Tawa Baptist

Jonah, not just a fishy tale

Written by: Pat Hutchison

Scripture: Jonah

Audio Link: Stream Sermon – 25 Jan 2026 -Jonah (by Pat Hutchison) by tawabaptist | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Disobedience
  • Deliverance
  • Disappointment
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

If I say Jonah, most of you will think Whale/Fish.  I began with a children’s book “The Man Caught by a Fish”.  The fish tends to grab our attention, it’s a fascinating thought a fish swallowing a whole man.  It lights up imagination and is a gripping story.  Unfortunately these memories cloud our perception of Jonah and our memory tends to stop once he is dumped on the shore. 

The fish is a minor player in the story – it’s only mentioned three times in the book of Jonah.  I have just reinforced the connection of Jonah and memory, “He is the guy who got swallowed by the fish”. But the story continues – Jonah does get to Nineveh.

Today I want us to put aside the fish and focus on Jonah and God. This book teaches us a lot about God.  Salvation comes from God and Salvation is for all.  I want to focus on 3 themes:

  • Disobedience
  • Deliverance
  • Disappointment

But first let us look at Jonah – the Man.  Who is he? He was a real person. 

2nd Kings 14:15 names him as Jonah, son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.  Jonah 1:1 also names him as Jonah, son of Amittai. We also find he is mentioned in the New Testament by Jesus.  He lived around the 8th Century BC at the time of the Reign of Jeroboam II.

He was a Prophet – a person chosen by God to be God’s messenger to deliver God’s word to the people.  He would have been a man with status and importance.  The Book of Jonah is found in the Old Testament in the Minor Prophets – as distinct from the Major Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. 

It’s not our modern interpretation of Minor as inferior but Minor in length. It is unique in that Jonah is told to take a message to Nineveh (People who

did not worship God) – not to deliver a message to the Hebrew people, God’s Chosen People. 

It opens like the other Minor Prophets with a command from God “To Go!”  Jonah is told to go to Nineveh, and why, because of their wickedness.  Nineveh was the Capital of Assyria, they were not nice people – they were a warring nation and had a reputation for how badly they treated people they captured. 

Jonah is not told to take an Army or anyone else, he is on his own. There is a sense of urgency in the command ‘To Go’, Jonah is expected to go now – not to delay this task from God. So Jonah acts and it’s an act of rebellion \ disobedience.

Disobedience:

Jonah doesn’t reply but disobeys God and runs away.  He is not having anything to do with Nineveh, he is going as far away as possible and he is going by ship.  Why should he go to these people, they are not God’s Chosen, they are Pagans and worship many gods. They don’t believe in the True God. 

Jonah makes no effort to respond to God’s command – silence is also part of his disobedience alongside his action – to escape, to deliberately go the other way.  Psalm 139:7 makes it clear there is no escaping God, “Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?”  Wherever we go God will be there.  Jonah is not very smart – ignoring God’s command and running away. 

And then things began to happen when he is on board the ship! Nobody was expecting a storm, certainly not an enormous storm, the storm is God’s intervention.  The sailors would not have sailed if they knew they would be caught in a storm.  They knew the oceans and weather patterns.  The storm comes and it is violent – it has been sent by God because of Jonah’s disobedience. 

We see that God is in control, God is Sovereign.  The ship is breaking up, the sailors are terrified, throwing cargo overboard.  Some scholars suggest that the act of throwing cargo overboard is an act of sacrifice to their gods.  There is a lot of fear among the sailors. But God is the one in control.

Meanwhile our man Jonah is oblivious to all this – he has gone below the deck and he is fast asleep.  The Captain of the ship goes to him and wakes him up – “How can you sleep?” In desperation he tells Jonah to call on his God.  The Captain knows they are in a desperate situation.  He is using strong language – God told Jonah “To Go”, and now the Captain is telling Jonah, “To Call”.  

There is irony here, after all Jonah is fleeing from God –To Call on God is the last thing he wants to do.  However, the Captain can see he will lose everything – his boat, his cargo, his sailors, and Jonah was sleeping.

