Matthew 4 – Sitting in darkness

4:16 The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

“I knew such a man,” says Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:3.  And I knew a man like that too.  A man who “sat in darkness”.  A man who spent most of his waking hours sitting in darkness, and all of his sleeping hours lying in the same.

Let’s call him Roy.

Before sunrise, Roy sat in traffic for 35 minutes during his daily commute to the office.  On arriving, Roy went quickly to his cubicle, switched on his computer, and sat at his desk for 3 hours 55 minutes.

At 12:30, Roy broke for a 30 minute lunch (of cheese and pickle sandwiches) which he took sitting at his desk.  After lunch, Roy sat at his desk for a further 3 hours 55 minutes, before finally sitting in traffic for 35 minutes more during his daily commute back home in the dwindling daylight.

And if you’re wondering what Roy did in the only 10 minutes of his 8 hour working day that appear to be unaccounted for, let’s just say he probably spent at least part of it sitting in the office men’s room.

There were windows in Roy’s office, but by strict order of management, the blinds were to stay permanently shut.  At the end of the day, it all comes down to basic health and safety.  You’ve probably not seen what the sun can do to an unprotected monitor screen – the glare is simply murder on your eyes!

So the view from Roy’s seat, over the rim of his cubicle’s partitioning walls, was of an emergency exit sign (consisting of a picture of a running man, a green arrow and an open door), and the office clock (which always ran five minutes slow – for some reason).

The office’s fluorescent lights were always on the blink – quite literally.  Maybe you’ve not seen what a fluorescent tube does when it’s about to fail – the way it starts to flicker, to flash, to blink – it can drive you nuts!

Roy was the most patient of men, but even he had his limits.  And a blinking tube above his cubicle was where he drew the line!  Roy was not the most daring of men, but a “faulty fluorescent” was enough to get him balancing precariously, on one leg, high above his desk, reaching on tiptoes for the offending tube.

And so tubes were frequently removed, but although the proper paperwork was always diligently submitted, in triplicate, to Admin, tubes were rarely, if ever, replaced.

And slowly but surely, year by year, the office grew darker and darker.

And twenty years passed by, like a half-remembered dream.  And the darkness, slowly but surely, year by year, resolved itself into the inexorably approaching “shadow of death” – and the deeper, darker shadow of a life unlived.

Then, one bleak and starless night, Roy had a dream.

In his dream, he was surrounded by total darkness.  He felt himself to be sitting cross-legged on a smooth, hard surface of some kind – but it’s difficult to be sure of anything when it’s too dark to see your own hand in front of your face!  He felt as though he’d been sitting there forever – but in the dark, a minute could be an hour, and an hour could be a lifetime.

Then, suddenly, a pin-prick of light.

And the pin-prick grew – slowly at first, then faster and faster, growing brighter and brighter, till his whole world seemed to be filled with overwhelming, all-consuming light.

Roy screwed his eyes shut, in a futile attempt to block out the light, to bring back the darkness.  And then, just when he thought he could stand it no more...

As suddenly as it had come, the light was gone.

Swirls and splashes of colour popped like bubbles in front of Roy’s eyes, as his overloaded retinas vainly struggled to keep up.  Then, Roy noticed that one particular formless mass of mauve splodges was no longer quite so formless anymore.  Even as he watched, the splodges were merging, coalescing, taking on the form of...

Words...

Nothing is wasted

Nothing is lost

Nothing falls by the wayside

If it is bound up in me

Nothing is pointless

Nothing is meaningless

Nothing is worthless

If it is bound up in me

Everything that is bound up in me is

Eternally significant

Inconceivably important

Unimaginably precious

Live

And move

And have your being

In me

And every empty moment

Every fruitless action

Will be ripe with value

And purpose

Walk

In the light

As I am

In the light

And every dull grey moment

Every obscure action

Will be just another means

Of stepping into the light

The first light of morning found Roy sitting in traffic.  He sat at the wheel for 35 minutes till the commuter tide washed him up at the office.  Then he sat at his desk for a further 3 hours 55 minutes, before breaking for a 30 minute lunch, which he took sitting at his desk.

It was just another day at the office.  Just like thousands before it, and thousands more to come.

And yet, if you happened to look very closely, you couldn’t help but notice an odd quivering of Roy’s lips.  And, what’s more, if you happened to have any sort of talent for reading lips, you couldn’t help but notice that he was muttering something, softly, under his breath, over and over again...

Make it a means.  Make it a means.  Make it a means...

