Light

Everyone has a favourite aspect of Christmas. It may be the decorations or the special food; it may be the presents or the music; for some it’s the smell of a pine tree in their living room and for others it’s excitement on a child’s face. My favourite is the sight of twinkling lights.

     The whole point of Christmas is to celebrate the fact of God coming to earth as a human child — Jesus — in order to live a perfect life in our midst. As the Bible says, ‘In him was life, and that life was the light of all human-kind’ (John 1:4). The lights on my tree remind me of God sending his light into the world.

     We all need light. It creates vitamins in our skin and it helps us to see. We’d soon be lost without it. And luckily light and dark can’t exist in the same volume of space, because the light shunts back the dark. Therefore, in proportion that our lives are filled with Jesus ‘the light of all humankind’, our souls contain this spiritual light. It also means that we can see, make spiritual distinctions, and find the paths that lead to God and thence eternity. And that light came into the world at the first Christmas, many, many years ago.

     So each time I see the lights of Christmas I’m reminded of the reason for Christmas: we celebrate the means of eternal life and we look for God, who reminds us to pray for help that we can see the path of glory.

God appeared to the shepherds

Jewish society at the time of Jesus was very highly stratified from the Roman emperor at the top to slaves at the bottom. Everyone knew their place in this hierarchy, and anyone attempting to climb a level was soon cast down. Everyone knew it was wrong to do so. And associating with anyone from too low a level was also thought wrong.

     Shepherds were near the bottom of the social order. The reasons were simple enough: they were considered unclean because of many aspects of their job. For example, they would often touch blood and dung. They did not attend the Temple often enough because they were always in the fields with their flocks. Some synagogues refused to admit shepherds because they had no education and would have mangled the local dialect when repeating the Jewish liturgy. They had probably not memorised the Torah (the Law of Moses).

     It’s demeaning being near the bottom of a social order. We have records of shepherds running wild through small, out-of-the-way Judean villages, demanding not to be treated as ‘non-people’. And they had a point: the people needed wool and milk from the shepherds’ sheep, as well as lambs and sheep for sacrifice in the Jerusalem Temple.

     St Luke in chapter 2 of his Gospel describes Jesus’ birth, and makes a truly amazing claim. He says the very first people to hear the good news were shepherds:

There were shepherds living out in the fields near by, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them. They were terrified. The angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord’ (Luke 2:8–11).

     It’s amazing because it demonstrates the upside-down world that Jesus came to bring about. Although the shepherds were the least important in most
people’s eyes, God chose to tell them first.

     This social inversion became a feature of Jesus’ ministry, and is demonstrated repeatedly in the Christmas stories:

• Jesus is born to an unmarried mother from a provincial backwater.
• He is born in a cattle shed and a feed trough is used as a bed.
• The magi greet him. They are gentiles and astrologers, so doubly unclean.

So as we read the Christmas stories, we need to understand that God intends us to read the stories surrounding Jesus’ birth as being deeply subversive. He is changing absolutely everything.

William Tyndale

Tyndale, from the National Portrait Gallery in London.

William Tyndale was born in 1494 in Gloucestershire.

     At the age of 12, Tyndale left home to study at Magdalen Hall (later Hertford College) at Oxford University. He began an earnest study of theology immediately he obtained his degrees.

     Tyndale was highly critical of the contemporary idea that Christians had to study theology before being allowed to read the Bible. As a gifted linguist and very devout, he read widely, and was soon reading the ideas inspired by the Reformation and by Martin Luther. His views became increasingly unorthodox — indeed radical. He also read Greek versions of the Scriptures, which had only recently become available following the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

     Tyndale eventually believed that God was calling him to translate the entire New Testament into English. By this means, he wanted to help ordinary people understand scripture directly and not through the filter of the Church and its hierarchy. Tyndale would claim that the Bible did not support the Church’s view that they were the body of Christ on earth.

     Tyndale left Oxford and went to Cambridge. He learned additional languages and became a leading professor of Greek. He left Cambridge in 1521 to became a chaplain in Little Sodbury, but he was criticised by fellow churchmen for his radical views.

     He left Sodbury for London in 1523, still hoping to translate the Bible into English. He struggled to receive support or backing, so left for the Continent the following year. While there, he visited Luther in Hamburg and wrote extensively about the scriptures and continued translating the Bible.

     Tyndale published his first English translation of the Bible in 1525, in the town of Worms on the Rhine. It was the first English Bible to draw directly on the original Hebrew and Greek texts; the first of the new English Bibles of the Reformation; the first translation to take advantage of the printing press; and the first to use the name ‘Jehovah’ as the name of God.

     Any translation into English was deemed a direct challenge to the authority of both the Roman Catholic Church and the laws of England. Nevertheless, copies were soon smuggled into England, where they were denounced as heretical and even burnt in public. Cardinal Wolsey discovered Tyndale was behind the translation and denounced him as a heretic in 1529.

