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If you want breakfast at Greggs, you usually have to wait in the queue. From 8.00am till around 9.30 am, Greggs is the favourite breakfast takeaway for folk going to work or school. The coffee and bacon rolls are very good, and very good value – I’m able to confirm this from personal experience!

If it’s worth waiting for, people don’t mind waiting. Patience isn’t a problem if you know that, when your turn comes, you’ll get what you hope for. But there’s another kind of waiting. It goes on and on and on, until it seems there’s no end to the waiting.

Advent is when we rediscover the importance of waiting for God. “They that wait for the Lord will renew their strength,” said Isaiah the prophet. True enough. But sometimes waiting can be so frustrating! Maybe that’s because we’ve become used to getting things done quickly. We value immediacy, right now – from making coffee, to ordering online with delivery today or tomorrow, to binge-watching a TV box set so we don’t have to wait for weekly episodes. Take the waiting out of wanting is one of today’s most powerful marketing promises.

So we need Advent to slow us down, to train us in patience, to recover the wonder of waiting. Here is Isaiah again, this verse is not so well known, but it's an important word from the Lord to hearts becoming impatient with long term promises.

“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you: he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him.” (Isaiah 30.18)

The story of Jesus, from Advent to Second Coming is a story punctuated by waiting, allowing God’s purposes to be worked out in God’s time, at God’s pace, and to our blessing. Mary receives the annunciation that she will have a child named Jesus, the Messiah, the Saviour, Emmanuel. Nine months later we are in Bethlehem, and not long after, the baby is a refugee. Please don’t overlook that dark corner of the Christmas story. Joseph, Mary and their baby were fleeing from the violence and terror of murdering soldiers. Christians of all people should understand the importance of welcome and protection for those fleeing for their lives.

The Bethlehem refugees waited in Egypt till Herod died and the threat was past. They re-settled in Nazareth and Jesus waited 30 years, “growing in favour with God and all who knew him.” For three years Jesus healed, taught and lived the life of one utterly obedient to the Father. There was a lot of waiting, because as John regularly says throughout his Gospel, “His time had not yet come.”

But come it did, and Jesus was crucified and buried. That three day wait was too much for the disciples. Rather than wait for the promise of Jesus rising from the dead, they panicked, ran away, hid themselves, kept busy, and gave up – anything but wait for something that was never going to happen. But happen it did. What started with angels and celebration at Bethlehem, came to an earth-juddering halt on Calvary. Until early on the third day! Just as the sun was rising, the Son was rising, and indeed as angels once announced his birth, now angels announced “He is risen!”

But still the waiting continues. “Wait in the city,” Jesus says, “till you are clothed with power from on high.” Pentecost comes and the Gospel overflows from the hearts of disciples now filled with the Holy Spirit, flowing out to the ends of the world and to the end of the ages. And the waiting continues, as we await the second coming of Jesus, the One to whom every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth.

This Advent, we will try to learn again that God’s purposes don’t work out to our timetable, nor to our agendas. As Isaiah said, “The Lord is a God of justice.” He will make things right. Why?  “The Lord longs to be gracious to you: he rises to show you compassion…” No wonder Isaiah goes on to say, “Blessed are all who wait for him.”

Those queues outside Gregg’s are their own testimony. Experience has shown those folk that it’s worth the waiting. You can almost hear those words of Jesus in his favourite teaching style. If waiting at Gregg’s is worth it, “How much more” is it worth waiting before God, in quiet trust, in patient faith, and with hearts open to the coming of Jesus into our world, into our community life, and into our hearts. Live this week with Isaiah 30.18, and discover again the Lord who longs to be gracious to you, who rises to show you compassion, and who blesses you as you wait before him,

On a recent visit to Inverness I passed this old building. The seventeenth century is one of my happy places, though to be fair, most of the seventeenth century wasn't the happiest of times in Scotland, or England.

It was the century that gave us the King James Bible, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert,  the growth and turbulence of dissenting and non-conformist Christians. However, it also visited on these various nations and islands much that was regrettable.

The legacy of damage, mistrust, and historic grievance has never finally dissipated. Few passions are more powerful than those generated by religious convictions; and few grievances are more carefully nursed than those persecuted for freedom of belief and claimed independence of thought in religious and political affiliations.

This building itself dates from 1668, and has a happier history. It began life as Dunbar's Hospital, built in 1668 as an almshouse and hospital by Provost Alexander Dunbar. One online source suggests it may have been constructed from the stone of Oliver Cromwell's dismantled citadel.¹ In the 360 years since it was built it has been a place of public service in many different expressions. Hospital, almshouse,  poor house, school, library and day care and social care centre. 