The thought of blaming God for the storm may seem like superstition to us but we have been told that the Lord has sent the storm. The sailors know that the severity of this storm was someone’s responsibility so they are drawing straws to find the person and it is no surprise that it is Jonah who has the short straw – the sailors bombard him with questions – they are fearful they will die. 

Jonah responds and his response does nothing to calm the situation.  He is a Hebrew (God’s Chosen Race) and his God is the God of Heaven who made the sea and dry land.  This does nothing to pacify the sailors and the Seas are getting worse.   Jonah’s disobedience has caused great fear and chaos, his disobedience is having an impact of other people – not just himself.

The sailors are even more terrified but now they have identified the source of their trouble – Jonah.  They need a solution to their plight.  Jonah admits it is his fault and his solution is to throw him into the sea.   They don’t do this because they don’t want to be seen as the people who caused God’s Prophet to die – they show compassion towards Jonah.  They make another attempt to ride out the storm and they start to row but the storm is increasing in its intensity.

This time in their fear they call out to the Lord, they have turned to God. Their fear has escalated, to great fear, to fear of the Lord.  Have they come to accept that this storm has been sent by God?

Finally they hurl Jonah into the sea and the seas calm for the sailors and they recognise that God is in control and they pray to God.  But things are happening to Jonah. 

Deliverance:

This brings us to Deliverance.  God’s work of deliverance has already begun, He has delivered the Sailors from death –“and the raging sea became calm.”  The storm was God’s doing because of Jonah’s disobedience. 

In the situation Jonah now finds himself he calls out to God and God provides a fish as the vessel for saving/delivering Jonah from death.  The function of the fish is to save Jonah from death by drowning.  God intervenes and Jonah acknowledges God as his Deliverer and knows he has been saved by God.  This is a very different Jonah to the Jonah who was fleeing God.

Jonah prays to God, he calls out to God after his silence and attempt to flee from God.  What follows is an amazing prayer. Let us just read and appreciate it for what we learn about the relationship between Jonah and God.  Jonah is crying out to God from the depths of his soul knowing full well the situation he is in is the result of his disobedience. He can go no deeper…

“In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me.  From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help and you listened to my cry.  You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.  I said, “I have been banished from your sight:  yet I will look again toward your holy temple”.  The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.  To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, my God brought my life up from the pit.  When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.  But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you.  What I have vowed I will make good.  I will say Salvation comes from the LORD.” 

Jonah 2: 2-9.

Jonah cries for help and God answers him.  We find other examples of God answering cries for help in Psalms.  In fact Jonah uses the words of Psalm 120:1, “I call on the LORD in my distress, and He answers me”.  Jonah realises it is only God who can intervene and save him from the situation he is in or he will face certain death.

We get graphic details of his experience. He acknowledges that he is headed for death and destined for isolation from God.  Despite all this Jonah is optimistic that he will again worship God at His Temple in Jerusalem (a long way from where he is right now!).  The situation is grim, he can descend no deeper.  He remembers God and calls on Him.  He knows it is only God who can deliver him. Initially Jonah is focused on himself and then there is a dramatic turn around and Jonah’s attention turns to God.

We still see his dislike for Nineveh “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them”.  He shows no compassion for the very people God commands him to go to, but he has vowed to make good and God’s response to Jonah is Deliverance– The LORD commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. 

Deliverance can mean escape, redemption, rescue and salvation.  All of these are apt for Jonah.  God has not given up on Jonah – far from it. God again commands Jonah to go to Nineveh and to proclaim the message God gave him.  This time Jonah is obedient, there is no attempt to escape, we see willing compliance.  After all he has done and experienced Jonah has a change of heart towards God but not towards Nineveh. 

Nineveh was a great city, it was Assyrian and considered to be difficult to overthrow, their reputation of brutality would have been well known to Jonah and God is sending him there with a strong message that they will probably not like.

Jonah’s task is to deliver God’s message, it is a long journey and one would expect him to be suffering some effects of his recent experiences.  Jonah knows he is not alone – God is with him even though he still is not accepting of the Ninevites.

He arrives and proclaims the end of Nineveh in 40 days and 40 nights because of their wickedness.  The city was not overthrown, the Ninevites believed in God and they repented from the King down.  Putting on sackcloth was a common way of expressing grief, humility and penitence – the hallmarks of true repentance. 