     The next year, William penned a treatise criticising Henry VIII for annulling his marriage to Catherine of Aragon (on the grounds that it contravened Scripture). The King was furious and demanded his extradition.

     Tyndale hid successfully for many years, but was betrayed in 1535. The imperial authorities in Belgium tried him and convicted him of heresy. On  6 October 1536, he was strangled (which was bungled, thereby causing extra suffering) and his body burnt at the stake. His last words were said to be, ‘Lord! Open the King of England’s eyes!’

     In fact, his dying wish came true. His translations became the basis of all future translations of the Bible. Four years after his martyrdom, Henry VIII authorised an English translation of the Bible — the so-called ‘King’s Bible’, which was heavily based on Tyndale’s original translation. A century later, around 80% of the content in the King James Bible was directly taken from Tyndale’s version.

The book of Nehemiah

Nehemiah fact file

Author Uncertain. Tradition suggests the scribe Ezra, but the evidence is rather shaky. Whoever was its first author, the book has been heavily edited since by several unknown hands.

Date of Writing A consensus date suggests about 450 BC.

Key verse ‘I sent messengers to them with this reply: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” ’ (Neh 6:3)

The Book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament is named after its author and central character. It describes the prophet’s work of rebuilding Jerusalem and purifying the Jewish community.

The ancient walls of Jerusalem

      Nehemiah lived in the second half of the fifth century BC. His book describes events that took place at the same time as those in the Book of Ezra, and represents the final portion in the historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible.

The author Nehemiah was the son of Hachaliah (Neh 1:1) and probably came from the tribe of Judah. He was employed in the court of Artaxerxes, king of Persia. That he was allowed into the Queen’s presence (Neh 2:6) may suggest he was a eunuch. Certainly, in the early Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible he is des cribed as such: eunochos (eunuch), rather than the similar-sounding oinochoos (wine-cup bearer). If so, his enemy Shemaiah’s attempt to trick him into entering the Temple is aimed at making him break Jewish laws, rather than simply hide from assassins (Neh 6:10).

The story The historical context of Nehemiah's mission was the Persians’ need for increased security in the Levant and enhancement of Imperial control; in context, Egypt had recently suffered a serious revolt.

      The Bible story starts in the twentieth year of the king’s reign (so 445 or 444 BC). Nehemiah learnt how the walls of Jerusalem were broken and therefore useless, and asked the king for permission to return and rebuild them. Artaxerxes sent him to Jerusalem as provincial governor of Judah, with the principal mission of rebuilding the walls. Once there, he defied Judah’s many enemies — the Samaritans, Arabs, Ammonites and Philistines — and rebuilt the walls during a period of 52 days (Neh 7).

      Nehemiah then took measures to repopulate the city. He also sought to purify the Jewish community, enforced the cancellation of debt, and helped Ezra to spread the law of Moses. He also enforced the divorce of all Jewish men who had married wives who were Gentiles (non-Jews).

He returned to the king in Susa after twelve years as governor, during which he ruled with exemplary justice and righteousness. Slightly later, after more time in Susa, he returned to Jer usalem and was appalled to find the people had lapsed back into their evil ways: for example, gentiles were allowed to do business inside Jerusalem on the Sabbath and to keep rooms in the Temple. He was so angry that he purified the Temple, priests, and Levites, and enforced the observance of the law of Moses.

The book The book of Nehemiah is told largely in the form of a first-person memoir, and there is general agreement that it is based on fact, and contains genuine letters and first-hand memories. The process of editing started soon after this original report of Nehemiah's wall-building activities with an account of the restoration and reform of the community of Israel. Most scholars now
believe the basic autobiography can be dated no earlier than about 400 BC, when the original core of the book was combined with the parts of the Book of Ezra. Yet further editing may have continued afterwards.

Collect for remembrance

Remembrance

Being a Christian means being filled with God. It doesn’t mean you’re a better person. Rather, it means you’re a better person than you were before you became a Christian.

       If you’re filled with God, then something of God will show in your life, because he’s there inside of you. If it doesn’t then you’re not a Christian but merely pretending to be.

       God is a person of order and love, peace and of joy, so a person filled with God will inevitably start to show these characteristics of God in their own lives. That’s what ‘godliness’ means. A Christian will show in their life the peace of God which passes all understanding, because the God of peace lives in them.

       This peace always manifests itself — initially at least — in small ways. Wherever we go, wherever we live, wherever we eat, sleep, work, or whatever, we take the God of peace in our hearts with us. He inspires us to acts of goodness. We offer praise and thanks; we encourage others; we actively console; we work to reconcile. In each of these small ways, we make the world a better place.

       In time, and with enough people seeking to serve God in these ways, my peace joins up with your peace. The small instances of love occurring through my life join up with the instances of love expressed in yours. In all these ways, we stand up to the violence and hatred in the world. We stand up to the evil and intolerance. If enough of us live in this way, then the peace of God which passes all understanding becomes a reality. So let it start with us.