Advent 9: Substitute

Scripture:
“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)

Song: How Deep the Father's Love For Us

What does it mean that Jesus stood in our place? That the Son of God came to be our substitute?

In part it means that we needed Jesus to come. That is a sobering thought. It is easy to get tangled up in the tinsel of Christmas and forget that this tiny, little, beautiful baby would one day be nailed to a cross. Upon the shoulders of the man this baby would become, the pain and wrongdoing and shame and brokenness of the whole world would be placed.

God’s story is that of a Father longing to be restored to his children. It is the story of a terrible rift that has been made between God and the people who have turned their back on him. The story of a perfect, good and holy God who is grieved by the way the world and the people in it hurt themselves and each other, who cannot ignore wrongdoing and yet loves those who do wrong.

In her astounding book, “The Crucifixion”, Fleming Rutledge asks this question: “What sort of predicament are you and I in that we should require the crucifixion of God?”

When I allow the words of that question to sink it, it is deeply uncomfortable. I do not understand the gravity of sin. I do really understand the necessity of the cross. I do not really think that I deserved to die and be separated from God. I do not want to believe that I needed someone to stand in my place and take away my sin because I couldn’t do it on my own.

But, it was my sin that held Jesus to the cross. It was my rejection of God that caused Jesus to be rejected by his own Father. I needed Jesus to take my place. I needed Jesus to become the perfect exchange. He became my substitute. 

In the moment of crying out on the cross that His Father had forsaken him, Jesus took on my estrangement from God. He was rejected so that I could be brought close. He became Fatherless that I might know God as Father.

Reflection: Read the lyrics of the today’s song. Let us ask God to show us the beauty of the sacrifice Jesus made and to reveal to us the reason that he was willing to stand in our place: because he loved us.

How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the man upon a cross
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart

His wounds have paid my ransom

Advent 8: Healer

Scripture:

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. (Isaiah 35:5-7)

Song: My Healer

God is a healer. It is part of his character, the heart of who he is. His name is Yahweh-Rophe, the God who heals you. When Jesus was on the earth he revealed God's character as a healer. John the Baptist, chained and desperate in prison, sent word to ask if Jesus was really the Promised One. Jesus' reply, echoing Isaiah’s ancient prophecy, was that he must be because he was doing what only God's anointed one could do: he was healing.

"When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’

Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who doesn't stumble on account of me." (Matthew 11:2-6)

Jesus quotes the ancient words of Isaiah back to John. In Isaiah 35, the picture is of a barren and weary land that is longing for rain. The promise is that one day, what is parched and dead will spring back to life, what is broken will finally be fixed, the wilderness will become an oasis. God's people are told to take courage; to strengthen feeble hands and faltering footsteps because the healing God will come. And when Jesus does come this is exactly what he does: his acts of healing as he walks the earth testify to the reality of who he is. He is the sent One. He is the waited for One with the power to heal and restore and make all things new.

What about us? What about now? God is the healer and yet we remain hurting. Prayers remain unanswered. Jesus came and he healed once, but what do we do when we ask for healing and it doesn't happen? Where is the Healer in among cancer, and miscarriage, chronic pain, and unfair death? Where is the Healer amongst a global pandemic that rages unchecked across the world?

I have no answers. I do not know why God sometimes heals and he sometimes doesn't. But the promise of Jesus as Healer is a promise that extends beyond this life. One day we will be healed. We will be fully restored. Our broken bodies will be made perfect. And in the meantime, Jesus works out an altogether deeper kind of healing. It is by his wounds that we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5). At the cross Jesus healed our relationship with the Father. He is not content with physical well-being; he wants it all fixed. Mind. Body. Soul. Spirit. That's quite an ambitious project. It cost Jesus his life.

Reflection: 

Father God, 

Help me to see what you have healed instead of arguing about what you haven't. 

Help me to trust in your healing character even when I don't see it. 

Thank you for Jesus and his healing work on the cross. 

Because of his wounds I am healed. 

Because of his blood I am washed clean of sin and shame. 

Because of his death I live. 

Amen.

Advent 7: Comfort

Scripture: 

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair. (Isaiah 61:1-3) 

Song: At the Foot of the Cross


Part of Jesus' job description is a comforter. In Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus speaks to the people in the temple he claims the words of the prophet Isaiah as his own and says that he is the one who fulfils them (Luke 4:16-20)

Jesus says that he has come to “bind up the broken-hearted.” Healing hurting hearts was - and is - his mission; it was his reason for coming and it is what he is in the business of doing today.

In our current climate, this is exactly who we need Jesus to be. We are all in need of comfort. We all have wounds that need to be bound.

