Silent Night

My Christmas message is offered knowing many people are not able to be worshiping in a church this Christmas Eve due to the pandemic.  And just as I had Thanksgiving meal alone for the first time in about a decade, I realize there are others like me who are single and alone, or folks who cannot be with extended family due to the high coronavirus risk.  It is a challenging time for many of us.  I have prayed you would be encouraged by my message.

   On Easter, I worshiped God all morning in my room, which included doing what I do most every morning: Scripture reading and pondering, prayer, and singing.  I also journaled.  And after spending much time thinking about and relishing a big blessing from God in my life, I gained a special blessing.

   The morning included intense lamenting as the coronavirus catastrophe was swelling in the U.S.  And my friend Christel, who had a different health challenge for many years, was in much pain that very day.  She passed away five days later.  Honestly, Easter did not seem like Easter.  Our neighborhood road is ten times calmer when high school is out, but on any given day some cars roll down our street.  Surely cars passed by on Easter Sunday, but I did not hear a single one all day.  The silence was eerie.  Yet before going to bed that night, I had joy and peace knowing that Jesus is risen from the dead, and that He loves me!

   Easter was the central yearly celebration for Christians early on.  In early centuries the celebration retained the term Paschal Festival or Paschal Feast, “Pascha” meaning Passover.  (Pascha is still used by some Eastern Christians.)  The emphasis was on the sacrificial atonement of Jesus as the Lamb of God, expressed by Paul in I Corinthians 5:7-8.  Yet resurrection was also key.  Ignatius once referred to all Sundays, which he termed the Lord’s Day, as resurrection-day!  Anatolius of Alexandria called the Paschal feast “the festival of the Lord’s resurrection.”  There is a classic set of writings of early Christians, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.  Doing a search for the word “resurrection” for simply the first three volumes, I got 650 hits.  Resurrection was a focus for the early Christians along with the atonement.  Thus the term Easter was embraced eventually, a Saxton word which denotes resurrection (which I know thanks to the scholar C.F. Cruse).

   Centuries later, Christians started celebrating Christmas.  Carols have long been one of my favorite Christmas expressions, and “Silent Night” is a staple.  Jesus was born in the middle of the night.  Since so many people were in Bethlehem to register for the census, a few folks were probably still awake being rowdy.  Yet when the shepherds went to see the baby, surely there was much silent reverence before that newborn.  The quiet reverence surrounding the manger where the Messiah lay would not have been eerie like the April 12th silence, rather the silent reverence was surely awesome.

   And think of all the blessed reverence there has been by Christians year after year for the past two thousand years for the birth of Christ.  I personally have been a part of Christians being reverent on Christmas Eve expressed by both a joyful noise in celebration, and in that powerful act of softly singing “Silent Night” with candles in hand.  Revelation 8:1 speaks of silence in heaven when the seventh seal is opened.  God remains holy throughout all ages.  We should heed the teaching of Scripture: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe…” (Hebrews 12:28).  Reverence for God is right even when so much in our world comes unglued in the midst of rampant sin.

   If you have never truly celebrated Christmas or Easter in your heart, you can.  That baby who was born in a manger was Immanuel, which means “God with us.”  And about thirty-three years later, Jesus was crucified on a cross for the forgiveness of sins of anyone.  He was the substitutional atonement for the wages of sin, which is spiritual death.  Then He was resurrected.  I invite you to receive Jesus as your Savior and Lord.  You need to truly believe in Jesus.  The result is eternal life in heaven, and hope in this world.  Though there has been so much sickness and death and loss and hurt and animosity and stress and loneliness this year all around the world, the love of God is still available, and the love of God results in everlasting goodness.

Hunter Irvine

+   Take some prayer time.

- Tell Jesus anything you want to right now.

- Give thanks to God that even after such a challenging year for so many, we have a reason to celebrate Christmas, thanks to the love of Jesus.

I encourage you to now sing “Silent Night! Holy Night!”

Here is a link with lyrics to the song performed by Natalie Raynes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoF6eVNo-Zc

I hope your Christmas is blessed, because Jesus loves you!  love, Hunter

Matthew 1:22-23 Immanuel

Matthew 1:22-23   All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” –which means, “God with us” (NIV).

