Advent
Meditation
November
30th
8.
Can God turn up?
Luke
1:26-28 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 favored! The Lord is with you."
It's
sometimes difficult to get behind the Christmas story. Many of us know
it too well. Take the angel out of the story above and what have we
got left? A young teenage girl (because that's what she would have been)
who is engaged, we would say, to a man called Joseph. He's a good Jewish
boy with a pedigree going right back to David, one of the earliest kings
of Israel. She
is a young girl and so, in the light of the strict culture of that day,
would not have had any sexual relations with Joseph (as the later story
will very clearly indicate). Yet she is going to conceive, the story
is going to tell us, without the help of a man and have the baby Jesus.
Now
to cope with this, you can take only one of two possible courses: either
what we've written above is not true and she got pregnant by Joseph
or some other man, or God turned up and we have a miracle of conception.
You'll only take the former option if you've set your mind to believe
that God can't turn up and enable Mary to conceive without a man. But
if you're willing to even consider the thought that there is a God,
why should you think that He couldn't do this? If there is a God, then
He has to be the Ultimate Being that philosophers go on about and if
He is this, as the Bible declares He is, then He IS all powerful and
CAN make this sort of thing happen.
Yes,
we are running ahead of our verses above, but we need to get this out
into the open as early as possible, because it actually affects all
of our thinking. Check it again: you either deny that Mary conceived
Jesus supernaturally or you accept the story above. In the light of
what we've just said about God, you either don't believe in the possibility
of this Supreme Being (so why are you reading about Him?) or you do
accept the possibility and therefore must accept the possibility of
the virgin conception. If you accept that, you won't have any problems
with the appearance of an angel. You may remember we encountered Gabriel
two meditations back, but rather took him for granted. Well we're not
taking him for granted now. We're thinking about the possibility of
angels!
If
you start out with acceptance of the possibility of a Supreme Being,
who is described in the Bible, then talk of heavenly beings called angels
is valid as well, even if we personally have never encountered one.
Now we say all this because the talk of angels leaves some of us thinking
about this story in the same way we think about fairy stories – that
it's just a nice made up story for the children. No it's not; that's
the point we're making. We're talking about down-to-earth space-time
history. It happened just like the text says.
Now
this is somewhat critical to our beliefs generally, and the key question
is, could God turn up in this girl's life like this and transform it?
The follow-up question must therefore be, can God turn up and bring
changes to my life? This is what the Christmas story is all about. This
is why it is so important in the Christian calendar. It is all about
revealing the God who ‘turns up' and does things. If He could do it
for them, He can surely come and bring changes to our lives today. This
is the critical issue under consideration. So, can He turn up for you
– today? It was via an angel for Mary, but it could be in a variety
of ways for you! Well, can He?
If
you wish to e-mail us any comment on this meditation please click here
:
tony.thomas@rochfordcc.co.uk
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