The Jesus that we see in the bible is a man who is familiar with sorrow. He does not stand on the edge of human hurt. He is not a distant God who stands unmoved. He does not watch us crying with a cold and hardened heart. He wades right in and lives amongst us. He embraces the mess of life as a human being. He experiences the fullness of its joys and its pains. He walks amongst those who grieve and hurt and get angry. He kneels beside Martha and Mary in the dirt to weep with them over the death of their brother. (John 11:35) He is moved by compassion for the crowds of people who wander the streets. (Matthew 9:36) He stops what he is doing to comfort a bereaved mother because his heart is pained by her loss. (Luke 7:11-16)

God's heart of compassion is perfectly revealed in his Son, Jesus. He is the Father of Compassion, the God of all comfort. (2 Corinthians 1:3) He longs to be welcomed into our hurt. Answers do not come easily. Grief is not quickly abated. The loss and confusion of this year is raw and painful. But Jesus promises to be with us in the midst of our pain, even as we struggle to make sense of it.

My anger often prevents me from acknowledging this. I am so busy being mad at God that I refuse the comfort that is offered. I won't let God share my grief with me because I'm too busy blaming him for causing it. I am waiting to be comforted, and yet I lash out at the one who tries to do it. But Jesus is persistent. Faithful. Unchanging. He will comfort us. If we let him.

Reflection: 

Father of compassion, I pray that I would know you in the midst of everything that today brings. I choose to acknowledge you in pain and in joy, in sorrow and in laughter. You are the comforter. Help me to remember that. Do not let me cut you off from what I am going through. Do not let me block you out from my struggle, my questions, my doubt. I welcome you in today. I ask for your comfort today, for myself and for this world which so desperately needs it. Help me to know you as the comforter that you are. Amen.

Advent 6: Peace

Scripture:

"For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

Song: Wonderful Counsellor

We live in a world that longs for peace. The newspapers scream of our need for it. Right now, it feels like our societies are more divided and hurting than ever before. This year has cracked open deep wounds of racial inequality and political injustice and we see them laid bare and exposed on our newsfeeds and TV screens. We reel from the images of an Iranian family drowned in the Channel trying to reach safety in the UK. We stagger at the thought of 6.6 million Syrian refugees fleeing unthinkable horrors in a war that has ravaged their country.

When Isaiah, one of the prophets in the Old Testament, spoke of who Jesus would be, who the waited for One was, he named him the Prince of Peace.

Isaiah said that in spite of all appearances, despite the violence and pain of the world as it is, one day someone would come to sort it out. This man would be a great judge: he would settle the disputes that ravage nations and peoples. He would ensure that every boot used for battle, every blood-stained piece of armour, would be thrown away and burned because it would not be needed any more. The people themselves would beat their swords into ploughs and their spears into pruning hooks. On that day there would be no more war. No more armies. No more child soldiers. No more refugees. No more tears and grief. No more death.

We do not live in that day. We live waiting for the fulfilment of that promise. We wait for the final day when Jesus comes back and sort things out once and for all. We live in the not yet. And it is painful.

And yet, in the waiting, Jesus is still our Prince of Peace. He still offers peace to his people. As we pray for peace between nations, and within our own nation, Jesus extends his peace to us.

To my anxious soul, which frets about Christmas presents, and what people think of me, and whether my friend is going to be ok, and what my children’s future will be like, and a thousand other unnecessary things, He says "Peace be with you" (John 20:19).

He says, "I'm leaving peace with you even though you can't see me. I'm giving you the gift of peace and I'm giving it to you in a way that the world can't. You don't need to be troubled. You don't need to be afraid." (John 14:27)

He says, "Do not be anxious. I am close. Come to me and talk to me about it. Leave it with me. And I will give you a peace that you don't understand; a peace that will keep you safe and calm your heart." (Philippians 4:5-7)

He says, "Trust me. I'm the rock. I'm the solid ground. I will keep you in perfect peace if you will just look to me. Trust that I am who I say I am and that I want to give you the peace I say I can give you." (Isaiah 26:3-4)

Reflection: Read through the verses paraphrased above, or look them up in your own bible. Remember that Jesus is the Prince of Peace today.

Lord Jesus, Prince of Peace, 

I want to know your peace today. 

I want my heart to be filled with it to the brim so that in the middle of any and every situation, I am totally secure. 

Lord Jesus, Prince of Peace, 

Please give me peace today. 

Give it to me in the way that only you can. 

Show me that my feet are standing on solid ground even when it feels like everything has given way. 

Amen 

Advent 5: Shepherd

Scripture:

"I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd." (Ezekiel 34:23)

Song: The Lord is My Shepherd

Shepherd is a bit of a weird image for us Westerners and city people who don't really know what a sheep is unless it's given to us as a lamb chop. But, for God’s people, Israel, the promise of a shepherd was the promise of someone to look after them. It was the promise of someone to search out those who were lost and scared and lonely and bring them back; the promise of protection, of a safe place, of provision of food and water and everything they needed.

This year, the news has been full of stories is bad leadership. Whichever side of the political spectrum we stand on, we all know what it is to look at those in charge and feel a sense of exasperation and despair. We have all had experiences of bad leadership: people running our countries in ways we don't agree with, decisions being made that aren't for our good, family members who were meant to look after us but hurt us, bosses who cared for themselves and for their pay cheques but for no one else.

