Be Still And Know

Luke 1:38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her. We know very little about Mary. When Matthew and Luke provided a family tree for Jesus they did so through Joseph’s descendants. The Bible makes no mention of Mary’s family line or even of the name of her parents. Other sources tell us that they were called Anne and Joachim, but we cannot be sure. In Luke’s account we find her in Nazareth and so that may well have been her home town. We presume that she was probably a late teenager when the angel Gabriel came to her with the astonishing news that she would miraculously become the mother of the Son of God. But hazy as our knowledge may be of Mary, we are given a remarkable picture of someone who trusted God completely. Having heard the news, she simply identified herself as the Lord’s servant and accepted the truth of this amazing revelation. The title ‘servant’ is often used of people who follow God. In the Old Testament we fi

Luke 1:28-30 Gabriel appeared to Mary and said, “Greetings, favoured woman! The Lord is with you!” Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favour with God!” Fear is often mentioned in the accounts leading up to Jesus’ birth. John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, was told not to be afraid when Gabriel met with him. The same happened when the angel met with Mary. Joseph too was told not to be afraid when he was informed of Mary’s surprise pregnancy. For all of them, what was happening in their lives was an astonishing surprise. For John the Baptist’s mother, Elizabeth, the surprise was that she was well past child-bearing years; for Mary it was because she had never had sexual intercourse. All that was happening was totally miraculous, because we all tend to live with the assumption that only ordinary things will happen in life. This first chapter of Luke challenges our thinking in all sorts of ways. Firstly, it r

Luke 1:19-20 The angel said to Zechariah, “I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to bring you this good news! But now, since you didn’t believe what I said, you will be silent and unable to speak until the child is born. For my words will certainly be fulfilled at the proper time.” I’m sure that Zechariah would have seen this as the biggest moment in his life. He was having the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of presenting the incense offering in the temple. And there he was confronted with an angel who informed him that his elderly wife would soon give birth to a son. It would have been a startling moment for anyone but for a very old man, who had long since given up any thought of his wife having a baby, it was overwhelming. I don’t find it surprising that he asked the angel how he could be sure that this would happen. But the angel saw his refusal to believe his words as a sign of disobedience; as a result, he was mute until the time of John the Baptist’s birth. Because

Luke 1:8-10 'One day Zechariah was serving God in the Temple, for his section was on duty that week. As was the custom of the priests, he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense. While the incense was being burned, a great crowd stood outside, praying.' Luke draws attention to the importance of prayer more than any of the other Gospel writers. He presents Jesus as the man of prayer so it is not surprising that, right at the start of his Gospel account, Luke draws attention to the fact that there was a crowd of people praying. As Zechariah performed his duty in the temple, it was a supremely holy moment, and one of breath-taking importance for Zechariah. Although he was involved in serving in the temple twice a year, priests were only allowed the privilege of entering the sanctuary to burn incense only once in a lifetime. There were probably about 1,000 priests in Zechariah’s section, so some priests never had the privilege of performing this sacred duty. Zechariah was clearly

Luke 1:6-7 'Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God’s eyes, careful to obey all of the Lord’s commandments and regulations. They had no children because Elizabeth was unable to conceive, and they were both very old.' Luke begins his Gospel by introducing us to two couples. An old couple and a young couple. First of all, we meet Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were both very elderly and very godly. Zechariah was a priest and a direct descendent of Aaron. There was no retirement for priests and so, because there were so many of them, they were divided into 24 groups, serving at the temple twice a year for a week at a time. We naturally warm to Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were a devout couple. When Luke records that they were righteous in God’s eyes, he wasn’t suggesting that they were perfect but notes their careful obedience to the Lord. Yet they lived with one great sadness: they had no children. In New Testament times, this was considered a matter of shame and would have been confusing for such a god

Colossians 4:7-9 'Tychicus will give you a full report about how I am getting along. He is a beloved brother and faithful helper who serves with me in the Lord’s work. I am also sending Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, one of your own people.' You learn a lot about people through the way in which they speak about others. There are some who seem to moan about everyone they know. But I love the way in which Paul speaks so warmly of his friends and acquaintances. Tychicus was clearly someone whom he trusted completely and who gave Paul wonderful support in his ministry. He is mentioned five times in the New Testament and always receives glowing praise from Paul. In his second letter to Timothy, we learn that the apostle sent Tychicus to take over from Timothy in Ephesus, so that Timothy could be released to spend some time with Paul before his death. It’s vital that we have people in our lives whom we can trust completely. That’s fundamental to the way in which the Church, the body of Christ, works.