Isaiah 7:14   “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (NIV).

   Fitting that Matthew tells us the prophecy from Isaiah, since we learned last week the angel of the Lord said Jesus would forgive people of sins.  He is showing Jesus had the authority to forgive sins, since He was Immanuel.

   A big champion of what we now call The Nicene Creed was a church leader named Athanasius.  The scholar Dr. Chris Hall clearly explained in his book Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers that Athanasius refuted Arius with two key statements, the first being the fact salvation can come only from God.  Dr. Hall stated: “The Arian Christ, Athanasius insisted, could save no one.  No creature possessed the ability or prerogative to save from sin.” (1)

   Radically, the prophet Isaiah was saying in the 8th century, long before the birth of Jesus, the Messiah would be God!

   The picture on a Christmas card this year from my dad and step-mom is an old worn down barn next to a rolling field with low mountains in the distance.  An inch or two of snow covers the ground, and the sky is covered with clouds.  The photo was apparently taken near the Appalachian range of Pennsylvania, and reminds me of the Appalachian region in Virginia I am so fond of.  It looks really cold, yet I know that in mid-Appalachia, winters move on in due time.

   Having lived in Colorado for twenty-one of the past twenty-three years, the winters wear on me more as the years go by.  I miss the east coast where I grew up.  Though Colorado is not my climate of choice, I am thankful to live here now, because there are people here who love me.  For me, joy and peace comes not from a place, rather from who you are with.

   So even though I have had numerous rough circumstances ever since coming to Colorado to do ministry work, I have had joy and peace consistently, because all along God has been with me.  Sometimes, problems come in just like a winter storm in Colorado, and God seems hidden.  Sometimes God seems to be nowhere around.  Sometimes joy and peace seems elusive.  Yet God who is unseen is God who became a human being, beginning like all humans, as a baby.  There in the manager was Immanuel, which means “God with us.”  Jesus is still here today through the Holy Spirit in the hearts of all people who have given their heart to Him, and Jesus is speaking through Scripture which He inspired for humanity to learn from Him.

   Here on this fourth Sunday of Advent of 2020, in the midst of a long hard pandemic season, we can trust the revelation of Scripture that Jesus remains “God with us.”

Hunter

Question for pondering:   When do you feel closest to God?

- Take some prayer time.  Talk with God about your needs and your hopes for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day upcoming this week.

(1)   Christopher Hall, Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 60.

Matthew 1:21 The Promise to Joseph

Matthew 1:21   "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins" (NIV).

   We saw in the start of the book of Matthew the seemingly boring genealogy is filled with the promises of God, rooted in Hebrew Scripture, which would be fulfilled by the Christ.  Now in this New Testament Scripture, Joseph got a wild promise from God!  The promise came from an angel of the Lord speaking to him in a dream.  And what was the promise?  That Mary’s baby will save people from their sins.

   I add the name Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, which means “YHWH saves.”

   How did Jesus make it possible for people to be saved from sins?  Romans 6:23 states: For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

   Physical and spiritual death is the result of any single sin.  Jesus died in the place of people.  Jesus was the substitute for the wages of sin.  Receiving the atonement Christ made results in life.  That was His plan from the beginning.

   How can a person receive this salvation?  By believing in Jesus.  The great proclamation of the Reformation was that salvation is by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  To believe in Jesus is to receive His mercy.  When you believe in Jesus, you receive the mercy and grace He wants to give you, because He loves you.

   And the result is being baptized with the Holy Spirit, which means a journey with Jesus has begun.  And on that journey a follower of Jesus is enabled to live a life becoming more and more of a loving person.

   For me it is more comfortable to ignore the topic of sin.  Yet facing the topic of sin is how to be free from it.  And facing sin requires dependence on Jesus.  We all need mercy, and Jesus offers mercy.

   And we all need to improve.  Thus we need to keep relying day by day on the power of the Holy Spirit.  There is much in this world which seems normal, and much in this world which “everyone” else seems to be doing, but which result in hurts, be they slight hurts or huge hurts.  Sin is harmful, and ultimately deadly.  Believing in Jesus results in salvation, then relying on Jesus results in an increasing freedom from sin.