In the Old Testament, this has been the experience of God's people: their rulers, their shepherds, have been pretty awful. They've acted for their own good rather than for the good of the flock. They've made sure they're fed and happy and satisfied but left the people, the sheep, to starve.

But in amongst this mess, God speaks and he promises that one day He himself will come and will rule as a Good Shepherd. He will live amongst his people and they will know him and trust him and follow him. He promises that "as a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so I will look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered...I myself will tend my sheep and make them lie down...I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak." (Ezekiel 34:11-16). His promise is, ultimately, that he will prove himself to be this good shepherd by dying for those he loves. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, will lay down his life for his sheep. 

Reflection: And so, today, no matter how lost or estranged or far from God we might feel, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, promises to look for us, heal us and to bring us home. In John 10:27, Jesus says this: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” Spend some time today in quiet listening to God’s voice – ask him to help you to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd calling your names so that you can follow him.

Advent 4: Rescuer

Scripture: "He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." (Colossians 1:13-14) 

Song: Rescuer

We need to be rescued. That is not a very appealing thought. Despite childhood fantasies of heroes in white shining armour, the fact remains that we would all rather be the saviour rather than the saved; we would rather be the rescuer than the ones in need of rescue.

But this is what God's people, Israel, were waiting for: they were waiting for one who could rescue them from themselves; they were waiting for someone who could pull them up out of the pit where their sin had landed them. As, in these dark days of Winter, we wait each day for sunrise, for that glimmer of hope on the horizon, the moment when night again becomes light, so too God's people were waiting for someone to rescue them from darkness.

The story of the bible is the story of a people in need of a Rescuer, a story of something that cannot be fixed by those that broke it. And that is the starting point of being rescued: admitting our inability to get ourselves out of the situation. Admitting that we need help: that moment when we throw our hands in the air, when we come to the end of ourselves and confess that we cannot do it.

I don't like to confess that I can't do something, that I can't dig myself out of a hole, pull myself out of the ditch. But I can't. I cannot rescue myself. I cannot stop myself from being sinful. I cannot cure my own heart. I cannot wipe away the things I have done and said and should have done and should have said and pretend to be innocent. I cannot stand in front of a holy God and claim to have never done anything to offend.

And so, like most of us I think, I stack up the odd good deed here and there. I masquerade over my sin with attempts to like people, be kind, be generous, do better, be gooder. But, there is nothing so deceitful as the human heart. (Jeremiah 17:9) We kid ourselves into thinking that we are ok; we are the good people; we might think truly atrocious things about others but we don't act on them; we might get angry and shout and rage but we don't kill people. We might commit the odd sin, but that doesn't make us a sinner. We can still work our way up to a perfect God by trying to be a little bit more perfect.

But the very fact that Jesus needed to come defies this kind of thinking. He is the God who comes down down down into humanity knowing that we can never work our way up. He is the one who chooses to abandon heaven so that we might join him there one day. He is the one who redeems us from the mess we have made. Jesus stepped down into our darkness to bring us into his light. There was no other way. We could not rescue ourselves. We needed a rescuer.

Reflection: Let us use these words from Psalm 103 to thank God for what Jesus came to do for us:

Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,

who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)

Advent 3: King

Scripture: 

“The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son.” (2 Samuel 7:11-14)

Song: Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, his ancestor King David was promised that one day someone from his family line would become the eternal King. Unlike any other king, this king would rule forever. He would never be supplanted. He would never die. He would always be in charge, always be reigning.

If Jesus being a baby is offensive, then his claim to be the everlasting King is surely more so. At the start of the Christmas story, even before Jesus has done anything, his claim to be a King is already causing division. Herod's reaction to his birth is violent: he is so disturbed by the thought of someone coming to take away his own power that he orders the murder of all male children under the age of two.

And then we have the Magi, the wise men. In total contrast to the fear and angry of Herod, these powerful rulers are filled with joy at the thought of Jesus as their king. When they see him, they immediately bow down to worship him and give him gifts that are symbolic of the King he will become. Even though Jesus is just a tiny child, they recognise that what God said to Mary is true: here is one who will reign forever.

What about us? How do we react to Jesus as King? We are not a people who like authority. We love to criticise politicians and those in power. We want them to take the flack, we want them to sort everything out but, if I'm honest, I don't really want anyone to tell me what to do. I don't want anyone to make decisions that are going to affect my life and force me to change anything. But this is exactly what Jesus does: calling him King means putting him in charge. It means that today is not my own. My time is not my own. Calling Jesus King means joyful surrender; it means handing over to the one who promises to reign well and reign forever. Is that something we are willing to do this morning?

Reflection 

What does it mean to accept Jesus as our King? Spend a couple of minutes inviting Jesus to be the King over different areas in your life. There might be some areas that are harder to surrender than others! As you do so, remember that Jesus is not only a King, but a good King, a perfect King who promises that he loves us and wants what is best for our lives