Suburban life has never been a personal preference. City life with its traffic and crowds, noise and bright lights  has always been the desirable place in which to live. It is full of energy and interest. Activity of some kind is mostly evident. The busyness of the daylight hours, and the preparations for the affairs of the next day during the period of darkness gives the sense that the world is always throbbing with life. It’s the reaction to living in isolated places. Cities keep you on the go physically or mentally. Anything can happen. There’s always something to observe. An apartment overlooking a townscape, perhaps with a harbour or river in view, testifies to the ceaselessness of life, the presence of a workforce, unseen by many, which keeps the life of a metropolis pulsating. The means of transport - vehicles, trains, ships - that from a window seem to move by silently, point to connections with other centres near or far and the ongoing conduct of commerce. Deliveries arrive. Consignments are despatched. Boisterous concertgoers and eager diners cram the streets en route to exciting destinations. In more subdued mood they return to their cars, slam the doors, and zoom their way homewards. Perhaps to suburbs, where life settles into predictable domestic routine, and where, when the last house lamp in the street is extinguished, an uneventful silence settles over the community until the commuters stir once again to begin the day. Downtown trumps suburban dullness. Some years ago a fascinating Canadian children’s book was published in which a young boy gazes all night into the street from the window of an upstairs apartment, transfixed by all the action, motorized and human, below. The city can be an antidote to loneliness and boredom.

A strand of thought in Holy Scripture seems to harbour a certain wariness about the city. It appears to be the place of nefarious intrigue, danger, and ungodliness. And sure enough, every city has its shadowy haunts of the sinister and criminal, and its ugly dens of wickedness. The city can be a jungle of violence and lurking threat and pose its residents with moral and physical peril. Wariness is well practiced in an urban environment. Companions have to be carefully chosen. Personal security is imperative. Naivety and innocence are not apt for city life. Wherever humans congregate there is menace and misery. The word of God holds out the prospect of the Eternal City in complete contrast to the earthly city where the people of God, dwelling in the Lord as our environment, enjoy safety, peace,  provision, and fulfilment under his gentle reign of love forever. In heaven the city is cleansed of all evil and harm. Its citizens live in perfect mutual affection and harmony and night will not cast its gloom over the redeemed community, loneliness will no longer bring its pain to the human breast. The Scottish theologian D.M. Baillie writes movingly of his periods of languor and loneliness. It is a human hangover from the Fall, our occasional and lingering discomfort due to our breach with God. It will prevail until he dwells fully within us and we in him.

Augustine of Hippo writes endearingly of his mother, Monica. He admires and is indebted to her piety and prayer. He observes that as a believer she has experienced spiritual deliverance from Babylon, the symbol of the city of man where sin, deceit, and every species of corruption has captured the heart of every inhabitant. She, through conversion, has made that decisive move from the heart of Babylon, but as a sinner still the influences of Babylon remain in her heart. Like all Christians awaiting our sinless perfection in heaven her son describes her as “lingering in the suburbs of Babylon”.

Our original citizenship and character still clings to us throughout our pilgrimage to the City of God. The king has given us our entitlement to admission and we are sure of our entry because he has written our permit, but old habits will haunt us and harass us until we stand on the threshold of the Beautiful Gate. Then the gruesome traits of our fallen nature will be finally torn away and we will make glad steps into the Kingdom of Righteousness.

Until then we must realize that indwelling sin wreaks its baneful effect in the life of every child of God. We discover the depths of evil within us that were never suspected, and the awful potential of our insecurity, selfishness, and lack of love, and while the Holy Spirit checks these tendencies as much as he reveals them, they do disturb and distress us to the degree that they continue to prompt our attitudes and action. Sin is subtle and pervasive. Unknowingly it still moves us in various ways and we are gradually educated in the reality of our plight and the welcome excessiveness of divine mercy that swamps our depravity with healing grace. The magnitude of our sinfulness and helplessness gives opportunity for the exercise of magnificent compassion. Our moral deficit attracts his infinite generosity. The debts of our reckless past, and the accrual of debits in our present, are remitted by the keeper of accounts himself. Every payment is made by him and charged to his wealth. He smiles over every entry and cancels the default of every broke Babylonian who appeals to him for favour.