The whole of Nineveh repented.  “When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, took of his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.  This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink.  But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth.  Let everyone call urgently on God.  Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.  Who knows?  God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

God saw their repentance and He relented and did not bring on them the destruction He had threatened.  He delivered Nineveh and all its people from destruction. 

Disappointment:

Meanwhile Jonah is angry and disappointed with God. He prays and reveals the real reason he tried to flee from going to Nineveh – He didn’t want God to save the Ninevites, he wanted them to perish.   Jonah acknowledges that “God is a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”  God has saved Nineveh.  Jonah’s response to what God has done is to want to die.

Disappointed Jonah has gone away from the city to wait for God to destroy the city.  Nothing happens, he builds a shelter, he sulks, he still wants to die. His disappointment increases when the plant God had provided dies and he has no shade.

Disappointment is a very much a human condition.  We need to look at why people become disappointed with God.  Philip Yancey wrote a book on Disappointment with God and it seems to me that people become disappointed with God when God does not do what they want Him to do.

It’s a spiritual disappointment.  For Jonah God did not let him flee from going to Nineveh.  God let the plant wither and die, God spared him his life.  That is a whole lot of disappointment.  Jonah responds in a very human way, he wants to die.  What happened to his declaration that “Salvation comes from the Lord?”

But God shows his love and mercy to Jonah and the people of Nineveh.  He saved Jonah from the storm, He delivered Jonah from drowning by providing the fish at the right time.  He saved the city of Nineveh when they repented.

God is free to do as He wants, to save those outside of His Chosen People.  God is sovereign and Lord over all.

Despite all of Jonah’s faults, God never gave up on Jonah – his attempt to flee from God and his disobedience.  God had his hand on him.  God had a task for Jonah to do and even though Jonah was not keen to fulfil the task, God never left him.  Jonah was saved from death in a miraculous way.  Jonah was given a second chance.  God used Jonah to save a city.

Conclusion:

God never gives up on us.  In Hebrews we read God “will never leave us or forsake us.” God requires “us to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with God” (Micah 6:8). In Proverbs (3) we are told to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding: in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Let us pray:  Our God we thank you for what we can learn from your word.  Thank you that you are a God of mercy and love. Thank you that you never give up on us.  Your hand is on our lives to deliver us from situations we get ourselves into.  Thank you we are not alone.  Help us to keep our faith and to walk in your chosen path for each of us.    Amen

Tawa Baptist

All creation gives you praise

Written by: Geraldine Canham-Harvey

Scripture: Psalm 150, Psalm 148, Genesis 1 & 2

Audio Link: Stream Sermon – 11 Jan 2026 – Geraldine Canham-Harvey by tawabaptist | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

Kia ora koutou

I’m going to begin today by reading verses 1, 2 and 6 of Psalm 150.[1]

Psalm 150 concludes the Book of Psalms with a real hiss and a roar. It’s a joyful rallying call to join together to praise God.

Imagine yourself in the picture, in the middle of a crowd as the call goes out:

1Praise the LORD!

Praise God in his Temple

Praise his strength in heaven!

2Praise him for the mighty things he has done.

Praise his supreme greatness. …

6Praise the LORD, all living creatures!

Praise the LORD!

‘Praise the Lord’ is the translation of the Hebrew word ‘Hallelujah!”.

And who does the Psalm writer say should lift those Hallelujahs? All living creatures. Other translations of the Bible have the phrase ‘everything that has breath’ instead.

So, quick question, if you think about what has breath, what comes to your mind? What about an aardvark, a cacti, a flax bush, or a pūkeko?

In Genesis 1 and 2, at the very start of the Bible, we read that all creation came from God … including the cosmos, the day and night, the land and water …

…­ as well all the animals, the plants, the fungi and other creatures that are usually very small, like an amoeba or a bacterium. And of course, human life.

In Genesis 1 & 2, the Bible explains that all living things share the breath of life, as a gift given from God. In Genesis 2:17, God breathes life into Adam.

