Luke 2:22-40
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- Written by: Heather Cetrangolo
A New Year audio (2MB)
In 516 BCE the reconstruction of the Temple was complete. King Herod renovated it in 19 BCE, expanding the facility to include what was basically a large shopping precinct, where you could buy religious goods and animals for sacrifice. It would have been a great sight to behold, especially for Mary and Joseph who had come from a very small town to the big city.
Mary and Joseph were faithful Jews. They would have travelled for about a week to get there, at great expense. For them, observing the laws of purification was absolutely essential. The scripture says, they “finished everything required by the law” (v39). They dedicated Jesus, their firstborn son to the Lord, which would have involved paying a redemption price to the Temple (Num 18). They also went in order to make a sacrifice for ritual cleansing, following childbirth (Lev 12).
And all of this, for the child who was destined to be the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. His death would destroy the need for a Temple. Because of him, the need for ritual purification would end with his generation.
Matt 1:18-25 (Christmas 2011)
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Immanuel - God With Us audio (3MB)
Well here we are again on Christmas Eve hearing the same old story once again. I wonder do you feel like it’s a bit like television in December - just another repeat? Nothing new in it. No new insights to get you going?
Or do you approach the retelling of the Christmas story with excitement as you’re reminded once again of just how amazing these events really are?
Do you stop and think again how incredible it is that God could become one of us?
Let’s do that now as we think about what we’ve just read from Matthew’s Gospel.
Joseph has heard the news from Mary that she’s pregnant and reacts as you’d expect him to: he decides a quiet divorce will solve the problem. He doesn’t want to disgrace her publicly so he decides to keep the details private. People will probably think that they just didn’t get on so he divorced her.
But then an angel appears to him in a dream to reassure him that Mary has remained faithful to him; that the baby is a miraculous child, brought into existence by the work of the Holy Spirit. So Joseph changes his mind and quickly marries her. Nothing new there is there? We’ve heard it all before countless times.
But let me ask you, do you think Joseph was too quick to believe what he heard in that dream? Would you have changed your mind that easily? I mean it might just have been a bit too much goat’s cheese that he’d had for dinner that had him dreaming a weird thing like that.
God Has Favourites
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- Written by: Heather Cetrangolo
God has Favourites audio (5MB)
‘The Incarnation’ as we call it, God becoming a human being, is the fundamental belief that sets us apart from Judaism and all other religious followings.
It really is where the rubber hits the road in terms of the Christian faith.
We Christians are the only people on this earth who believe that God himself became one of us.
We believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
We believe in the Great I Am who spoke to Moses at the burning bush, who parted the sea and led his people out of slavery.
We believe in the God who went before his people in the wilderness as a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day … who chose to reveal himself to the Jewish nation.
We believe in the God who’s glory appeared as a thick cloud … descending over the tabernacle
… who’s holiness shook Mount Sinai, striking the earth with thunder and lightning that made the people tremble.
We believe in the God who is so holy that we can’t look on his face; that the Israelites couldn’t touch the mountain when his glory descended, that Moses’ face shone when he met with the Lord in the tent of meeting.
We believe in the God who is ‘holy, holy, holy’. Who appeared to the prophet Isaiah, who in the Lord’s presence was terrified.
We believe in YHWH, the Great I Am, the one who is so holy that even his name cannot be spoken.
And we share all of this in common with the Jewish people.
But we part company when we open to chapter 1 of Luke’s gospel, because we believe that that same God became a man.
Isaiah 60-61
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Arise, Shine for Your Light is Come audio (3MB)
We come today to the end of our series on Isaiah and to the climax of the book. Here we find God’s salvation brought to its culmination. God has come to dwell with his people; and the whole world is drawn to him to receive the salvation he offers.
It’s as though Isaiah sees a vision that slowly unfolds, first of God’s saving work and its implication for the world, then of the task that’s given to God’s people as a result of this salvation.
Isaiah 55
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- Written by: Heather Cetrangolo
The Beautiful People audio (5MB)
Jesus was standing in the synagogue, in Nazareth, and he read from Isaiah 61 …
After he read the passage, he rolled up the scroll, he gave it to the attendant, everyone was staring at him and he said, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
I love that moment … I think because, I imagine, that the scene at the synagogue wouldn’t have been that different to our church gathering here this morning … except that the men and women would have sat separately and the music wouldn’t have been as good and they didn’t have powerpoint, but apart from that …
I can see women gathering at the back with their friends, and catching up on news (which happens here every week) … I can see kids running around outside, thinking “when do we get to eat?” I can see younger men sitting in the front row learning the scripture. I can see the majority of the congregation kind of glazing over as the scripture reading starts, kind of half listening, or hearing the first verse and thinking, ‘oh yeah, I know that one’ … and then young Jesus, who is just like Jamin or Nic or Abel-John … just a young man who everyone knows and people have watched him grow up and do his apprenticeship and make his Bar-Mitzvah …
… he gets up and says, ‘the prophecy has been fulfilled today’ … and people are thinking, ah, ‘Jesus, you’re not supposed to preach, just read the reading and sit down’ … or his brothers and sisters are thinking, ‘what is our embarrassing brother doing now?’ … and some people are thinking, ‘yeah he’s always been a bit strange this one, thinks he’s got a gift of prophecy or something …’
And yet, in that ordinary place, amongst those ordinary people … because of a seemingly ordinary man … the prophecy was indeed fulfilled, in their hearing.
Is 46
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
False God or True audio (3MB)
Do you ever struggle with whether your understanding of God is correct? Do you ever wonder whether we might have got it wrong? After all, there are lots of voices in the world today that are questioning the orthodox view of God, of Christianity. There are lots of people out there offering an alternative view, an alternative way of coming to God. And there are probably even more who think that it doesn’t matter; any god will do as long as you’re sincere in your belief.
The reality is that we’re in the minority, as people who believe that the God of the Bible is the only true and living God. It’d be easy enough to be swayed by the majority view wouldn’t it? The arguments sometimes seem so reasonable.
Is 43
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Fear Not for I have Redeemed You audio (3MB)
The people are in a desperate situation. They’re described in ch42 as being blind and deaf, imprisoned in darkness. God’s patience has worn out and he’s on the warpath. Listen to what he says to them: “42:13The LORD goes forth like a soldier, like a warrior he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes. 14For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant. 15I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbage; I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools.” It sounds like there’s no hope for them. Disaster has fallen on them.
But then comes a dramatic change of tone. The message turns from one of danger from the fire of God’s wrath to a promise of salvation, rescue from the flames.
God is punishing them but that doesn’t mean he’s abandoned them. In fact he’s like a loving father who knows his child has to be punished but only to bring them back to him.