In 2019 it opened as a cafe which provides free meals for homeless, vulnerable and otherwise struggling folk.² I didn't have time to go in, but given the harvest of bad news reaped and relentlessly displayed across our phones, computers, and TVs, I found this enterprise a welcome relief. Here is a building 360 years on, still a safe place for vulnerable folk, a place of welcome for the lonely, food for the hungry, and of humanity in a world that can give every impression that we have forgotten the humanity of others, and are therefore in danger of losing our own capacity for humane and compassionate attitudes, benevolent and generous actions, and social responsibilities to others felt as obligation and not option.

¹ https://www.scottish-places.info/features/featurefirst8923.html

²  You can find more about 1668 Cafe here: https://www.highlandtsi.org.uk/cafe

Photo in Garlogie Woods, late November 2023

Monday

1 Cor. 13.4a “Love is patient and kind.”

I doubt anyone could describe modern 21^st Century life as one where people have patience with each other. In the checkout queue, behind a steering wheel, waiting for the cappuccino – the two most important words are ‘me’ and ‘now’. Likewise kindness is hardly the defining attribute of the abrasive, often self-assertive ways we go about life on the roads, in the shops, the office. And yet. Give thanks for those moments of kindness and patience we see others enact. Because what you are looking at is love in action. “Lord, if only we could be as patient and kind with others as you are with us.”   

Tuesday

1 Cor. 13.4b. “Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”

Three things love cannot do, because they all describe a self-centred view of the world. Envy is me resenting what others have; boasting is me telling the world about me; pride is self-importance given a microphone. Love will always mean allowing the other person to be valued, praised, paid attention to, without feeling their joy and fulfilment diminishes us. “Lord, make us comfortable with the humility and generosity of genuine love.”

Wednesday

1 Cor. 13.5a. “Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking.”

Love does not disrespect others, does not dishonour or embarrass others. This is about more than good manners; it is a way of treating others as those loved by God, made in God’s image, and worthy of our time and attention. Love is not pleasing ourselves, just as Jesus ‘didn’t please himself.’ (Rom. 15.1-3). Instead, we look for ways to affirm, befriend, and encourage others. The Prodigal Son’s father is a good example of such love. “Lord, help us to be loving hosts of those we meet today.”

Thursday

1 Cor. 13.5b. “Love is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of rights and wrongs.”

Anger and love are not incompatible. But being habitually angry, or quick-tempered, or prone to that passive aggression that grits teeth and seethes inwardly – these do argue the absence of love. What’s more, the very things that make us angry, and we note down for later ammunition? Forget it! That’s what love does. Erase, tear up, score out, delete. Love isn’t in the business of keeping accounts and paying back. Lord, temper our temper with love, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

Friday

1 Cor. 13.6 “Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.”

Gospel people never celebrate evil, from hurtful gossip to dishonesty in business, from political rhetoric that belittles the vulnerable, the poor, or those who are amongst the least, the lost and the last. William Barclay defined agape love as “indefatigable goodwill.” Love never tires of rejoicing in every victory of goodness, every forgiveness offered, and every act of kindness. “Lord, give us a love that has the courage to call out evil, and the energy to celebrate everything that is good and true.”

Saturday

1 Cor. 13.7 “Love always protects and always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

That word ‘always’ also mean ‘in all things’. Love doesn’t pick and choose. Love puts up with everything, or as one translation puts it, “there’s nothing love cannot face.” Before we think this is asking too much, this is an exact description of Calvary, the final and defining demonstration of a love that stops at nothing. For Jesus, there’s nothing love cannot face, even the cross. God’s love is for always, and confronts and deals with all things, even our sin. “Lord, so touch our hearts with your love, that our whole being is transformed, and we become conduits of the love of Christ crucified.”

Sunday

1 Cor. 13.7 “Love always protects and always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Love looks after the interests of others, protects. Love trusts the mercy and goodness of God to bring help, blessing and newness into each human life. Love hopes for the best for others, that against all the odds of a broken world, God is working out his purposes for good. Love perseveres, keeps going, doesn’t give up, looks to a future when love, truth and goodness triumph. “Love has won, death is dead, Christ has conquered.” “Lord, infuse our love with hope and trust, and enable us to persevere and not give up in our great calling to love as we have been loved by Christ.”  