Hunter Irvine

Question for pondering:

1.)   What is one wrong thing you did this past week?  You can ask God for forgiveness.

- Take some prayer time.  With the current coronavirus surge, problems galore are continuing.  Just this week I learned of several people who were recently sick with COVID, or who are sick now.  Please say one prayer for people who are sick at this time.

Matthew 1:19-20 Joseph considers divorce

Matthew 1:19-20

Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.  But after he had considered this, and angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (NIV).

   My first thought: “Divorce is not an appropriate Advent topic.”  Yet it is a relevant Advent topic, because had the angel of the Lord not given encouragement and a revelation to Joseph, and had Joseph not obeyed the angel of the Lord, Jesus would have been born into this world having parents who were divorced.

   Matthew calls Joseph “her husband” in verse 19.  2,000 years ago in the Jewish culture, if you were engaged, you were legally married, which is why Joseph would have needed a “divorce” to end it.  So here they are legally bound and on the doorstep of the wedding, and then Joseph learns his wife is pregnant.

   Under the Mosaic Law, the sentence against Mary would have been death, as is stated in Leviticus 20:10.  Obviously the Jewish leaders were not following this regulation of the Mosaic Law which was surely unpopular.  But we learn here Mary would have been publicly chastised, and it would have probably been a stigma for her which may have resulted in not being able to get another husband of good character.

   Interesting that Matthew says Joseph was a righteous man, thus we know that Jesus had a special father.  Yet even he had decided to divorce his bride, apparently without talking with her.

   My parents are divorced, and I was terribly hurt by their long separation and subsequent divorce.  Once I started following Jesus, a healing process began.  I consider in retrospect that I was a follower of Jesus for about a decade before I was ready for a healthy marriage.  God gently worked to bring healing in my life.  Then in the summer of 2000, there was an incredible event of healing when I took the afternoon to pray on the grass beside the library where my parents first met.  That afternoon, I forgave my parents for the sins they had done which led to their divorce.  The result was awesome: the capability to live free from the hurt and anger which had resulted from my parent’s divorce.

   But much damage was done in my life which I still have to deal with all these years later.  For example, to this day I still have the dream of being married, though I remain single at an older age where most women I know have been married for a long time.

   And now I recall a fact I have not thought of in a long time: After my parents got divorced, Christmas time was a bit depressing for me.  In my youth, Christmas had been the most exciting family day of the year.  But once my family was broken, the special day was no longer the same.  I remember one year in college where I slept in rather than waking up on time with my younger sister to get presents.

   Praise be to God that once I became a Christian, Christmas swiftly gained a growing significance which was not tied to my past family Christmases.  Christmas became about Jesus, my Savior and Lord.

   As we continue with the Christmas story here on the second Sunday of Advent, please know we Christians still have hurts and there is nothing unusual about hurts from family.  If you have such hurts, you may need to talk with a friend about such, yet first and foremost it is best to talk with God.  Tell Him about your hurts.  Listen to Him for help and for healing.

   We all need forgiveness from Jesus, and we all need to forgive people who have hurt us, including our parents for those of us who were hurt by our parents.  Forgiving requires dependence on God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the One who is merciful.

   What better Advent activity than to gain more healing, so we may be better prepared for the blessings of Christmas after this extremely challenging year of 2020.

Hunter

Question for pondering:

1.) Have you ever had a disappointing Christmas?

Matthew 1:18 The Holy Spirit impregnates Mary miraculously

Matthew 1:18   “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” (NIV)

   Who is this Holy Spirit who impregnated a woman?  Jewish people reading this Scripture back in the first century would know.  In the first book of the Bible, in only the second verse, it states: “…and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2).  And the Holy Spirit is mention on occasion as the Old Testament Scriptures continue, though sometimes the term “Spirit of God” is used.  Yet the Holy Spirit is not in a spotlight in the Old Testament.