Given that we still linger in the suburbs of Babylon we must be wary of the remnant traces of its influence. The city is filled with greed, rivalry, envy, cruelty, and sinful gratification. Babylon’s urges and appetites remain even if they seem latent for a time. They are like sprites that leap upon us without warning. Babylon as our hometown has accustomed us to its mores and ways to such a degree that we regard them as normal and yield to them unquestioningly and even instinctively. Until awakened by divine conviction we do not even account them as wrong. We do not perceive that nature has been radically perverted and that what is now “natural” is in opposition to the nature and will of God (Romans 8:5-8). At a depth beyond conscious detection affections, desires, reactions are operative. Used to our “normal” selves we do not identify ourselves as fundamentally flawed. Self examination only comes in the process of sanctification, when utterly dissatisfied with self we turn to our Healer and Deliverer and cry urgently for rescue from self in earnest repudiation of our treacherous ego and its death dealing drives.

Sin is our twisted and inordinate self love. One of its manifestations is the craving for fame and grandeur – or a piece of the glory that is rightfully God’s alone. The desire is explicit so often in the candid enunciation of personal ambition. Celebrity is the preoccupation and false god of our spiritually impoverished era. The souls of the Pharisees were in peril because of their yearning for human praise and the admiration of their fellows. The trait is ineradicable, humanly speaking, until rooted out by a pure adoration of God. The Babylonian instinct that Augustine saw in his mother was her craving for his academic success as the priority of his life and perhaps as a sure way to God. The essence of Babylon’s evil was false worship – worship of the self, the creature, and creaturely accomplishments. The Biblical warnings against idolatry remain pertinent, especially for believers.

When we re-count our blessings on earth from the vantage point of eternity surely the greatest will be the privilege of being able to have heard the word of God. The word is the portal to salvation and the introduction to the Saviour. “And how can theybelieve in the one of whom they have not heard?”  (Romans 10:14). The importance of the word is beyond estimation. It confronts us with essential truth and confers eternal life. The word is the origin of faith that saves the soul through Jesus Christ. By the word the Lord Jesus addresses us preparatory to rescuing us. His message enters the outer ear before it reaches the ear of the heart, and both organs must be open before the word works its salutary effect. Ear and heart must listen together. We must be in a position to hear, which is a physical matter, and we must have the disposition to hear, which is a spiritual matter. Both conditions are arranged by God. His providence brings us within range of the word, and his grace makes us receptive. There is a sovereign differentiation between those who merely hear with the outer ear and those who respond to the call of the gospel.That is why the petition of the Litany is so vital.It is cognizant of all the pertinent facts.

The word proclaimed is not of human invention. It is God’s word. Therefore it is of ultimate authority and significance. The Lord does not speak casually or unnecessarily and so it is imperative that we give it our attention.But such reverence and submissiveness towards God is not a human tendency. Grace is the enabling necessity and so it is earnestly sought to donate the meekness that makes the heart porous to the preached word.

We must be permeated with divine influences before we are disposed to accept and assent to the gospel. A softening process needs to accompany the exercise of hearing. Our hearts rage against God until he tames the beast within. We are too proud and rebellious to receive. By nature we dispute and deny the word. We must learn to hear gently and obediently. Inner attentiveness is the gift of God. Understanding is the enlargement of that gift. We may make grammatical and logical sense of the message but its pertinence to us and power within us is not realized until the Holy Spirit attends its delivery and brings it home.

Man considers himself too wise to be taught. The factual information he receives is considered obvious to his mind and the knowledge he gains he fancies he has always assumed. “I know that” is the retort of the heart. The teacher is merely spelling out what he has always grasped if not articulated. He was bound to discover it eventually through opportunity and acumen. The sinner credits himself with more wisdom than he actually possesses.