While in verse 19, the same Hebrew phrase is used for when God breathes life into the ‘living creatures’ (that’s everything alive other than humans).[2],[3]

All breath, all life, came and comes from God. Nothing could exist without Him.

The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said the world is charged with the grandeur of God.

As well as the breath of life, many, many verses throughout the Bible inform us how both human and non-human living creatures rely on God to provide for their needs and continued existence. [4] All living creatures have much to thank and praise God for.

Throughout the Bible there’s many indications that all of creation, not just humans, are intended to give God glory and praise.  The Psalms are a great example of this. I don’t have time to read or list them all, so I’ll put them in the notes that will be posted online.

But for now, here’s a section of Psalm 148[5], where not only living creatures with breath, but also the cosmos, the land and the weather, praise and glorify God:

7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
    you sea monsters and all deeps,
8 fire and hail, snow and frost,
    stormy wind fulfilling his command!

9 Mountains and all hills,
    fruit trees and all cedars!
10 Wild animals and all cattle,
    creeping things and flying birds!

11 Kings of the earth and all peoples,
    princes and all rulers of the earth!
12 Young men and women alike,
    old and young together!

13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for his name alone is exalted;
    his glory is above earth and heaven.

Just like Psalm 150, verse 13 of Psalm 148 signals to us that all of creation should, does and will praise God… but also, that we will do it together.

In his book, Creation Care Discipleship, writer Steven Bouma-Prediger reflects on these verses and proposes that “Creation is one grand symphony”, in which every living thing “…in their creaturely way, praise God their Creator and Sustainer”.[6]

These images raise some questions for me; maybe they do for you too?

First, how do animals, plants, fungi and other living creatures praise God? What is their ‘creaturely way?

  • Do seaweed sing?
  • Can a glowworm move to the beat?
  • A penguin play a riff on the guitar?
  • Or a kōwhai tree clap?

Singing and making music in those ways are obviously human forms of worship.

As humans we can only really know how it is to live and worship as a human.

This is our Umwelt – that’s a German term that literally translates to mean ‘environment’.

But Umwelt also has another meaning, of the way that a living creature perceives and experiences the world through its senses and perception.

In other words, how a creature is intelligent about the world around it.

Within the human population, there are different Umwelt. For example,people who are blind or deaf, or neurodiverse, can perceive the world in some way differently to other people.

Taking humanity as a whole, our Umwelt is different to other living creatures.

I think it’s fair to say that humans often think that intelligence is kind of what we have in spades, and other animals and living things, eh, they don’t have it so much.

Some might make exceptions for some animals such as dogs, apes, dolphins and parrots and crows. Increasingly though, research is showing that non-human living creatures have varied and remarkable forms of intelligence and perception, way outside of our human comprehension. For example:

  • Trees have been found to be linked underground by a network of fungi that allow them to send nutrients to other trees, as well as chemical signals if one of them gets a disease or are eaten by parasites…this network has been termed the Wood Wide Web.[7]
  • Plants played recordings of caterpillars munching on leaves, were found to flood their leaves with nasty tasting chemicals that caterpillars wouldn’t eat. It’s as if the plants could hear they might be about to be eaten and plan how to avoid this.[8]
  • Kea have shown they understand how to use probability to solve problems …including that if you secretly rearrange road cones when no humans are looking, you can make traffic move in all sorts of ways (the kea didn’t realise that NZTA had CCTV at the roadworks)[9]
  • Whales communicate with sounds so low, called infrasounds, they can travel over huge ocean distances (like across the Atlantic) – but also elephants use these sounds standing alongside each other.[10]

There are so many examples of these studies and research there’s no way to list them all. I hope this signals the potential of other living creatures having the wherewithal and intelligence to praise God and the idea isn’t something fanciful or impossible.

Exactly ‘how’ they will or do praise seems beyond us for now – it’s just mysterious – but as the Bible says, who knows the mind of God?

To me, it’s awe-inspiring there’s no limits to God’s creativity including the different types of intelligence that are out there and we just don’t know.

So if the first question is how do other creatures praise God, the second question that pops into my mind, is how we as humans can sing in harmony with animals like lions or sharks, who might otherwise be eyeing us up for dinner?