Matthew 3 – Opening heaven

3:16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:

3:17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

When I first read these closing verses of Matthew 3, I was going to write about the Trinity; I was going to point out that although the Trinity is never explicitly mentioned in the New Testament, it is implicit in a number of passages, and this is one of the first examples; I was going to pick out the references to “Son” and “Spirit”, and the implied reference to Father (“a voice from heaven”); I was even going to try and draw a neat analogy between the concept of the Trinity and the atomic theory of the structure of matter...

And then, while I was still mulling it all over, I had to pick up my son from cricket training.  It was just after 5, and the light was already beginning to fade.  It had been a long day, and a longer week.  And, as I jumped into the car and shoved a CD into the slot, my mood was as grey and gloomy as the dusky February sky.

But somewhere during the short half-hour journey – maybe at the point where the narrow, winding B-roads opened out, and the lights of the city appeared just beyond the next rise, and the music swelled in sympathy – my mood took a little turn for the better.  And a little, overlooked, phrase from verse 16 took root in my mind...

And, lo, the heavens were opened unto him.

So if you are interested in knowing that the word "atom" comes from the ancient Greek adjective atomos, “indivisible”, and you want to draw your own parallels between “The LORD our God is one LORD”, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the "indivisible atom" (which actually turned out to be composed of various subatomic particles), then here are a few links you might like to check-out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_theory

http://www.particleadventure.org/4interactions.html

http://webs.morningside.edu/slaven/physics/atom/atom2.html

http://physicsnet.co.uk/a-level-physics-as-a2/particles-radiation/particle-interactions/

But if, on the other hand, this all smacks to you of pointless academic speculation... well stick with me, and let’s turn our attention to more practical matters, because if the Trinity means anything, it has to mean something “concrete” in my daily life; and what I really want to know is how to “open heaven”, how to stand, as it were, in the Son of God’s shoes, and see the Spirit descending, and hear the Father speaking.  What I really want to know is what on earth does the Trinity mean to me?

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, I believe the Trinity ought to mean something to me, because God’s purpose for me, perhaps ultimately the only purpose of my existence, is for my life to be drawn up into the pure, unadulterated, boundless life and love and joy and communion of the triune Godhead.

In John 17, Jesus himself prayed for no less...

17:21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

17:22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

17:23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

And this is the way “heaven opens” to me.  Not through pearly gates, and cherubs, and harps, and haloes, but through perfect union with the life of God, and through that union, perfect oneness with everyone who has been drawn up, together with me, into that Life with a capital “L”.

But how can I enter into that eternal, indivisible union of Father-Son-Spirit, which is the ultimate source of all life and love, and is the only true “heaven”?  The answer is, quite simply, I can’t!  Paul tells us quite plainly in 1 Corinthians that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (15:50).

Of course the “heavens opened” to the Son of God – they would do, wouldn’t they? – but, by the very nature of things, to me, the way to God is “closed”, the door to heaven is firmly shut.

“Who then can be saved?” (Matthew 19:25)

You might well ask.

“With men this is impossible,” says Jesus.

Then, with the hint of a smile: “But with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26).  “Don’t you know that I am the door?  I am the way?  No-one comes to God but by me; but whosoever will, may come freely.” (John 10:9 and 14:6; Revelation 22:17).

God, in the person of his Son, has “opened heaven” to me.  The life of God entered human flesh at Bethlehem, and by the “foolishness” of simply “believing” (1 Corinthians 1:21), I am drawn up into that life, just like a branch is grafted into the vine (John 15).  Maybe “flesh and blood” can’t enter heaven, but heaven, it seems, can enter “flesh and blood”.  And “in” and “through” the Son of God, who became the Son of Man, the “heavens are opened unto me”.

So heaven is not a place you go to some day when you die – it is a “relationship” you enter into, right here and now.  “Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be” (1 John 3:2).  As my life is “transplanted” into the life of the Son (with a capital “S”), I become, as it were, a son (with a little “s”), and I am immediately drawn up into the relationship of a son, with the same inseparable bond with Father and Spirit as the “only begotten” Son himself.

But a branch can be “in” the vine, and still produce no fruit.  And I can be “in” a relationship of perfect oneness with the source of all life and love, and still experience no life, no love, no joy, no peace...

And I must learn how to “abide” in the vine (John 15:4).

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock,” says Jesus.  “If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20).

And here is the challenge, and the work of a lifetime – to learn how to “open the door”, to open up my life to the “heaven” within, to “lay aside every weight” – the “cares”, and even the “riches and pleasures of this life” – that so easily “choke” the “inner life”, and “quench” the Spirit in me (Hebrews 12:1; Luke 8:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:19).

Here is the task set before me, to turn those rare moments of inner quietness and “openness” towards God into my normal, habitual mode of living – to turn a moment on a dim and empty twilight road, into a way of life.

Matthew 2 – Dreams and false alarms

Matthew 2 is a chapter of dreams and signs and messages from God.

