Advent
Meditation
November 24th
2.
Truth based in History
Luke
1:5 In
the time of Herod king of Judea
there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division
of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron.
There
are some people who have some funny ideas about Christianity and there
are some people who just have funny ideas. The ‘funny ideas about Christianity'
people often think Christianity was just some fairytale set of ideas
dreamt up my by some mystics some where along the way in history. The
people who just have ‘funny ideas' often are people who are led by mystical
‘funny people' who have just dreamt up some strange ideas somewhere
along the way in history.
Now
the truth of Christianity is far from either of these two groups of
weird and wonderful believers. Christianity is rooted in down to earth,
time-space history. Things happened and those things were recorded.
Yesterday we started these meditations by considering Doctor Luke who
wrote what we call ‘Luke's Gospel'. He had gone to some trouble to make
sure he had checked things out very carefully. Today's verse is steeped
in history. It identifies the time as that in history when King Herod
ruled in Judea. It speaks of Jewish culture and life at that time, of
the practice of Jewish priests coming from the tribe of Levi and specifically
from the descendants of the family of Aaron in that tribe.
This
says that all that we are about to read follows in the flow of history,
and much of the culture and background is because of what has gone before.
We are never simply isolated figures in history; we come into history,
into a world that has been shaped by all that has gone before.
Later
on, Luke was to write about the coming of a forerunner to Jesus Christ
and described it as follows: In the fifteenth year of the reign
of Tiberius Caesar--when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod
tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis,
and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene - during the high priesthood of Annas
and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert.
(Lk 3:1,2). Those two verses are packed full of historical information
defining the exact point in history when all this occurred. This is
a writer who wants us to realize that this is all happening at a specific
point of history in a specific geographical location, with a specific
culture. You can't be more down-to-earth than this!
In
a day when political correctness or post modern rhetoric tends sometimes
to spew out notions based upon emotion and little else, coming to the
Bible and its concrete foundations may produce a sense of culture shock
in some. There is nothing vague about the New Testament history; it
is clear and concise, sometimes almost too much so. However, if we wish
to use the Christmas story as recorded in the New Testament as a basis
of our mediations, we would do well to face up to these things early
on in the day.
What
we are about to read is rooted in time-space history. Having read it
verse by verse, word by word, for many years now, I am going to treat
it as the accurate history that it is. If you have a problem with that,
either stop reading these meditations now, or risk seeing how different
they might be from the vagaries of unbelieving theologies. You might
be pleasantly surprised! Risk it, stay with us!
If
you wish to e-mail us any comment on this meditation please click here
:
tony.thomas@rochfordcc.co.uk
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