The Bible reveals a coming time of peace that all creation can look forward to, when God’s kingdom is fully restored and completed. It’ll be a time when all living things will live together in positive and mutually beneficial relationships. Isaiah 11 verse 6 gives a series of images, such as:

Wolves and sheep will live together in peace,
    and leopards will lie down with young goats.
Calves and lion cubs will feed together,
    and little children will take care of them.

But it’s not just in the future; in Isaiah 65 verse 17 states: “Behold, I will create a new heaven and a new earth. The phrase ‘will create’ is a form of grammar that also implies ‘I am in the process of creating’. So, it’s not just about God’s future intentions, but also an action He seeks to make happen now.[11]

Humans were given a specific role in helping creation thrive and praise God.

God gave humans a special character – God created humans in his image, Genesis Chapters 1 and 2 tells us.[12]

We are, as Paul said, to be ‘imitators of God’, with Christ as our model.[13]

You can think of this as ‘our job description’.[14] In having God’s likeness, God declares that humans will be responsible to have dominion over all living creatures.[15]

In fact, the first words God speaks to humans in Genesis 1 is a commandment:

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”[16]

Only humans are given this role, a unique set of privileges with responsibilities.

It’s a delegated authority, like if your manager leaves you in charge of the business, or your parents ask you to look after your younger sisters and brothers.

The responsibility then is like a caretaker.[17] But your manager or parents are still in charge at the end of the day.

Likewise, all creation remains God’s. It is His.[18] He wants it to thrive and live well, abundantly. Humanity is called to reflect and do God’s wishes for all creation.

So how can we understand what is commanded of us in Genesis?

Firstly, writers I have read suggest that the word ‘subdue’ more likely meant ‘tend and care for’.[19]

Secondly, the term ‘dominion’ does not have the same meaning as domination.  

Kings in the Old Testament, who had ‘dominion’, were expected to imitate God – to be generous and benevolent, serving their people, and protecting those who were at risk of oppression, exploitation and destruction.

Jesus, is the King above all kings. He is superior to all created things, as it says in Colossians 1.[20] But Jesus, our King, came to serve, not to be served.

Of his upside-down kingdom, Jesus said ‘the first shall be last, and the last shall be first’.

Personally, I’m still grappling with what this might mean in terms of human’s relationship with other living creatures. Especially creatures such as fleas.

In Genesis 3 however, we learn that humans messed up this calling to be like God and instead tried to become God.

These actions had consequences, and impacted the rest of creation, its intended order and its response to God. In Romans Chapter 8, Paul expresses that all creation now groans for release and redemption from these consequences.[21]

We know some of the impacts to be the loss of biodiversity, pollution, deforestation, degrading of the land, climate change, and so forth. These outcomes weren’t God’s intention! How can creation praise Him if it cannot thrive?

Paul says through Jesus, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.[22]

Ultimately God seeks a relationship with the creation in which He delights.

And God wants the different parts of creation to be in positive relationship with each other, to support each other to thrive.

So, what might this all mean for us, if the Bible purports that “all that has breath, praise the Lord?” (Psalm 150) Or, as Bouma-Prediger asks, “How can we strengthen the symphony so that all God’s creatures are enabled to sing praise to God?”[23]

Well, Jesus gave His followers no exemption to the commandment to protect God’s creation and to help it flourish and thrive.

A writer on Christian practices for creation care, Jonathan Moo, has framed humanity’s role in caring for creation as: “…a sign of participation in the life of God’s kingdom…”

And he says we can do this as a “…grateful response to the work God has already accomplished and is bringing to completion in Chris through the Holy Spirit.”[24]

You might be expecting me to finish up with some kind of to do list of what you and we can all do to care and protect other living beings and the environments in which they and we live. But that’s outside the time of this talk, plus there’s so much information out there.

One group and their website I will recommend from a Christian perspective is A’Rocha – an international organization, which has an Aotearoa New Zealand branch, and also local groups throughout the country.[25]

The writer, the Rev Dave Bookless, whom I referred to earlier, is A’Rocha’s Director of Theology. To conclude, I’d like to give a few of the principles that he lists in that article, for you to ponder on:

  • The world and all its creatures (human and non-human) belong to God and exist to bring glory to God.
  • Humanity has a divine vocation in reflecting God’s character towards living creatures.
  • Christianity offers hope for all creation through the redeeming work of Christ.