Teachability in the things of God is one of the prime indices to the reality of regeneration, the renewal and mellowing of the human spirit. The un-renovated mind resists truth, suppresses it, or disputes with God with a swollen sense of superiority. “Knowledge puffs up”, avers the apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 8:1), and it makes us sullen and argumentative under instruction. Meekness welcomes the lessons of the word and loves to hear them over and over again. We are never past masters and there is always something new for head and heart as we grow in awareness and sanctification. The nuances within the word are innumerable. We discover new facets to treasure and new faults to repent of. The believer instinctively bows before the word and refrains from boastfulness (What do you have that you did not receive? 1 Corinthians 4:7). As much as some folk listen to the word habitually they actually hear it selectively or  dismissively.It wafts over the ether to the ear but does not win its way to the heart or conquer the will. They listen to it with the air and inner arrogance of the theatre critic assessing as to whether its suits them or not. They may discuss or controvert the doctrines of the word quite ably,but these truths are not tenderly accepted and cherished with any sincerity. Karl Barth warns against the tendency to dominate the word in attitude and argumentation. We can wield it aggressively, competitively, or cleverly for the sake of self display and reputation. Again, Barth, who has written more than most authors could ever accomplish, cites the folly of presenting his barrow loads of books to God with any sense of acceptableness or achievement. The word is the Lord’s. It is above us and we are under it. It cannot be manipulated toward  our own ends or interests. It is the vehicle of divine truth and glory. It cannot be wrested away from its saving purpose for our own perverse and self serving purposes. It comes as a gift, its comprehension is a grace, it is received in a mood of grateful humbleness. He opened the heart and granted illumination. He softened the heart so that the precious seed could settle within it. He cleansed the inner eye so that it could see clearly.

We come to the word as fools and ignorant. We approach it as beggars. We renounce our own discernment. We come to the Author and Master of the word praying for understanding and pleading to be taught, requesting that along with comprehension will come the desire for honest consent and eager compliance. We open the Bible like no other book. From first to last page natural ability stands aside as the servant of supernatural disclosure. The Spirit must read to us, pointing to every word lest we get carried away by our own pridefulness, prejudice, and hasty assumptions. If we come to the Scriptures to object or correct we will find ourselves in a maze of human error and invention, contriving our own destruction from that which is meant to save. Heresy is simply the indulgence of our own preferences, smothering the true word with our own parasitical perception of things.

It is not the accumulation of knowledge in itself, or the academic skills of interpretation that are principally sought, but the knowledge of and resemblance to Christ.  “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christexhorts the apostle Peter” (2 Peter 3:18). Grace grants true admission toknowledgeand accompanies its progress. If grace is absent knowledge is flawed.

We do not sip the word with the smug confidence of the connoisseur, depending on our own judgment of what tastes right and good, we drink it in and savour it for our own sustenancein grace and life in Christ. We are not seeking knowledge especially for ourselves which is kept secret from others and admits us to the elite of the kingdom. We crave the common word that is the wealth of all the people of God. With all the children of God we bend the knee and outstretch the empty hand, saying:

May it please you to give to all your people an increase of grace to listen meekly to your Word, to receive it with pure intention, and to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit in our lives:

Hear us, good Lord.

Christmas is the joyous season of our redemption. But only if we relate the Babe to the shed Blood (But a body you prepared for me . . . . I have come to do your will O God. . . . And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”. Hebrews 10:5–10). Christmas is not a time to wallow in sentiment and materialism but an opportunity to confirm our sincere faith in the Saviour as the one who came to save us from our sins.  Atonement is at the heart of Christmas as much as Incarnation. The celebration of the Nativity cannot be detached from all that follows in the earthly experience of Jesus. Rejection at his birth presaged the rejection that culminated in his death. The wooden crib ominously preceded the wooden cross. He would lay upon both. He was born to die. There is celebration and sobriety in the Feast. He came to save us from the world, not to whet our appetite for the world’s enchantments or weave a net of indulgence and debt for those entrapped by the wiles of profiteers. The economy in view at Christmas is the eternal welfare of the household under the management of Christ. It would be better if the marking of the Saviour’s birth and the need for “Christmas cheer”, okay as a social and family enjoyment, were separated, except that then two occasions would be exploited.

The antidote to Christmas nonsense, sentimentalism, and excess is provided by the collects composed for the observances immediately following. These purify us of the self –gratification that so easily infects the time of year:

December 26th – St. Stephen the Martyr

Grant, Lord Jesus Christ, that in all our sufferings here on earth, for the testimony of your truth, we may look up steadfastly to heaven and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed; and also grant that being filled with the Holy Spirit, we may learn to love and bless our persecutors, as Stephen your first martyr prayed for his persecutors to you, blessed Jesus, who stand at the right hand of God to sustain all those who suffer for you, our only Mediator and Advocate.