In verse 1, we have the “wise men” seeing a “star in the east”.  In verse 9, the star seemed to go “before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was”.  In verse 12, they were “warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod”.

The Wise Men saw signs and visions, they were led by them, warned by them, and in verse 10 they rejoiced over them – and no doubt over the wonderful way God was dealing with them.

And then... it’s Joseph’s turn to dream.

In verse 13, the Wise Men had scarcely departed before we have Joseph dreaming of an angel telling him to “take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt”.  Then in verse 19, after the death of Herod, another dream and an angel giving him the “all clear” to return to Israel.  And finally, in verse 22, a last dream and a warning to avoid Judaea where Herod’s equally dangerous son now reigned.

All of this dreaming, the angelic encounters, the visions in the heavens, set me to thinking about the way God talks to us today.  Maybe you don’t believe God does speak to us today.  But some people certainly do!  They say that God has told them to do this or that, that God has given them a message for you, that God has been speaking to them about some special enterprise or other.  To hear them talk, you’d think they were describing a conversation with their doctor or their financial adviser, not with the “Alpha and Omega, the first and the last”, before whom John fell “as dead” in Revelation 1:17.

Well, all I have to draw on is my own experience, and in my experience, on those occasions when God has “spoken” to me, it has always been with “a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12), it has always needed to be mixed with faith, and it has always been accompanied by something like the “exceeding great joy” the Wise Men experienced in Matthew 2:10 when they realised that the mind behind the universe was “mindful” of them, and interested in their paltry affairs.

No spectacular signs for me; no dreams or visions; no angel voices; in fact, no audible voices at all.  Just a simple verse of scripture, transformed by my circumstances, and the spirit of God, into something more; a snippet of conversation I was half-listening to on the radio; a bedtime story I was reading to the kids; a single word in somebody’s long and rambling prayer; a single line from a novel, suddenly standing out in stark contrast to its context in the story.

A simple coming together of ordinary events, what we often call coincidence.  But it’s only coincidence when there’s no connection.  And faith sees the connection.

Case in point: a certain Friday morning in March; a certain upcoming meeting at work; a certain amount of confusion over 1 and 2 Samuel...

And David said to Ittai, Go and pass over. And Ittai the Gittite passed over, and all his men, and all the little ones that were with him.

It was over my usual hurried breakfast that I turned bleary-eyed to the reading  for Friday 15^th March in my “daily devotional”, but inadvertently went to 2 Samuel 15, rather than 1 Samuel 15, and read the above.  An obscure verse, accidentally plucked from the middle of an obscure story, meaningless to me today, but on that particular morning, the morning of the redundancy meeting at work, faith made the connection and – amazingly, impossibly, absurdly! – I heard God’s voice speaking directly into my situation, and with the most intimate knowledge of my need.

I don’t know whether some people do literally “dream dreams” and “see visions” today (Joel 2:28), or whether in today’s “sophisticated” society, you would be more likely to consult a psychiatrist, or read-up on alien abduction, if you really thought a shining, celestial being had been trying to communicate with you whilst you slept!

Maybe God, in his humility, condescends to speak to us in whatever way we are willing, or able, to listen to him.  And, let’s face it, the sad truth is that God is probably more likely to catch my attention through the writing on the back of my cereal packet at breakfast, than he would be through a whole choir of angels whilst I slept!

But, as it says in Isaiah 43:19, God can “even make a way in the wilderness”, and I believe he both can, and does, make a way to speak to us today.  The problem isn’t so much in God’s speaking, but in our hearing, and recognising his voice.

As I said, in my experience, whenever God has “spoken” to me, it has always been with “a still small voice”.  The fact that it’s always been a “small” voice has, I’m sure, more to do with me, and my ability to hear, than God, and the volume of his voice!  But be that as it may, to my ears at least, God’s voice is often reduced to barely a whisper.  And a whisper is so easily ignored, so easily misheard, and so easily drowned-out.

I can’t really say how often I’ve ignored God’s voice, but I can definitely say there have been times when I’ve misheard him, or maybe just heard what I wanted to hear.  And there have definitely been times when what he’s actually been trying to tell me has been drowned-out by other voices, voices with agendas and aspirations of their own, voices that I managed to convince myself belonged to God, when all the time, deep down, I knew they belonged to me.

And so, it takes faith to hear God’s voice.  It takes faith to believe that God is able to make himself heard over all the competing voices echoing around my head.  And after one or two “false alarms”, when my own desires and ambitions have, as it were, put words into God’s mouth, and sent me marching off down a blind alley of my own making, that’s when faith is needed all the more.  That’s when “the serpent” sneers at the sheer audacity of it, the absurdity of it: that I should actually believe that God is speaking to me.