   The Holy Spirit gained increasing focus during the ministry of Jesus.  John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus as the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit (John 1:33).  In quite the dramatic way there in the apostolic era, the apostles were baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:3-4).  And Paul stated a believer’s body is “a temple of the Holy Spirit” (I Corinthians 6:19).

   And going back to the revelation of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, this is drawn upon by the apostle Peter.  He explained that the prophet Joel foretold the Holy Spirit would be united with people (Acts 2:14-21).  And Peter clarified how the prophecy of Scripture, which included both the Old Testament and the New Testament books, involved people speaking for God “as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).

   Yet even in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is often the member of our Triune God who does work behind the scenes.  Jesus gave the revelation that God is spirit (John 4:24), thus He is unseen.  Yet in addition to unseen fruit from the work of God, including the work of the Holy Spirit, there is fruit which can be seen if someone is willing to see.  For starters, as the special minister and author John Stott wrote in his book Evangelical Truth: “This truth that the Spirit delights to witness to the Son is much stressed in the New Testament…” (1)

   And the Holy Spirit is the One who works in a believer’s heart to make her or him more like Jesus in nature, while not changing her or his unique personality (2 Corinthians 3:17-18), a process termed sanctification.  The calling of a Christian is to be holy.  Genuine followers of Jesus, though not perfect yet, bear the “fruit” of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22), which blesses other people, and even blesses themselves.

   Thus being humble yet all powerful, the Holy Spirit impregnates a virgin Jewish woman, which becomes the awesome event which starts our Christmas story.  The third Person of our Triune God impregnates a woman so God could become a human being.  Jesus was fully God, and Jesus was fully human.

   Though disputed by some of my brothers and sisters-in-Christ, Mary’s reproductive organs were not involved in this process.  Mary was not divine.  Had Mary been divine, she would not have been greatly troubled by the angel’s greeting (Luke 1:29-30).  Jesus was conceived fully by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit did a “miracle” which alone is cause for all people to consider the Christmas story.

Hunter Irvine

Scripture Love Blog

Question for pondering:

1.)   What is an expression of a “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22) you saw this past week from someone, or the expression of a “fruit of the Spirit” which someone may have seen from you?

(1) John Stott, Evangelical Truth (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 88.

Matthew 1:16 The Anointed One

   This genealogy concludes with the key subject: Jesus!  Note Matthew states His name as Jesus and adds: “who is called Christ.”

   What does Christ means?

   Christ is the Greek word for “Anointed One.”  Messiah is the Hebrew word for “Anointed One.”  So what was this “One” anointed with?

   Under the Mosaic covenant, a person was anointed with olive oil.  I had some olive oil on my dinner this evening, and it served many purposes in Ancient Israel, including oil for lamps and being a healthy flavoring to food.  Now for the priests the olive oil for anointing included other ingredients added in.  Under the Mosaic Law, there was a “sacred” anointing oil recipe which is recorded in Exodus 30: 22-24.

   So who was anointed?

   People in three positions were anointed: priests, kings, and most likely prophets.

   Regarding priests, the LORD said to Moses, as is recorded in Exodus 30:30-31: “Anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them so they may serve me as priests.  Say to the Israelites, ‘This is to be my sacred anointing oil for the generations to come.’”

   Regarding kings, we see kings being anointed with olive oil, such as David in I Samuel 16:13 and Jehu in 2 Kings 9:1-6.

   Regarding prophets, Scripture records the anointing with oil of one prophet, Elisha in I Kings 19:16.

   Incredibly, the Christ turned out to be all three!  As we learned last week, Christ is the King of kings.  As we learned from the book of Hebrews in the posting in September, Jesus is the eternal high priest.  And a teaching for another day is the fact Jesus is the Prophet foretold in Deuteronomy.

   And the Anointed One was expected.  God told Daniel the Anointed One would come, and even gave a time period which used Hebrew time lingo, which I learned from a Jewish Christian in a great book I read many years ago by Stan Tilchin.  At the time of Christ, people were anticipating the Messiah, which is shown in New Testament passages such as in John 1:41.

   I conclude this message saying we learn from the book of Hebrews that in addition to the Christ being the eternal high priest, the Christ was the Sacrifice.  Jesus sacrificed Himself.  Incredible.

