Gospels-Acts
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.
Matt 10:5-34 - Trust in the Lord
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Trust in the Lord audio
I wonder if you’ve ever had the experience of suffering for your faith. I think for most of us that would be a rare occurrence. Though of course suffering for your faith can take lots of forms. In Australia it rarely comes in the form of physical suffering, though it certainly does in other parts of the world. In Australia it’s more likely to be in the form of disadvantage in employment, or being shunned by friends, or being mocked for your beliefs. In the public arena it often takes the form of being sidelined or ignored in public discourse in political policy making.
Matt 13:1-13 - It all Depends on the Soil
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
It all Depends on the Soil
You’d have to say that Jesus’ ministry was a success wouldn’t you? Here in Matthew 13 we see a scene reminiscent of a Taylor Swift appearance. There are so many people flocking to hear him that he has to get the disciples to bring a boat for him to get into before he gets pushed into the water. People are flocking to hear him, willing to endure hunger and thirst because they’re hungry for God’s word - here is the evangelist’s dream. What more could you ask for?
And yet as Jesus proceeds to teach them, there’s a sadness in the story he tells - reinforced by his brief commentary on the purpose of parables in vs 10-12. What on the surface might appear to be a charming story of rural life has a barb to it. It contains a warning to us, the hearers, to be careful about how we listen to God’s word and how we persevere in following that word so it bears much fruit in our lives.
The sadness in the story is that it points out how often, and how easily, the divine seed of God’s word is destroyed.
Matt 15:21-28
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
A Canaanite Woman audio (4MB)
We Christians often get criticised for our belief in the uniqueness of Christ. People accuse us of being exclusive because we believe that Jesus is the way the truth and the life and no-one comes to the Father except through him. We believe that there’s no other name given under heaven by which we can be saved and so we’re seen as judgmental or prejudiced. There may be some of you who have the same concerns. This becomes even more common when you start to discuss heaven and hell. It sounds so terrible to think that God might exclude people from heaven just because they don’t believe in Jesus. We think to ourselves, “That’s not how Jesus would have behaved, surely?”
But then we come to a passage like this and what do we find? Jesus is in the region of Tyre and Sidon. That’s Gentile territory, no longer in Israel, and one of the local women comes up to him and starts shouting for help. “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”
Matt 19:13-30
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
The Key to Gaining the Kingdom
You may have seen the newspaper report this week about a group of people in Mt Martha complaining about plans to build a children’s playground in a local park. Apparently they were worried the children would make too much noise and disturb their quiet neighbourhood. A similar thing has happened at the church where I used to be vicar. They’re having a problem at the moment with a neighbour who’s complaining that the children at the church playgroup are too noisy.
And of course it’s true, isn’t it? Children these days are far too noisy! And undisciplined! And disrespectful of their elders! It wasn’t like that in my day! When I was a child we were perfectly behaved!
I mean, everyone knows that children should be seen and not heard? Don’t they?
