The Baby lying in a manger

Posted on by
Reply

imageLying in a manger

Why was the baby laid in a manger – in a feeding trough? The expression appears three times in Luke 2: ‘And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger.’ (v7)  “And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” (v12)  ‘And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger’ (v16). Why are we told that?

(1) Because it is what actually happened in history. Luke of all the evangelists was particularly concerned about giving a chronological account of events. See Luke 1:1-4. History matters. Christmas has attached to it lovely fables and fictions and we must not in any measure equate the birth narrative with them. There must be a clear distinction in our own minds that will be sensed by our children. Christ’s birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension are to be taken seriously as events that occurred in history. His second coming will happen as part of, and at the end of, history.

(2) The manger also emphasises the humiliation of Christ. Christ came down; down from the glory of heaven to this world; down to a disgracefully poor birth; down to crucifixion and hell itself. Only after all that do we see the exaltation of Christ as he rose, ascended and will one day come again. He stooped very low in order to lift us up. As Calvin put it, the Son of God became the Son of Man that the sons of men might become the sons of God.

(3) But there is more to the manger than this. The manger was in deed a place from which the animals could feed. There, instead of food for the stock, was the Christ-child. This cries out that He is food for the faithful. He was and is the Bread of Life (John 6:35). Christian people must come and feed on Him. How do we feed on Christ? By the word. We feed on Him through the daily intake of Scripture. Deprivation of spiritual food for any length of time leads to the sapping of strength, vulnerability to malaise and sickness. You just cannot starve yourself without damaging effects. But there is another prime means of nourishment: the Sacraments. Christ took bread and said, “Take, eat, this is my body,” and, “This is my blood” as they shared the wine (Matthew 26:26-28). We feed on Christ by faith as we engage with the Lord’s Supper. How important it is not to neglect the means of grace.

The make-shift crib where they laid the baby was a figure of the Communion Table. The manger invites us to come and be strengthened and sustained as we feed on Him.

True Education

Posted on by
Reply

IMG_1056The striking thing about education is that everyone is an expert on the subject.  Everyone has his opinion.  Perhaps that is understandable because we have all been to school and have experienced education.  Nevertheless, we would do well for our philosophy of education to turn to God’s word.  In Proverbs 17 we read, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

These words could be regarded as a summary of all the wisdom literature.  The same words or similar appear in one Scripture after another:  Proverbs 910 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.  Proverbs 1533  The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom.  Psalm 11110  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practise it have a good understanding.  Job 2828  Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.

The text suggests two heads –

1. The fear of the Lord

Repeatedly I hear people say, “But we shouldn’t fear the Lord, should we?” as if the answer is obviously negative.  But surely we should fear Him.  If He is Almighty, our Creator, Sustainer and Judge He is awesome.  If we are totally dependent upon Him and at His mercy we must hold Him in great regard.  In one hymn after another we seem to express approval of fear of God.

How dread are Thine eternal years
O everlasting Lord,
by prostrate spirits day and night
incessantly adored!
O how I fear Thee living God,
with deepest tenderest fears,
and worship Thee with trembling hope
and penitential tears!

God is all powerful and utterly holy.  I am not.  He cannot abide un-holiness.  That makes me tremble.  It is right that we stand in awe of God.  It is amazing that he receives us, and yet we treat it as our right that He accepts us and gives us a place in heaven.  Come on, He is God almighty and I am a speck of dirt on the face of the planet.

Because Jesus has died I will be acquitted on judgment day and so I have peace with God and peace concerning my eternal destiny.  Yet even in that assurance I have to feel some awe and trembling before Him.

Now this is all about our relationship with God.  Let me propose that education is about relationships.  If someone on the street spits at me as I go by, I may well think, “What an uneducated person – what an ignorant person!”  An educated man will relate to people in a proper way.  Education is about relationships – relationships with the world about us, with people and society, and with ourselves; and a true education is about relationship with God too.

Everyone relates to God in some way or another.  There is the relationship that is warm and willingly submissive, so that I say, “How wonderful God is, how good to me, how great and how gracious – my God how wonderful Thou art!”  I relate to God in a particular way.  Another man may relate to God in a very different way – perhaps he ignores God, perhaps he rebels against God – even when he senses God prompting his conscience he kicks against God and refuses Him.  Perhaps he despises God.  He may even declares himself to be an atheist and says that he believes that there is no God.  This is an ignorant man – an uneducated man.  The context in which a genuine education takes place is the fear of the Lord – an appropriate relationship with God.

2. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Education

This does not mean that you need the fear of the Lord at the beginning and that you can then leave it behind once you have got going.  People used to send the young to Sunday School to give them a good start in life and learn some sound morals; then in their early teens they could leave behind Sunday School and church attendance, especially if they were boys.  Again in our primary schools hymns and perhaps Bible stories are used; then at secondary school those things are forgotten and Christianity may even be explicitly denied.  So belief in the Lord is regarded as the beginning in the sense of that which can be left behind.

This is not the kind of ‘beginning’ that is intended by the proverb; here we have the beginning in the sense of that which is foundational.   When you build a house you begin with the foundation, but you do not then leave that initial work and build the structure somewhere else!  The foundation is essential to what you go on to build.  With no proper foundation you will end up with a pile of bricks and sticks when the storm comes.

Without the beginning — the foundation — knowledge will turn out to be a worthless pile of information.  Mere information is not knowledge or education.  Go back to Genesis 3 and the fall.  The serpent said “If you just forget God and what He said about the fruit you will have knowledge – you will know good and evil.”  They took the fruit in disobedience to God; there was a sense in which what the serpent promised was fulfilled: they knew the difference between the experience of obedience and the experience of disobedience.  But this new knowledge was not to their advantage at all.  It was a disaster and the consequence was dreadful damage in every sphere.  Move on to Genesis 11 where we read of the great tower that was built at Babel.  People said that they would do something impressive and make a name for themselves as very clever, educated people.  When they had built it was an extraordinary feat, but what good was it?  They did it against God and He confused them and scattered them.  These accounts in the Old Testament narrative illustrate that all the information and cleverness apart from God is worthless.  A man may have exams and degrees to his name and be an academic authority and be a university professor, but without the fear of the Lord he does not even have the beginning of education.  Our world rewards with academic honours those who have no true education.

You see why I believe in Christian schooling, why I think it matters that children learn the stories of Jesus, why I am grieved by the undermining of Biblical Christianity in our education system?

Are you an educated person?  I do not mean to ask about your paper qualifications.  Paul spoke of Christ who has become our wisdom:  …Jesus Christ, whom God made our wisdom and  our righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1 Corinthians 130).  I mean to ask you, ‘do you have a respectful and loving relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ?’  To establish an appropriate relationship with God is to have the foundation of real education.

 

 

Unveiling the Ark*

Posted on by

68The ark is such a wonderfully suitable image for a Christian school.  In 1995 when we started Mr Noah’s Nursery School, Dave Donkin, model maker and one time member of Iden Green Congregational Church, made a model for us portraying Noah’s ark.  That image immediately became the logo for the little school and it has stayed with us through these years.  Having opened a new classroom which we call ‘The Ark’, Dave has made another model.  This time his work is in a style not so colourful and stylised, but instead it is quirky and stimulating to the imagination.

Of course, the story of Noah and the ark has much that is clearly appealing to young children.  Among the attractive elements are:

  • the colours of the rainbow
  • the animals
  • varieties of weather
  • a charming story line — we all love  a good story.

There can be no wonder that toy arks and Noah picture books are such great favourites.

Going beyond this, the ark is a symbol of the school itself.  Cornelius van Til (1895-1987) was a very significant Dutch American theologian.  He was the teacher of Francis Schaeffer and a seminal influence.  He had a particular interest in education and wrote this: “What an easily intelligible symbol the ark that Noah built is of the unified culture of Christians, who unify their efforts in the family, in the church and in the school, about the all-comprehensive redemptive work of Christ.”  These words are not perhaps quite so ‘easily intelligible’ to us – his writing is quite difficult to understand!

Van Til goes on, “In particular, what an easily intelligible symbol the ark of Noah is of the Christian school as it lives by the grace of God and then unites the various aspects of human culture….”  The ark is a suitable symbol because it speaks of

  • Divine provision.  The ark was God’s provision for Noah and his family and in deed for the future of humanity.  We should regard Christian schools as the provision of the Lord for believers and for many others beside.
  • Shelter and safety.  Conspicuously, Noah and all in the ark were safe.  It might not have been very comfortable; one may suppose it would have been smelly and sometimes scary, but at least it was safe, and the only safe place to be.  In days when our world is a frightening place, awash with all sorts of hazards and dangers especially for the young, the Christian school provides a refuge.  It is a place where the very young, and those who are young but regard themselves as worldly-wise (adolescents), can be protected from moral and spiritual threats.
  • a distinctive culture.  This is the main thrust of what van Til says.  There is a completely different culture in the ark in comparison with that among those who remain outside.  The whole worldview is markedly different. Those outside are careless concerning the impending disaster and content to go on as if there were no moral and spiritual issue to be faced.  Those in the ark, even if they are not personally committed to God, even if they are full of doubt about Him and the future, they are under the banner of the Judge and Redeemer.  The prevailing ethos focuses on a new start that excludes violence and yields to the Lordship of God.