Stephen is the exemplar of the ultimate cost of embracing and testifying to the Saviour. The possibility of persecution confronts all believers, more often for us in this country in mild form, but for others in various serious ways. Personal peace and prosperity are desirable for all, to be prayed for, enjoyed and attributed to God’s mercy when possessed. We are invited to seek his provision and protection when necessary. God does not begrudge us his blessings but lavishes them upon us continually. But we are not to be deluded by a sense of immunity from the ills of this world or the ill will of the world. Scripture tells us that we are not to be friends or at ease with the ungodliness of this world. Hatred towards God, or anything truly associated with him, simmers in the hearts of the unbelievers, and their freedom to sin or ignore him, when threatened, incites their enmity. The beauty that attracts us to Christ exposes us to battle with evil, tough to endure, and, even more daunting, to the obligation to be caring for the welfare of those who ill use or assail us. Realism in the experience of Stephen points to the possibilities in coming to the crib on Christmas Day. Like our Lord we must bear a cross and its accompanying strokes inflicted by the opposers of the gospel. With a full grasp of this gospel on Christmas Day we are better prepared for the trials, sacrifice, and suffrages of St. Stephen’s Day. We are on the ready to attest to truth, accept its consequences, and seek the sustaining power of the Saviour of Bethlehem. We do not drop our guard complacently at Christmas but arm ourselves in the Saviour’s might for the fray ahead.

December 27th – St. John the Evangelist

Merciful Lord, let the bright beams of your light shine upon your Church, we pray, so that, being enlightened by the teaching of your blessed apostle and evangelist Saint John, it may walk in the light of your truth, and come at last to the light of everlasting life: through Jesus Christ our Lord.

John is the enthusiast for truth. He presents it faithfully and winsomely. He knows that for all his industry in proclaiming truth propositionally, it must point to a Person, and that only he, Jesus, can illuminate the mind of the recipient and dispose him to receive the Saviour. Truth is doctrine and narrative, and known in the Person of Jesus who embodies and expresses it. Truth is revelation in its entirety and those who approach Jesus go with him beyond Bethlehem to Nazareth, Capernaum, Jerusalem, and Calvary. The truth of the Nativity is the beginning of the trail to Calvary and true followers go all the way. While they contemplate the crib they also concentrate on all the other saving efforts and events narrated in apostolic memoirs. Christmas, as a season, does not exclude the gospel, but invites its preaching and acceptance. The cross is not an intrusion but a necessary inclusion announcing the purpose in Jesus’ coming and its accomplishment. John was imprisoned for his testimony and in Revelation describes the ordeals of the saints and the cosmic warfare that engulfs them. He hails the hope of everlasting life which Jesus won for his people through his suffering. A sentimental, superficial Christmas must not obliterate the truths so precious to John. Christmas is comprehensive treatment of the Gospel.

December 28th – The Innocents

Almighty God, you who have established praise out of the mouths of infants, and have made children by their deaths glorify you: Put to death all evil within us, and so strengthen us by your grace, that by the purity of our lives and constancy of our faith, we may glorify your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So soon after the wonder of birth and the extension of saving grace to little ones we are made to face the death of babies. Nothing is so painful to our hearts, yet the place of infants in the kingdom of God is assured. God glorifies himself by giving little ones insight into his goodness that results in praise, expressed in reliance, cries, and contentment, that stands for ever as an example of simple saving faith to be emulated in proud adults. Infants are helpless and vulnerable.  The innocents were not free of original sin, or the propensity to actual sin. They were innocent of any threat to the paranoid king Herod. They died by the cruel hands of men. But God is glorified in the death of children when he catches them at the moment of departure and whisks them home. A greater love awaits them there than any love that could enfold them here. The disappointments and dangers of life have not been ordained for them. Through their earthly parents married love God has made them immediately available for the joys of heaven. They were born for eternal life through Christ and his atonement and the evil within them has been defeated early. The evils and uncongenial inevitabilities of life are recognized at Christmas, not glossed over. Death hunted Jesus at his birth with murderous fury. The story is not all sweet.

The facts of persecution, the desire for maturity of faith, and death’s intervention so soon in life, drive us to the Saviour who was born for our sakes. Christmas is the reminder of our need and the proclamation of his compassion.   It is a pity that the memorial days immediately following Christmas are rarely noticed.