Colossians 4:5-6 'Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.' Whether we have a short or a long life, it is clearly a fact that our opportunities are limited; they are finite. Paul urges his readers to take every opportunity seriously, which means that we need to live wisely. Wisdom is always a deeply practical, down-to-earth word in the Bible. The wise person takes God’s truth and applies it to their everyday life. This is particularly crucial in our relationship with those who are not believers because, whether we like it or not, people are looking at our lives and learning about God from our example. When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he told them that they were ambassadors, that is to say they represented God and his kingdom to the non-Christian world. One of my sisters is an ambassador for the British government; her whole life is shaped by her res

Colossians 4:2-3 'Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. Pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in chains.' There is no way in which one can exaggerate the importance of prayer. It has been (wisely) said that we are as strong as our prayer lives and no stronger. That applies just as much to us as individuals as it does to our churches. It is through prayer that we deliberately open up our lives to God and so without it we will soon be struggling. It is for that reason that Paul encourages his readers to devote themselves to prayer. They needed to be continually committed to it and to be on their toes. Paul was more than aware of the spiritual battle they were fighting every day, and they needed prayer to keep them spiritually alert. We must never forget that Paul was in prison when he wrote these words. No one knew better than he did how important it was to stay close to God in pra

Colossians 3:22 'Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord. Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.' 'Tain't what you do (it's the way that you do it)’ was a jazz song first recorded in 1939 by Ella Fitzgerald. The apostle Paul would have agreed with that. There were probably many slaves in the congregation at Colossae, and he knew that the way in which they did their work was a fundamental part of their Christian testimony. They obviously needed to do the right things, but it was important that they did them in the right way, whether or not their master was watching them. They needed to give their best because the service they were giving flowed from their relationship with God. He was always watching, even if their master wasn’t, and they needed to work willingly, as if everything they did was being d

Colossians 3:15 'Let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.' The world is full of conflict. Whether you look at international relations, national politics or even the life of your local community, conflict is never very far away. But that isn’t what God wants for us and so he has made it possible for us to live at peace through Christ, the man of peace. Paul speaks about Christ acting like an umpire who oversees our lives and continually works to ensure that peace occurs. However, the first word of that sentence is the crucial one – “Let”. That is to say peace won’t just happen. We have to give our “yes” to the peace of Christ. We need to welcome him into the centre of our lives and allow him to bring his peace to every situation that we face. Peace is our calling as part of the body of Christ, the Church. That means that we cannot sit idly by when we see strained relationships. As in every other human c

Colossians 3:14 'Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.' The famous Victorian poet, Robert Browning, wrote: “Take away love and our earth is a tomb.” It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of love. It isn’t merely one more excellent virtue which we need to acquire. Love is essential. Without it, no family, organisation or church can thrive. So Paul encouraged his readers to put on the clothing of love; just like any other item of clothing, we need to head into each day ensuring it is in place. The Greek word for love in this verse is agape, which is what I would call ‘tough love’. It’s the love which you have for people whether they love or hate you in return. It’s the kind of love which just can’t stop loving. It’s so committed that it doesn’t give up when the going gets tough and the opposition is fierce. It is, of course, the kind of love that God first showed us. When John wrote his first letter, he pointed to Jesus as being the supreme expressio

Colossians 3:13 'Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.' Any happy and harmonious community relies upon forgiveness. It isn’t an optional extra but an absolute necessity. However, it is also incredibly hard work, so we need to reflect very carefully upon it. Humans step on one another’s toes very easily. In complete innocence, we often do it without meaning to. We say or do things which are obviously right to us, but which cause hurt and unhappiness to others. And, by the same token, people step on our toes and hurt us unintentionally. The only way of coping with this inevitable part of community life is to forgive. This forgiveness rarely needs to be put into words; saying that you forgive another person for their thoughtless words or actions can easily produce problems of its own. God calls us to live with an attitude of forgiveness that graciously and lovingly moves on from the hurt without drawing attentio

Colossians 3:11 'In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.' Every society is full of divisions, but the world of the apostle Paul was sharply and deeply divided, far beyond anything we know today. The biggest divide of all was between Jew and Gentile. Jews were the chosen people and Gentiles were basically the outsiders. There was a Jewish daily prayer in which they would thank God that they were not Gentiles. There was deep suspicion, and even hatred, between Jews and Gentiles, focussed on male circumcision, the physical evidence of the distinction between the two groups. Meanwhile Greeks looked down on anyone who didn’t speak Greek, calling them ‘barbarians’ (which literally refers to people who could only say “bar bar”). And then there was the massive difference between those who were slaves and those who were free. In ancient law, slaves were not even cl