At Mr Noah’s Nursery School a deliberately Christian culture is expressed in the stated values:

  • Loving one another.
  • gentle Living
  • Learning together

It is not imagined that Christians have a monopoly of these aspirations, but these three certainly represent core Biblical ideals.  Everyone knows that love is the duty of Christians; men are represented in Scripture as having responsibility to look after the world and to handle it as careful stewards; we are called to be disciples — the very word means learners.

Then let us return to the story-line of the ark’s journey.  The ark is a perfect vehicle for the Christian message.  All the essential elements of the gospel are present.  There is sin, judgment, and destruction and salvation. There is revelation and covenant.  Children who engage with the narrative imbibe the categories and concepts of Christianity.  A great obstacle to our contemporaries receiving the gospel is that the very thought patterns are foreign and as incomprehensible as an unfamiliar language.  C S Lewis said that his purpose in writing the Chronicles of Narnia was that children who heard them read, or who read them for themselves, would become familiar with the themes of good and evil, victory and defeat, justice and mercy, and even of Christ and the devil, so that later in life, hearing the gospel, they would recognise all these things.  The story of Noah and the ark introduces the Christian gospel in bold symbolic form in precisely the same way.

*This is the substance of the address given at the Mr Noah’s Nursery School AGM on 6th June 2013 when Dave Donkin’s beautiful and provocatively quirky model of the ark was unveiled.  This fascinating ornament sits in the centre of the room as a label, the room being named ‘The Ark’

The Real Christmas

Posted on by

What has Christmas in common with a funeral?  A funeral is one of those rare occasions when most people are willing to give a hearing to  the message of hope that is offered by Christianity.  If we cannot think about Jesus at Christmas, when will we give Him a thought?!

Everyone seems to bemoan the materialism, and sometimes debauchery, that dominates at Christmas time.  Many appeal for us to remember the real meaning of Christmas.  That is fine, but what do those who make the appeal think the real meaning is?  Is it about children and family?  Is it about giving and charity?  In measure the answer must be ‘yes’, it is about peace and love, but more..!

How ever did a child born in a shed at the back of a hotel in an obscure little place in the Middle East come to have the celebrity status of Jesus?  He wasn’t even born in Jerusalem and that would have been unimpressive enough two thousand years ago when Rome was the centre of things.  He had an unmarried mother, and the father was in doubt.  He was brought up in the home of a carpenter but the nearest to woodwork that we know he got was carrying a cross to the place of his own execution.  Now millions across all the world worship him as God!  How did that happen?

The angel announced the meaning of the humble birth in Bethlehem to shepherds.  He said that a Saviour had come.  What he had in mind was not a political or military figure to rescue the Jews from their Roman occupying overlords.  The chorus of the angelic host is very familiar but needs to be looked at afresh to get the point.  They cried out, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace toward men …”  Then there follows in many Bible translations the word ‘goodwill’.  Whose goodwill?  Is it saying that the men who receive peace are those who have the virtue goodwill?    Or is the goodwill rather that of God who has chosen to bless men with peace?

And what peace is it all about?  Is there a promise of the end of human warring and hatred, and of harmony between people?  Or is it about inner contentment and a sense of personal wellbeing?  We certainly need both of these commodities.  No doubt we need to move towards peace between us all and peace within us all, but there is an even more important kind of peace.  It is simply peace with God.

There is a selfish, rebelliousness in us all.  We break God’s rules for life (the Ten Commandments).  That results in an enmity (enemy-ness) between us and the One who is our Maker and Judge.  We cannot afford for that enmity to go on unchecked.  We dare not die in that condition.  We need a saviour to remedy the situation and rescue from disobedience and its consequences.

We need someone who can establish peace between us and God.  That is what Jesus did by coming two thousand years ago and by going to the cross for us.

But if Jesus really is able to sort out our relationship with God and guarantee our eternal welfare, He is important beyond comparison.  He cannot be relegated to the periphery of life.  We cannot confine Him to church buildings or limit His influence to Sundays.

