injustice where a minority of the wealthy make decisions for the majority who are increasingly poorer. How do our lives articulate this vision and contribute to this divine dream? What price will we pay for peace in our lives, in Syria, in Afghanistan? What small steps can we make for this peace? For the sake of our children and grandchildren we need to learn to be peacemakers and to build an inheritance of  a different earth.

What are we waiting for? Advent 1

Malachi speaks of a messenger who will prepare for the coming of the Christ, a prophet who will deliver the people, make the way straight. Like the rest of the church throughout the world we are waiting, because that is what Advent means-waiting. It is a time of preparation, of waiting for Christ's coming. The preparation is a spiritual one.

How many of us have given up hope. We have stopped praying for miracles, for healing both physical and emotional, for healing of broken painful relationships, for change. How many of us face seemingly difficult and hopeless situations at this Advent time? Situations that perhaps only you know of, and yet the message of God to us is one of hope whatever our situation.

Hope comes to us in unexpected ways, when we least expect it, in a dream, or in a moment of inspiration, through a friend, or even someone we dislike. God uses surprising people as a vehicle of hope. We may feel the presence of God suddenly, feel peace and strength and realize that God is with us in all things and especially in the crisis we face.

There can be nothing better than to hear words of hope. An infertility broken. A diagnosis wrong. A wrong forgiven. A brokenness mended. New possibilities imagined. Hope of a better world, hope of peace between Muslim and Christian, in Israel, in Afghanistan, in the Horn of Africa. Hope born of years in prison, or of a death for a dream. Of such things others maybe have much to teach us.

This Christmas there will be no hope in the noisy shopping rituals and the exchange of presents if there is not also a humbling, a waiting, a vulnerability, to Christ’s coming again, the perspective of God with us-Immanuel, can change us, forever, completely. For many of us we need to feel the brush of angels wings and the whisper of hope this Advent, this waiting time. Today this message challenges us to live lives according to gospel values rather than those of the consumer capitalism that surrounds us. God given hope is not optimism, or sentimentality, based on ignorance or naivite. It is based quite simply in a trust in God. The God who brings light into darkness. and speaks to us. Prepare the Way! For Christ is coming again. Will we hear him, will we see him this Christmastime?