when angels come knocking

There were people to see yesterday.

One of our members had died. A bit before Christmas.

This was the first real chance I'd had to see his daughter and son about the funeral this week.

It's not been an easy time for them. Their father had MS for the past 35 years. He was 63 when he died. You can do the maths yourself. Most of his life he's been living with this illness. More and more dependent on the help that others give. Less and less able to be doing the things he enjoyed.

There must be a load of mixed emotions which are churning around in their hearts at this time.

There are mixed emotions, as well, I'd think, for some other folk I saw. Facing up to change within their lives. Change that's been prompted by the Lord.

Quite radical change. And only coming about because the Lord has been making it clear to the folk involved that this is what he's calling for just now.

In chatting the whole thing through again (it's been on the go for a good few months and we've talked it through before), it became clear that the Christmas morning family service, a few days back, had been one further confirmation of the path they're called to walk.

You have to understand that the Christmas morning service is generally fairly chaotic. I mean, it's Christmas Day and the children are there from zero up and half of them haven't slept since about 4 o'clock in the morning and they're tired and excited and running around with their toys out front and .. well, you get the picture.

It's not the ideal scenario for delivering a clear word from the Lord. And it's certainly not the ideal sort of context for a proper hearing of a word like that from God.

Mary's experience was our starting point. You know the bit, where the angel Gabriel comes knocking at her door and interrupts her teenage dreams. Pretty abruptly.

Lesson number one. The word of God is disturbing.

Mary was troubled by the greeting. Pleasant though the greeting was. She hadn't asked for angelic visitations. At least, she (or Luke, who's telling the story) is keeping very quiet about it if she had. She hadn't asked for it, or expected it.

But that doesn't stop the Lord from speaking his word right into our lives. And often quite abruptly. With little by way of warning.

So good old Gabriel starts to explain. It's something pretty big that Mary finds herself being called to undertake. Like bringing no less than the Son of God into our world.

I don't know what sort of reaction the angel expected. What he got was a question.

Lesson number two. The way of God is perplexing.

The folk I was seeing are discovering that. It's very perplexing. How? Why? Where?

Questions, questions, questions. It's not always easy to suss out the Lord. What he says seems to fly in the face of the reason we often employ. Reason which tends to make us fairly cautious and to keep us fairly safe.

It's not quite the reason the Lord employs. He uses 'wisdom'. And his wisdom is rather a scary thing. He dares to think .. well, the unthinkable.

I guess the angel Gabriel is used to the sort of reaction which Mary has. "How can this be?"

So he has his answer ready for the girl. He sees that the way she's looking at things, yes, there's obviously a problem. But he explains that she's still got to factor in the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit coming upon a person rather changes everything. Factor that in and your whole perspective is changed. Everything becomes possible.

Except he puts it the other way round. Nothing is impossible with God.

Which is fine, I suppose. By and large we're happy with that as a doctrine.

It's just that the whole thing becomes rather scary when the Holy Spirit gets factored into our living and that truth becomes the bedrock of the way we live our lives.

The goalposts get shifted.

And all of a sudden we're involved in something hugely and radically different. The Lord starts calling us out of our so-called 'comfort zones' and into the kingdom of God.

The angel explained it persuasively. Mary was up for it all.

Lesson number three. The will of God is fulfilling.

She saw that.

However disturbing, however disruptive of all that I've planned for my future his word may be; however perplexing, however confusing the path that he calls me to walk may appear - to follow that path, to respond in obedience and faith .. well, that's where true fulfilment always lies.

"May it be to me as you have said."

Good on the girl.

And now this all gets taken away from being just another Christmas message. It becomes the word of God all over again, disturbing the life of a counterpart to Mary in our congregation's life.

Hugely different circumstances, certainly.

But the Lord addressing his word all over again, disrupting, disturbing, calling a person out into something radically new.

No one is safe when the Lord is at work like this!

Be warned.

Be ready.

Be quick to respond as Mary did.

May it be to me as you have said.

Lord, I'm up for whatever you're calling me to. Count me in.