Luke 1:5-45
Elizabeth is with child - and then Mary is with child.
#surprise
Some people are surprised when they get pregnant. Men especially! Some pregnancies are planned, many are not. When a woman becomes an expectant mother the future changes. There is a future ahead for which she starts preparing – biologically, emotionally, physically, financially ….
Early in this biography of Jesus we have two women who, much to their surprise, find that they are carrying a baby. Elizabeth because she has never been able to have a baby and is now “well on in years”. Mary, because she is a virgin.
Elizabeth had a lifetime of sorrow and loss, who knows how many miscarriages she had suffered? Who can guess at the shame she would have felt in that society – to be labelled “barren”? To find that she is with child would have been a real shock. You can be sure that she was in no way prepared for what motherhood would bring. So what did she do? Luke 1:24 says that she remained in seclusion. This would have been unusual and tells me that she was preparing for what God had prepared for her.
Mary, on the other hand, would probably have been hopeful and looking forward to becoming a mother. But not just yet!
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It would have been a matter of great shame on the family to have become pregnant before marriage. Much more than now.
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She would have to convince her fiancé, Joseph, that she hadn’t cheated on him, (text) “You’re not going to believe this, but …”, “It’s not what you think!...” .
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She knew she was a virgin. Sex education may not have been on her school PSHE curriculum - but she knew.
So Mary too was forced into an abrupt preparation programme. She didn’t need to pop down to the chemist for a testing kit; she had a visit from Gabriel. Mary’s response in Luke 1:38 is a model of how we should respond when God comes to us to prepare us for what He has prepared for us, “May it be to me as you have said.” So she joins Elizabeth in preparation.
For both women, their lives were ordinary and then God intervened with a promise.
The promise requires waiting.
And we see that God’s purpose is proven by the presence of the Holy Spirit:
Luke 1:15, “he (John) will be filled with the Holy Spirit from birth”
Luke 1:35 “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”. When Mary and Elizabeth meet.
Luke 1:41, “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.”
When John was born his father was filled with the Holy Spirit and could speak again.
When Jesus was baptised the Holy Spirit came upon Him in the form of a dove.
This same process happened a few years later with the disciples of Jesus – no they didn’t get pregnant. They had walked with Jesus for several years. Then they saw their dreams and hopes shattered at the crucifixion. And then hope and promise was reborn at the resurrection of Jesus. And they know now that everything is about to change. Something world-changing has been prepared for them. And what does Jesus say, “Wait”.
Acts 1:4, 8 “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about … in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit… You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
For the last year we have been a little preoccupied by the move to Headingley (the move is not yet complete - we are still in the process of making Headingley our Home). We have been fortified by a constant stream of encouragement and promises, particularly in the form of revelation from the Lord (dreams, prophecies, words of knowledge, scripture). We have taken lots of wise counsel too (Proverbs 15:22, “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed”).
So we know we are in the right place and we know that we are doing some wonderful stuff as a community of faith – people are hearing about Jesus, young people are being helped, children being re-connected with their fathers, people in debt being set free, the sick being healed. In a way we could just settle down to carrying on doing what we have been doing as we make Headingley our Home.
But God’s promise to us is for something even more radical and transforming – our inheritance is from a woman, well on in years, suddenly finding herself about to become a mother; and from a young, innocent girl finding herself carrying the promised Saviour; and from a bunch of befuddled disciples waiting for the day of Pentecost and the launch of a world-changing movement, the church.
Love God, love people, love in action
What the Lord is saying to us is that our life together has been like That and now it is going to be like That. There’s nothing wrong with what currently fills our time, or uses our energy or consumes our money but our strap line of love God, love people, love in action needs a turbo charge.
During a turning point in his life, whilst working flat out as a highly successful church growth consultant in the USA, John Wimber (the founder of the Vineyard) recalls, “One night in Detroit the Lord clearly spoke to me, “John, I’ve seen YOUR ministry and now I would like to show you MINE!”.”
Earlier this year I was being prayed for by some other Leeds pastors and the words they used were from Jesus’ parable about not pouring old wine into new wineskins.
Through MORE (our monthly evening of prayer) and through previous weeks of prayer & fasting, this theme has regularly come up - the need to wait on God for His presence and power. To know Him, hear Him, experience Him in intimacy, waiting for Him to manifest Himself among us.
Last Sunday Ben built a cairn to mark our journey to this point over the last year or so – and in my blog last week I described that time as being preparation for what it is that the Lord has prepared for us.
And now is the time to do what it takes as a community and wait on God, pleading with Him to show us
His ministry, to pour out His new wine. There is tons of good in what we do but there also comes a time when, just like the disciples, we have to stop and check and wait. Wait for the Holy Spirit to come. Wait to encounter Jesus and receive power to see His promise to us fulfilled.
