Of sacrifices and shame...

I’ve sometimes thought about the life of Mary, and wondered about the qualities in her life that made God decide to choose this unknown teenage girl to be the mother of His Son, the Saviour of the world. As Christmas approaches, we think again of how Mary was visited by the angel and how she started out on a journey that would change her life - and our lives - for ever.

A couple of weeks ago, at a church service, I watched two actors perform the part of the story that the Bible doesn’t tell us about. Their drama piece depicted Mary’s dilemma as she had to go to her fiancé and break the news to him that she was pregnant. It was sensitively written and performed, and suddenly my eyes were opened in a deeper way to the cost that Mary faced when she agreed to be obedient to what God asked of her.

It hit me in a new way that, when this teenage girl said yes to the Father’s will, she wasn’t only saying yes to a nine-month pregnancy; she was actually declaring herself willing to pay the price of a whole lifetime of shame and misjudgement. In saying yes to God, this godly young woman knew that she was probably going to be judged and found guilty by her family, friends and maybe even by the man she loved. Because, let’s face it, it’s extremely unlikely that anyone was going to believe a far-fetched story about a baby conceived by the Holy Spirit. Mary knew that; and yet she was willing to say yes to God, even though it meant that her former good reputation might be destroyed and lost for ever.

And, in marrying her, Joseph knew that too. Even though time passed and people’s memories perhaps faded a bit with the years; even though Mary and Joseph continued to live godly lives and went on to have more kids of their own… it’s possible that people continued to whisper behind their backs, and that the people of Nazareth always thought of Jesus as, “Mary and Joseph’s eldest son. He was illegitimate you know!”

Thirty years passed before Jesus began His public ministry and gave any evidence at all of being anything other than the biological son of Mary and Joseph the carpenter. And, even then, there were many who didn’t recognise who He really was. My heart hurt to think that Mary had lived for thirty years, or maybe even for her whole life, knowing the truth about what had happened, and yet being constantly confronted with the fact that other people were judging her and believing a lie about her. (Because you usually can’t change history, as it was perceived, and it’s unlikely that people ever changed the impressions and the judgements they’d formed about her at that time.)

What sacrificial love! What costly obedience! We sometimes say, or sing in hymns, that no price is too high to pay and nothing is too much to give up for the One who loved us and died for us. Thinking last week about Mary’s situation, about her willingness to embrace a whole lifetime of shame and misjudgement, maybe even of gossip and rejection, allowed me to understand “radical obedience” in a new light. And yet this radical obedience of a teenage girl has allowed hundreds and millions of us to experience friendship with the Messiah and God of the universe.

As we think about how the Son of God gave up everything and came to be born on earth at Christmas time, my prayer for my own life is that I will continually grow in my capacity for sacrifice and in my willingness to say yes to the Lord; my readiness to say, “No price is too high, no sacrifice is too great, no pain or shame is too deep… if the result is that I and others can know the living God in a deep and personal way.” I still have a lot of growing to do in this area: saying yes is one thing, but embracing the consequences and hanging in for the the long term can sometimes be a real challenge that involves daily dying to self. The depth of Mary’s sacrifice still leaves me stunned but, deep down, I know that this kind of unconditional surrender to God is the deepest desire of my heart. Quite simply because He deserves it and He can always be trusted with lives that are committed to His purposes. Wow!

Crashes, call centres and cathedrals...

If you're trying to reach me by email at the moment, you've no doubt been met by an ominous silence. My computer crashed at the beginning of December and is still in hospital in a "coma." It looks as if it will only be sorted out sometime next week, and so I might not be able to have email access again until then.

When the crash happened, I phoned the manufacturer's customer helpline to report the "death" and find out what needed to be done. These call centres are seldom in the UK, and so you spend half your time spelling out names and addresses, because you find yourself speaking with foreigners who don't understand your accent and you don't understand theirs! I was passed from person to person and, after I was put on to the fifth person, I began to realise that everyone I'd spoken to had a South African accent (Indian, Xhosa, Afrikaans or whatever.) When the sixth person asked for my address, and wasn't able to call it up automatically when I gave her my postcode, I finally said, "You're not in the UK, are you?"

"No," she answered, "We're in Cape Town!"  How bizarre: to sit in the UK with a broken computer, and to end up speaking about it with technicians in South Africa! The last lady told me that it was warm and sunny in Cape Town, so that made me very conscious of being back here in the winter half of the world.

Anyway, the winter weather hasn't stopped us reaching out to the people of Glasgow. We've just finished our FireStarters discipleship and outreach weekend for December. The theme this time was, "Passion," and the young people were challenged to consider what motivates them and what are the ways that God would possibly want them to make a difference in their world.

During the weekend, the eight teams of young people were involved in a variety of different kinds of outreach. Some teams ran clubs and Christmas parties for local children; some ran a drop in centre for the youth; one team went out to serve practically by washing windows and doing odd jobs for the elderly and infirm. Another team held a ceilidh (pronounced "kayley" and, in case you're not familiar with what it is, it's a kind of party with Scottish dancing.) Young people from local church youth groups were invited to come to the ceilidh and bring their non-Christian friends with them. So it was another positive and fruitful weekend, as we approach the Christmas season.

When Hogmanay (New Year's Eve) comes, some of the older teens and young adults are going to be out in Glasgow city centre, giving out free bottles of water to the revellers who are already drinking other beverages (!!) and waiting to bring in the New Year. The bottles will bear the logo of "Hope '08" - a Christian outreach initiative that will be happening in towns, villages and cities throughout the UK in 2008. The water distribution will be followed by a special worship and commissioning service in Glasgow Cathedral. (When I was in England, last week, I was able to attend a gathering in Birmingham Cathedral to pray for some of their initiatives for Hope '08.) FireStarters is very involved in the Hope '08 plans for the city of Glasgow and, as well as all kinds of things throughout the year, there will also be a special outreach initiative next July.

That's all for now. There will only be more news from me once my computer is restored to life again!