1^st January 2010

Rev Clive Skewes, Assistant Minister, at St John's UCA Mt Waverley, Victoria Australia (Advent 4 - 20 December 2009)

Lessons -- 1 Samuel 2:1-10; Psalm 80:1-7; Luke 1:39-55

For Luke's readers the accounts of the births of Jesus and John recall older stories in the Old Testament and Jewish literature, in which being barren is a prominent motif. A name, a phrase, a word picture starts an association which lights up the present and the future.

Barrenness recalls Israel's beginning in the accounts of Sarah, the barren wife of Abraham. Then comes the story of Jacob's barren wife, Rebecca and then his other wife, Rachel. The association goes on to the Book of Judges and the barren state of the mother of Samson, then 1 Samuel's account of Hannah, the mother of Samuel.

In each case only the intervention of the Lord God reverses the unhappy plight of each of these women. But those accounts are not just about the changed circumstances of individuals: each woman gives birth to offspring who have a key role in the fulfilment of God's covenant promises to Israel.

These women are living parables of the plight of Israel and the power of God. So behind each of these narratives is the underlying theme of the presence of God, not as a distant spectator but a living participant in the drama.

From time to time voices in the modern church scoff at the idea of an interventionist God as being unscientific and primitive. Unfortunately for those critics, but fortunately for our human plight, Scripture tells us the covenant purposes of God proceeded by a series of interventions. When God's people start to think things are all up to themselves, which would be the case if God were a non-interventionist, they soon get off-track or come up against some impossible obstacle. But when the people of God humble themselves and pray, God acts and carries his plans forward in surprising ways.

As an illustration of these barren women representing Israel, let's recall the Song of Hannah. In her song Hannah's focus moves from 'those who are barren' to God's 'faithful ones' and finally to 'his king' and 'his anointed'. Hannah is a symbol of suffering Israel.

The image of barren women was taken up by the prophets. Isaiah uses the barren women to symbolise the scattered people of God, as his prophecy promises to restore Israel and make her a light to the nations. Listen to Isaiah 49: 20,21 and hear the way she being barren will be reversed by abundance of offspring: 'The children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing, "This place is too small for us; give us more space to live in." Then you will say in your heart, "Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who brought these up?
I was left alone, but these -- where have they come from?" ' God, through Isaiah, goes on to say the fortunes of these barren women will be reversed when their enemies 'bow down' to them. This is explicitly promised in Isaiah 54:1: 'Sing, O barren one who did not bear; burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labour!' Isaiah is telling Israel that God can reverse her life of futility and bring fruitfulness.

This symbolic use of barrenness continued in later Jewish literature and these various barren women are used in Isaiah as a symbol of suffering Israel.

Mary's Magnificat is the song of a virgin but there are parallels between her situation and that of the barren women. God can intervene to bring fruitfulness out of nothing. The focus may begin with Mary's own self ('He has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant') but it soon shifts to the people of God ('He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy'). This fits in well with the Old Testament's motif of barren women and the way Jewish writers used this motif. What is unique in Luke is the absence of any hints of competition between John and Jesus, for both participated in the fulfilment of ancient promises.

Among the many allusions made to various birth stories in the Old Testament, two (which I have already mentioned) stand out. The first is the story of Sarah. There are some parallels between Elizabeth's story and Sarah's. And Abraham gets consistent mention in Luke's first two chapters.
Luke's interest in Abraham and Sarah is not so much in the individuals, but in the covenant God made with Abraham in which he promised Abraham's seed or offspring would bless the whole world. This covenant was foundational to the whole history of Israel. And 'sons of Abraham' was a common term Jews used to identify themselves. This covenant finds its climax in these reported events in Luke. Luke also sees this series of events as fulfilling 'the oath that God swore to our ancestor Abraham'.

The second story that interests Luke is that of Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Mary's song not only makes allusions to the Song of Hannah, but there is later some parallel between the presentation of Samuel in the Temple and the presentation of Jesus after his purification. Samuel is especially significant because he introduces and installs King David, and Luke specifically refers to this in Acts.

The central significance of David is that the covenant made with Abraham is expressed hundreds of years later in the covenant God makes with David.
Then hundreds of years further on the fulfilment of God's promises in Jesus now point back to God's covenant with David. And you will hear in Luke many references to Jesus as the Son of David. The most explicit is the one we heard this morning: 'He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.'

Are you persuaded of the indissoluble link between the promises and covenant God made with Abraham and David and the coming of Jesus, David's great descendant?

Well, when the National Assembly of the Uniting Church gathered for its triennial meeting about three months ago, it committed itself to a position in relation to the Jews which completely ignores and cuts across what Luke tells us in these Scriptures. The Assembly made a statement (and you would have seen it in Crosslight) that means Christians are not to evangelise Jews because Jews have their own religion and faith. That is something that Luke, with his painstaking care in demonstrating the vital connection between the Old Testament promises and their fulfilment in Jesus the Promised One, would have found utterly bewildering. Luke does not believe that Israel has been completely replaced by the Church in God's purposes (supercessionism) as some Christians tend to think. But neither does he believe God saves Gentiles through Christ but Jews through Torah (the teaching of the law) -- the Two Covenant theory -- which seems to be what the UCA Assembly thinks.

Instead, like all the apostles, as evidenced in Acts and Romans he would tell us the Gospel is 'to the Jew first and also to the Greek'.

To quote theologian Craig Blaising (cited in First Things, December 2009), what Luke's account of these two women and their response to the two births with their rich Old Testament allusions tells us is this: 'The Incarnation is not just the union of God and humanity; it is the incarnation of the Son of God in the house of David as the Son of covenant promise. From a human standpoint, Jesus is not just a man, or generic man; he is that Man -- that descendant of David who has a great inheritance and a future set forth in the coming end-time fulfilment of God's plan for Israel.'

Apart from the Jewishness of Jesus, we cannot fully know either Jesus himself or the historical plan the Father has enacted through him.

The Gospel stands athwart all ethnic claims. Yet the Uniting Church has erected a new racial boundary. For its position now means there is one group of people with whom we may not share the Gospel because they are Jewish. The irony of this present period in our history is that in order to avoid anti-Semitism, churches like the Uniting Church are advocating a position -- the non-evangelisation of Jews -- that Paul (and Luke, not to mention the other apostles) would regard precisely as anti-Semitic. (NT
Wright)

Luke and his friend and colleague Paul looked forward to Jews and Gentiles together praising the coming of the Lord Jesus, so that all would see how God cares for his 'first love' (James Dunn's phrase for Israel). Our celebration of Christmas will always be tinged with sadness until that day arrives. And for us in the Uniting Church there is now a double sadness because of our Assembly's blundering decision.

Pray that our Church will repent this decision and many other demented decisions it has made. Support those who share with their Jewish friends the story of Israel's own Messiah. But especially pray God will speed the day when Jews and Christians will celebrate as one people him who is for both of us, Immanuel.

Then Mary's song will be fulfilled and underneath our celebration will be the celebration of God who has taken the initiative, intervened and reversed the barren, futile life of his people: God the Lord, the Saviour, the Powerful One, the Holy One, the Merciful One, the Faithful One. God!
Who is always the ultimate reason to celebrate.