Colossians 3:10 'Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.' I wonder what your aims are for your life. Perhaps they focus on your family, your job or your sport. You may want to become better at what you do and more fulfilled in your life. In this verse, we hear what God’s aim is for our lives – and isn’t it amazing? His aim is that we should become like him. Wow! He, the creator of the world, wants us to resemble him. In Genesis 1:27, we read that God made us in his image. From the very beginning, humankind had a resemblance to God. Sadly, through sin, that image became distorted. But now, through a relationship with Christ, God wants to restore his image in us. This is amazing language! I am sure we are all very well aware of our shortcomings and failings. Perhaps the thought of resembling God sounds incredible to you. But that is precisely what God wants for our lives. Clearly, we are never going to resemble God through our own effort. That cannot be

Colossians 3:2-3 'Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.' The apostle Paul’s message was quite simply a matter of life and death. In the previous chapter he referred to baptism as being an act of burial (Colossians 2:12). In baptism, one life comes to an end and another one begins in which the focus is Christ. That is why Paul encouraged his readers to make sure their primary focus was on heaven and not the things of earth. We all know the description of someone as being “so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly use”. Paul would absolutely disagree with that, believing the person who was focused on heaven would be of the greatest possible use on earth. His view was that the person who was earthly minded was of no earthly use. Paul had a very clear idea of the dangers of allowing our earthly, sinful nature to be in the driving seat of life. He told his readers to put to death sexual immorality, impurity, l

Colossians 2:16-17 'Don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality.' Throughout history, religious people have been famous for their rules and regulations. We see it particularly clearly with the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. They lived according to the law of Moses but also to layers of other regulations which had been introduced by rabbis over the years. It isn’t surprising that in the early Church, one of the greatest challenges came from those who wanted to impose complicated regulations upon the new Christians. These came from many places but particularly from the Gnostics, whose religion was built upon complicated rules about eating and drinking and the observance of special days. Paul was not saying that all rules were bad. A well-ordered family, church or society will only work smoothly and harmoniously if there are rules.

Colossians 2:14-15 'Christ cancelled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.' The cross stood right at the centre of the apostle Paul’s understanding of the good news. Put simply, if you want to understand Jesus, you have to see him through the lens of the cross. In his book The Cross of Christ, author John Stott summed this up when he wrote: “There is then, it is safe to say, no Christianity without the cross. If the cross is not central to our religion, ours is not the religion of Jesus.” For this reason, Paul focused his preaching on the cross even though he was fully aware that the message didn’t always go down well. Jews found it a stumbling block because the law of Moses declared that anyone who hung from a tree was cursed. Non-Jews just found the idea of someone dying on a cross completely foolish. How could anyone find anything comm

Colossians 2:8-9 'Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.' The apostle Paul didn’t believe in beating around the bush! He was so convinced that Christ was the complete answer to the human predicament that he saw every other philosophy as a waste of time. That didn’t mean that he was unwilling to spend time listening to people with other beliefs. He simply didn’t believe that they had anything to offer when compared with Christ. When Paul visited Athens, he spent a great deal of time speaking with the philosophers there, and gladly accepted an invitation to address the Areopagus (the forum in which they held their debates). He sensitively referred to their own poets and thinkers but his focus was always to proclaim Christ. It is the fact that Jesus was both fully man and fully God which marks him apart from o

Colossians 1:22-23 'You are holy and blameless as you stand before Christ without a single fault. But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News.' What Christ has done for us is absolutely amazing. Failed and sinful as we are, he has totally forgiven our sins and made us right with God. He has made it possible for us to stand before him, holy and blameless and without fault. But that doesn’t mean we can now take it easy and do what we want. We need to stand firm in our faith and ensure that we don’t slip away from the truth. In my experience, very few people who drift away from Christian faith do so because they suddenly disbelieve it. What normally happens is that they become distracted or busy with other things. Suddenly their work, family or hobby claims their attention and they find it inconvenient to attend worship. Sometimes, they move house and find it difficult to find another church in which they

Colossians 1:15 'Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation.' Most people have kind things to say about Jesus. They like the fact that he welcomed every kind of person; they admire the fact that he was willing to stand up to the religious rulers of his time; they enjoy the fact that he told compelling, down-to-earth stories and went out of his way to get alongside people; and they value the fact that he was so full of love. But the apostle Paul goes far beyond these kind comments. For Paul, Jesus showed the world exactly what God was like because he existed from before the beginning of creation. Just as we can look at a coin and see exactly what the sovereign looks like, by looking at Jesus we can see precisely what God is like. We don’t know exactly what Paul’s opponents were teaching but it seems to have been a combination of Jewish and Greek thought. Paul’s answer was to give them the most magnificent and clear description of