Yea, hath God said...?  (Genesis 3:1)

And that’s part of my motivation in writing this piece – to bolster my faith, to remind myself, not of dreams and false alarms, but of times when I’ve heard a still small voice, and for once I’ve recognised it for what it is, for once all the other voices have ceased, for once I’ve just shut-up and listened.

Even Samuel had to learn how to listen to God’s voice.  To truly hear his voice was just as rare and “precious in those days; there was no open vision” (1 Samuel 3:1).  And young Samuel had to learn the hard way how to lie back down and say, “Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth” (1 Samuel 3:9).

I guess that’s a lesson we would all do well to learn.

Matthew 1 – In the right place, at the right time

Matthew kicks-off the New Testament not with a bang but with what, at least to the modern reader, might be considered a rather dull and dry list of names – a genealogy of Jesus, which is at best tedious and at worst almost unpronounceable!  No doubt Matthew was trying to make the important point, for the benefit of his first century Jewish readers, that Jesus was descended from the kingly line of David, and that his birth fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies about the coming of the Messiah.

1:22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet...

All well and good, but what can a list of antiquated names say to me, separated as I am by time and space and culture from Matthew’s original readers?

Well, I was thinking about that, and it set me to thinking about Matthew and his first meeting with Jesus.  Matthew tells us a bit about it himself in chapter 9.

9:9 And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.

It seems to have been very much a chance encounter.  Jesus had only just returned to Capernaum after a short excursion to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and was literally between miracles, having just healed a “man sick of the palsy” (9:2), and on his way to the healing of Jairus’ daughter and a woman “with an issue of blood” (9:20).

And suddenly, there was Matthew, sitting at his tax collector’s booth by the roadside.  In the right place, at the right time.  In the right place, not only externally (in that he was physically by the side of the right road – in the right place to physically meet Jesus), but also internally (in that he was in that rare and blessed internal state that could respond without hesitation or debate to Jesus’ “Follow me”).

Just stop and consider for a moment how often you’ve ever been in the position of knowing exactly what you want, exactly what you need, and without a second thought, without fear or uncertainty, you’ve joyfully reached out, and gratefully grasped it with both hands.

Not that often, I’d wager!

My sister was an art student many years ago, and in her final show she exhibited a piece entitled, “I Put This Moment There”.  It spoke to me about the preciousness of every moment, and although I like to think every moment is indeed precious, I have to admit that there are some moments where everything just comes together, everything falls into place, in a miracle of coincidence (or design) – when, even to the most hardened sceptic, it feels as if the mind behind the universe really has “put the moment there”, ripe for the taking, and dropped it, complete and perfect, right in the palm of your hand.

It was that kind of moment for Matthew, when Jesus, passing by, spoke two words and everything fell into place.

All well and good, but what does all this have to do with the fulfilment of ancient prophesies, exhaustive (and exhausting!) genealogies, and Matthew 1?

Well, in any story involving the birth of a child, it’s natural to focus on mother and baby – that’s where all the action is after all!  But if Matthew’s genealogy says anything to me, it’s that Joseph was in the right place, at the right time, right in the centre of a moment that God had been in the process of “putting there” for generations.

Because, you will notice, that Matthew gives us the genealogy, not of the drama’s leading lady Mary, but of one of history’s supporting characters – Joseph.  Now, I’m quite aware that Matthew was probably just following first century Jewish etiquette, giving the man his rightful place as head of the household, and that’s why his genealogy focuses on Joseph rather than Mary, but whatever his motivations, Matthew has left us with something like a slow motion moving picture of God’s hand as it swept through 42 generations, 42 lives both remarkable and mundane, till it finally came to rest in one place, at one time, on one ordinary man, for one special moment.

Maybe Matthew had his own “special moment” in mind (or at least somewhere in a corner of his subconscious) when he penned the genealogy of Joseph... or more likely, he was just following tradition.  No matter.  What we have in Matthew 1 is an illustration of the way God can weave together the moments of all kinds of obscure lives – the life of a “Sadoc”, or a “Zorobabel”, or yes even a “Joseph” – moments when those people were in God’s right place, at God’s right time – not always in the place they wanted to be, not always understanding the circumstances in which they found themselves, not always able to mildly “trust and obey” perhaps, but nevertheless “kept by the power of God” (1 Peter 1:5) and “called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28), and all drawn up into the culmination of God’s slowly unfolding plan, to place a certain man, Joseph, at the side of a certain woman, Mary, just at the time when she was most vulnerable, and everything was at stake.

When God said, “I put this moment there,” Joseph, like Matthew, was in the right place, at the right time.  My prayer for the New Year is that what was true of Joseph, and true of Matthew, will be in some measure true of me.