Thank you.[26]

[1] Bible verses are from the New Revised Standard Version (Updated Edition)

[2]  David Bookless, ‘Let everything that has breath praise the Lord’, in Cambridge Papers, September 2014 (volume 23 number 3). Available online at: https://www.cambridgepapers.org/the-bible-and-biodiversity/

[3] See Psalm 104:30

[4]  For example, see Psalms 24:1, 65:9-11, 104:10-18, 145:15-19

[5] Psalm 148:7-13

[6] Steven Bouma-Prediger, Creation Care Discipleship: Why Earthkeeping is an Essential Christian Practice, Baker Academic, 2023.

[7] There’s been a few books and documentaries on this, but for a quick overview see the article in New Zealand Geographic here: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-wood-wide-web/

[8] This example came from Hope Jahren’s book, Lab Girl, Penguin Random House, 2016

[9] Caught on NZTA’s CCTV – watch a clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuA5tO_c7s4

[10]  Ed Yong, An Immense World: How Animals Sense Earth’s Amazing Secrets, Penguin Books, 2023

[11] For examples, see Psalm 104:30, Isaiah 65:9, ,  Revelation 21:1

[12] Genesis 1:26-27, 2:7.

[13] Ephesians 5:1

[14] David Bookless, ibid.

[15] Genesis 1:26

[16] Genesis 1:28

[17] Or kaitiaki, in Te Reo Māori. Te Ao Māori, the Māori worldview, is imbued with the concept of stewardship.

[18] See Psalms 24:1 and 50:10-12; 1 Cor. 10:25-26; Col. 1:15-20.

[19] Those who first heard Genesis came from farming communities, and very attuned to the needs of the animals, crops and the soil, and how they thrived. See the chapter ‘People Who Care for Creation”, in Christopher Wright’s book The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission, Zondevan, 2010. I have a copy if you’re interested to read it.

[20] Col. 1:15-19.

[21] Romans 8:18:23; see also Hosea 4:3.

[22] Col. 1:20

[23] Bouma-Prediger, 2023, ibid.

[24] Jonathan Moo, ‘When Good Christians Destroy the Earth’. In Ecoflourishing and Virtue, (editors Steven Bouma-Prediger, Nathan Carson), Routledge 2023.

[25] The Aotearoa New Zealand website URL is: https://arocha.org.nz/

[26] For an overview of some of the themes in this message, see also Christopher Wright’s book.

Tawa Baptist

Christmas: The Story Continues…

Audio Link: Sermon – 4 Jan 2026 – by Neville Gardner by tawabaptist

So, here we are at the start of a new year. Christmas is just about over. Well, in a sense that’s true, but the birth of Jesus is not really something we leave behind us; we carry its consequences with us.

I sometimes think of the Christmas story as being like an episode in a long-running TV series. Each episode may be viewed as a separate story, but it only really makes sense if you have seen what happened earlier. And at the end of each episode, you sit there wondering what’s going to happen next.

In a way, the Bible is like a series of episodes that takes place over a very long period of time. Many episodes can be read on their own, but they also need to be considered as part of a continuous narrative. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait for each episode to come along – they are all in the Bible for us to read now, from the very beginning. Having said that, we will have to wait for the last episode – the release date has not been announced yet!

We often (but not always, of course) start the Christmas story with an angel appearing to Mary, and end with the wise men heading back to their homes somewhere in the east. It is an important episode, but it only makes sense when we consider what happened earlier. The period of Advent, which led us up to Christmas, helped us do that. It can be hard for us to understand the joy of the first Christmas if we don’t realise the longing that God’s people felt.

The Christmas story is about the birth of Jesus of course, but it’s also about some normal people made special by God. I mentioned that for any episode in a TV series, we love to know what happens next. Today, I’m going to look briefly at ‘what happened next’ to some of the ordinary people in the Christmas story. I hope you already know what happened to Jesus!