Don’t you think it is time for you to re-assess the place of Christ in your own life?

 

Why I believe in God

Posted on by

I was asked recently, “Why do you believe in God?”  That was a really good question.  It is far better than, “What is the evidence for God?” — as if there were a proof for His existence.

The Bible does not argue the case for the existence of God but simply and consistently assumes Him. The Apostle Paul asserts that deep down we all have a gut awareness of God.  Some people choose to suppress that sense; others choose to accept and even nurture it.

Scientific evidence is open to interpretation.  One interprets from a theistic (believing in God) perspective and another from an atheistic (not believing in God) perspective.  So our interpretation of scientific evidences will depend on our presuppositions and what we think about God.  To expect science to determine what we believe is to put the cart before the horse.

There is a common assumption that science has in some way disproved God or made belief in Him impossible for a thinking person.  This is patently not the case.  There are certainly some, or even many, scientists who do not believe in God, but there are also scientists who do believe in God.  There are bankers who believe in God and bankers who do not and that doesn’t prove anything either!

Actually, it is simply a matter of choice.  I choose to believe in, to worship and to serve God.  I do not make that choice contrary to reason.  In deed, it is a very reasonable choice to make.  I choose to believe because not to believe is unthinkable and unliveable.   To believe makes sense in itself and makes sense of everything else.  I am convicted by the Holy Spirit of God.  There could be no peace for me in rebelling against that conviction.  What God gives to me is faith, hope and love.  These three, the greatest of which is love, I would find nowhere else.  I choose to believe, and I could choose no other way.  What I find hard to believe is that anyone could not believe!

 

Fight and force

Posted on by

A few days in Bath have given opportunity to watch daughter Rachel on the sports field again.  An exciting hockey match demonstrated vigorous exertion as ladies competed on a freezing cold and very wet afternoon.  Discomfort did not deter Rachel’s team, nor did knowing that they were one goal down.

It is a wonderful parable of the Christian life which can sometimes be so very uncomfortable.  There is no place for discouragement.  We strive for excellence and exert ourselves to win!

And everyone who competes for the prize exercises self-control in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. (1 Corinthians 925)

If for the sake of a game girls fight for all they are worth, should not men take the kingdom by force.

Michael’s music

Posted on by

I have known Michael since he was born.  He has been in Sunday School and in our children’s clubs and youth groups;  I visited his family while they were in Switzerland with YWAM; I was kicked by him when he was in my care and did not want to do as he was told!  All the usual kind of stuff!  And I have seen him grow up and leave school.

 

This week it was so gratifying to have him with me at collective worship, playing his guitar and singing the praises of the Saviour before hundreds of boys.  Most of the lads will have little church experience outside of college.  Perhaps they think that Christianity is dull, old fashioned and only for the elderly – especially women.  Here a very credible young man affirmed, “In Christ alone I stand.”

Foundation for education

Posted on by

Bishop Wallace BennLast week the Bishop of Lewis opened with a service of dedication a small college chapel.  At a moving ceremony, the Lord’s similitude of the wise man who built a house on a rock was read.  The image speaks to young and old alike.  The rock of the words of Christ are a solid foundation for an individual’s life; they are a basis for education.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

If Christian theism is true and and the Triune God is the Lord of all creation, the secular model of education is folly. The fear of the Lord is only the beginning, but it is the beginning of wisdom.  Without the fear of the Lord, education is not really begun.

This means that for Christian believers the Bible in education is not a luxury but a necessity.

Another Cross

Posted on by

At the end of a week speaking to one group of boys after another about the cross, we located and fixed a 7 foot cross on the exterior wall of the new college chapel.  What a wonderful climax to a series of addresses.  Actually, we have had four weeks during which over a thousand students have repeatedly heard the message of the cross.  Now as staff and students make their way from one end of the site to the other they will have before them this reminder of the Lamb of God.

How relevantly Christ speaks to those who will hear Him:

  •   When we are burdened with guilt and a conviction of sin, we hear the same voice that has spoken down the centuries: Father, forgive them…
  • When we are wearied in well-doing and succumbing to the lure of the world and the temptation to ‘do something for yourself’, we see the compelling example of self sacrifice.
  • When it feels as if everything is going wrong or the whole world is against us, Christ seems to say from the cross, “I know; I understand;  I have been there and done that.”

Here is an important observation: unlike what is pictured above, the way to the cross of Christ is not barred; it is open to all who will come to receive forgiveness and healing.