   Thus I close this teaching this morning telling the Good News that Jesus Christ died on a cross for the forgiveness of sins of anyone.  Jesus was the substitute for the wages of sin which is spiritual death.  And then Jesus was resurrected.  If you do not know Jesus, the Anointed One, as your Savior and Lord, you can right now.  All you need to do is believe in Jesus.  To believe is to receive, and if you believe in Jesus, you will have eternal life in heaven with Him.

Hunter Irvine

Question for pondering:

1.) Nowhere in Scripture is it shown Jesus being anointed with olive oil.  What was Jesus anointed with?

Matthew 1:6-15 Leading to an everlasting King

   From Abraham the genealogy of Jesus proceeds to Isaac, and Jacob, and Judah who was the “father” of one of the “twelve tribes” of Israel.  Going down the line we see Ruth and Boaz, whose story is told in the Scripture book of Ruth.  And then a few generations more and we see King David.

   During the reign of King David, there was consistent warfare and challenges.  I remember a study of his life over two decades ago when I was a youth pastor in Grand Junction, Colorado.  After studying his life month after month with a singles Bible study, it got to a point when I thought, “When is all the strife going to end?”  And his mistakes are renowned.  Yet his kingship led to a period of prosperity and security.  The era of King David was a golden era in Jewish history.  And King David remained committed to God up to his death in this world.

   Like Abraham, really in conjunction with the promise made to Abraham, God made a promise to David.  The promise: “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16).  Just like with the promise to Abraham, the statement “established forever” could be a literary term meaning a really long time.  Yet God really meant forever!  God’s promise to David was an unconditional promise that his throne would be established forever, and that promise was fulfilled in the Messiah.

   Though born in the embarrassing manner of being born in a manger, the baby Jesus was a king.  Magi knew that fact, which is why they asked King Herod, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:2)

   Jesus is risen from the dead, and He lives eternally in heaven.  Thus His throne is established forever, as Jesus reigns daily in heaven!  Revelation 19:16 states: “On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.”

   So what scholars call the “Davidic Covenant” involved an unconditional promise of a forever throne, of which only the Messiah could sit.  And Jesus did.

   So the covenant made by God with Abraham discussed last week was unconditional.  And the covenant made with David was unconditional.  Both found fulfillment in Christ.  Yet the covenant God made with the Hebrews with Moses as the mediator, after the Israelites left Egypt, was a conditional covenant.  The Mosaic covenant: If the Israelites obeyed God, they would live long and prosper in the land of Canaan.  But if they did not obey God, there would be curses.

   Unfortunately, the Jewish kingdom went through more curses than blessings after the reign of David, due to sin.  To start with, King Solomon, David’s son, did plenty he was not supposed to do.  Then the kingdom split with his one son being king of ten tribes and his other son being king of two tribes.  Trouble continued from there.  Scripture records the fact many Israelite kings did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the result was countless tragedies, many of which are recorded in the books of I Kings, II Kings, I Chronicles, and II Chronicles.  And sin was rampant among the Israelites.  There is a sad summary in I Chronicles 9:1 – “…The people of Judah were taken captive to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness.”

   The genealogy of Jesus includes the line of kings of Judah, up until the exile in 586 B.C., when the third and final wave of Jewish people were taken to Babylon.  Zedekiah was the final king of the Israelites.

   God’s faithfulness involved a miracle in bringing the Jewish people home in 536 B.C.  But until the Messiah came, there was never again a king from the tribe of Judah on the throne of Israel.  Upon the miraculous return, a man in that royal line, Zurrubabel, was a “governor,” and he is in this genealogy.  Hebrews still wanted leaders from the lineage of King David, which was possible under Persian rule, but even that would end as the Greeks and then Romans conquered the restored nation of Israel.

   The royal line digressed to the point that you had a man, Joseph, with royal blood working as a carpenter in a region called Galilee, which had not been a part of the vast kingdom of Israel which King David procured for many years.  However, God was true to His promises, and that rural carpenter was in for an unexpected adventure.

Hunter Irvine