Can you imagine being in a room where you are trying to read a book, someone is watching TV, another person is listening to the radio, someone else is playing their guitar, another is on their smartphone doing digital things, two people are trying to have a chat. Maybe that
is your lounge at home? And then someone walks in with a letter addressed to everyone - from Dad - who is working away. They start to read the letter but people can’t hear or concentrate because of the book, the TV, the radio, the guitar, the twitterface, the conversation. What do they have to do?
They have to put the bookmark in the book and close it, switch the TV and the radio off, put the guitar in its case, turn off the smartphone, stop the conversation and turn to face the letter reader. None of the things that they have been doing are bad or wrong. They just need to be put on pause for a little while to hear what the father has to say.
We want to hear the Father; we want an encounter with the Lord Jesus. We need to know His presence and His power. Sometimes we have to push stuff to the side so that we can see and hear Him more clearly.
A month of prayer and fasting
So in January, our time of prayer and fasting is going to be the setting to wait on Him. We are going to let go of the familiar programmes and things we do and focus instead on Him and entreat Him to show us His ministry, His promise for the Leeds Vineyard.
I am not proposing that we stop the church! Or that we close the Vine, stop Belly Buttons, withdraw from youth and children’s ministry and give up on praying for people. But for a period we will stand back, hit pause. We will step into a waiting-on-God place. We will wait on Him to fill us with the fire and wind of His Spirit.
This will be the priority in January. The most important thing we will do as part of our prayer and fasting is to wait on God
together – as many of us as possible. To do this we have to stop doing other things. It won’t be easy. But it is important.
So for the four weeks in January we will put as much as possible of our usual activities on hold. Some things, those on which people outside of our community rely, may carry on (please check with your team leader about whether your activity is pausing over January). The most notable activity which we will suspend will be the housegroups. That doesn’t mean housegroups stop being housegroups. It just means that your weekly meeting is being stopped in favour of a joint time of prayer and worship.
Instead of our usual programme there are four main things in which you are invited to participate:
1. Fast
Ask the Lord to show what you are to go without this month. Whatever it is, it won’t be easy. A week is one thing, a month is another thing all together. You can see some ideas on the website but you can just ask the Lord to show you. Perhaps you could ask Him, “What is it that distracts me from listening to your voice?”
2. Meditate & reflect
I will distribute four sets of reflections on Names of God. Read the scripture and the comment and set aside some time aside during the week to meditate on God and ponder on what He is like. What is He saying to you? What is His promise and purpose for you and for the Vineyard? Invite the Holy Spirit to come.
3. Visit the bunker
The bunker is a response to several words, prophecies, dreams people have had over the last year. It is time of worship and waiting on God at HMC on the four Sunday evenings in January. If you are in a housegroup, this is instead of housegroup. If you are a regular at the Vineyard, if this is your church, it’s for you. It’s a chance for us to worship and pray together with as few distractions as possible. Bring your own refreshments and bring your own materials for being creative with.
The form will be: worship, followed by a short devotional on the name of God for that week, followed by a time of waiting on God – which will take various forms and in which you can participate as little or as much as you like.
It will start at 7.00pm and last for an hour. Then there will be a 30 minute break followed by a repeat, more or less, of the first hour. You can come to one or both. Couples might wish to do one each and swap during the 30 minute break. Others may wish to bring younger children to one and then take them home to bed, or feed older children first and bring them to the second session. The 30 minute gap might be used for people to pray for each other or pop to the pub or café for a quick drink.
4. Make a weekly witness
Weekly worship is a crucial part of our discipleship – of following Jesus. It is an opportunity for us all to celebrate and learn and minister together. There is something powerful and life giving about the people of God gathering together like this. It is important for the children too, giving them really useful and positive input. Teaching them to pray and worship and think about faith.
But in addition, it is a significant witness to the community around us. Weekly worship builds a bridge into the Kingdom for those who watch you from afar. They see you - your neighbours, friends, colleagues. They know you organise yourself and make a priority of this – it is a weekly witness. They see people spilling out of the front doors into the streets and shops and cafes. And that alone makes a significant impact, it builds a bridge over which they can come running.
So during January I would like to invite you (1) to fast, (2) to pray and meditate on the names of God, (3) to visit the bunker and (4) to make a weekly witness at weekly worship.
We are asking Him to prepare us for what He has prepared for us.
We are asking Him to prepare the church for what He has prepared for the church.
As we push activities and distractions to one side for one month, we are going to wait on God. We will encounter Him in new ways. We will receive power as the Holy Spirit comes and we will learn of His promises and purposes for us.
We will wait on His promise.
David Flowers, 17/12/2013