The Bible tells us that an angel visited some shepherds in the fields, and told them where to find the new-born Jesus. After they had seen the baby and his parents, Luke’s Gospel tells us that “The shepherds went back, singing praises to God for all they had heard and seen; it had been just as the angel had told them.”

And that’s it; we aren’t told how many shepherds there were, or what their names were. “The shepherds returned”; after all, they still had sheep to look after. But I doubt that they returned to just ‘business as usual’ – their lives would never be the same again. Can you imagine anyone meeting Jesus in such a way and not telling others about it?

There were the wise men from the east too, who followed a star to the child Jesus. They worshipped him and gave him gifts. In Matthew’s Gospel we hear that “Then they returned to their country by another road, since God had warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod.” Again, we aren’t told how many wise men there were, exactly where they came from or what their names were. Like the shepherds, it’s hard to imagine that the wise men arrived home the same as when they left.

There are many times in the Bible when we are not told the names of people involved. Just a few examples: the Samaritan woman at the well is not named; the two criminals on either side of Jesus when he was crucified are not named, nor is the boy who donated his lunch to feed a large crowd. The recipients of many miracles are not named. For the host of unnamed people, including the Christmas shepherds and wise men, they only appear once – so knowing their names is not needed for later identification.

God knows everyone’s name, but it’s what people did that mattered, not what their names were. The shepherds were obedient to God and they spread the word of Jesus’ birth – their names didn’t matter. The wise men showed that Jesus would welcome non-Jews from a different culture – their names didn’t matter.  

There are times when it seems God does want us to know the names of people he used in his plan for us all. In the Christmas story, Mary and Joseph come to mind. They both played an important part in what came next.

Mary and Joseph were changed by the Christmas story. On top of staying obedient to God, they now had the responsibility of bringing up Jesus. The Bible doesn’t tell us much about the early life of Jesus, just enough episodes to create (together with a bit of guesswork) a picture of the roles Mary and Joseph played. They raised him up in the Jewish religion, making sure he kept the traditions and learned the writings and teachings. They protected the infant Jesus by taking him to Egypt to escape the murderous King Herod, returning to be part of a supportive community in Nazareth when God told them it was safe. They fed him, spent time with him, encouraged him, dealt with his childhood problems, taught him a trade, worried about him when he went off without telling them. And at the same time, Joseph worked for a living and Mary organised a household that included numerous brothers and sisters.

You know, they did all those things parents do. Despite having the Son of God in their family, Mary and Joseph were normal parents, juggling work and family life. If you ask someone today what they like best about Christmas, they’ll often say “family”. I think Mary and Joseph were an example of why we might agree with that. Of course, some of us aren’t parents, or we aren’t able to enjoy being with family at Christmas. We can still look to Mary and Joseph as examples of faithfulness and obedience to God.

Joseph is not mentioned in the Bible after Jesus reached the age of 12, and it’s normally assumed that Joseph died. But Mary kept on without him, supporting Jesus and witnessing some of his ministry, along with the rest of her children. She was present when Jesus performed his first miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding. She also saw Jesus die on the cross. The last time we hear of Mary was after Jesus had risen and been taken up to Heaven – Mary and some of her family met with the disciples to pray.

Mary and Joseph didn’t know God’s plan, but their faithfulness, sacrifice and trust are examples to us all. For Mary and Joseph, the first Christmas was not something they could just put behind them; it was the start of a huge new episode in their lives. We can be encouraged to stay faithful in our own journey, even when we don’t see where God is leading us.

And let’s not forget the shepherds and the wise men; they got to see Jesus, and their lives would never be the same. For most of us, our lives also changed when we first met Jesus.

Christmas is over. Will you carry on with life as normal?

Or perhaps you’ll be like Mary and Joseph, and take the opportunity to deepen your faith and obedience.

Perhaps you’ll be like the shepherds, and pass on the good news of Jesus to others.

We could all be like Mary right after the visit of the shepherds. They had told her of the angel’s message, that Jesus would be a saviour, good news to all people. Luke 2:19 tells us that:

“Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often.”

What will the next episode in the Christmas story look like for you this year?