A Blessing

Go forth into the world in peace; be of good courage; hold fast that which is good; render to no one evil for evil; strengthen the fainthearted; support the weak; help the afflicted; honour all people; love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, today, tomorrow and always, AMEN

The first Sunday in Advent is a week or soo away. I am finding it very difficult to move into any mood of anticipation, eager waiting, and that determined hopefulness sung so confidently in Christmas carols. 

The past seven weeks have been hellish for all the peoples entrapped in violence in what it is becoming impossible to call "the Holy Land". Every Advent, forced by that horrendous story in Matthew's gospel, I grieve the slaughter of the innocents, those far too easily forgotten infants who were collateral damage for Herod's paranoia and state sponsored terrorism. 

Long before Christ came, and in the two thousand years since, the slaughter of the innocents has continued. With modern technology and pervasive social media, we are now able to witness the human cost and consequences of war in all its destructive terror. The phrase 'the slaughter of the innocents" takes on not only biblical, but digitally enhanced proportions. 

What is happening in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and the border with Lebanon, gives little hope of peace with justice, of reconciliation and co-existence. So Advent comes at the right time. Just as it seems the darkness wins again, the genius of the liturgy brings us back to God's invasion of our broken, often cruel, and sin-darkened world. 

I believe that Bethlehem is a place where the unthinkable can be thought, the impossible can be conceived, and the hopeless can be redeemed. Yes, what else are we to make of that ridiculously hyped-up choir and orchestra beating out their peace anthem? This Advent, more than ever, Christians are called to hope against hope, to defy despair, to insist on peace as possible, and to echo the words that contradict all military orders, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace and goodwill amongst all people." Oh, yes – God help us, yes!

Thomas Merton, in the remarkable essay collection, Raids on the Unspeakable, wrote the following words at a time when the Vietnam war was spiralling into yet more slaughter of the innocents, Civil Rights protests were violent, and whole communities conflicted and at each others throats: 

“Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited.” 

“But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those others for whom there is no room.

"His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.”

In a world where the innocent are still slaughtered, where power is militarised and mobilised, apparently there is no room for the Prince of Peace. But still He comes. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself." So we wait, in quiet and defiant trust, for the Advent of God. 

Thought for the Day –Love is the Christian’s ID Card

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Faith, hope and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13.1-3, and 13)

Monday Nov 20

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love…”

‘If’ is a big word. It makes all the difference. ‘If’ sets conditions for something to be true. Paul starts his great hymn on love by being very blunt. If we do not have love, nothing else matters much. Human eloquence with all our promises and clever words, and our spiritual sounding prayers however sincere they sound; if they don’t grow out of a heart given in love to God and to each other in Christ, then they fail the most basic quality test. “Lord, keep teaching us to speak with the accents of your love.”

Tuesday Nov 21

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” 

‘Only’ is another powerful word. It sets limits. Only a resounding cymbal means all the other instruments are silent, there’s no music, only noise. You can’t hear the music for the annoying din and lingering echoes of percussion instruments. Paul says, without the music and harmonies and rhythms of love, all our words, our well-meant prayers, and our worship efforts don’t have the ring of truth, sincerity or integrity.  “Lord, by the music of your love, silence the noise of our grievances and self-assertions.”

Wednesday Nov 22

“If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge…but have not love…”

The truth is, none of us is clever enough, or pure in heart enough, to get to the bottom of the love and grace and mystery of the mercy of God. But even if we were, we would still never know enough. The purest and deepest way of knowing is through love. The way to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ is to know ourselves loved, and say yes to the call to live in the environment of Christ-like love. “Lord, help us to look on you with the eyes of the heart, and to love as we have been loved.”

 Thursday Nov 23

“And if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”

Moving mountains is hard, but it can be done, usually with heavy machinery! It would be great if it could be done by faith. What a miracle! But then Paul goes and spoils our faith filled fun by saying mountain moving is worthless and useless if the mountain movers lack the fundamental qualification for service in the kingdom of God – love. By all means try to move mountains by faith, but unless your faith is governed, inspired and focused on loving others in the name of Christ it counts for precisely nothing. “Lord, ignite our faith with love, and energise our love with faith.”

Friday Nov 24

“If I give all I possess to the poor, and have not love I gain nothing.”

Just to be clear. Giving to the poor, and being generous with what God has given us, is always a good thing. Jesus said when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, pay up front for someone to be helped, we are serving him. Paul’s point is, no matter how much we give, our heart must be in it. Giving to the poor is not an occasional donation – it’s a habit of the heart, a way of seeing others, with love! ”Lord, when we open our hands to give, open our hearts first, to love others in whom we see your face.”

Saturday Nov 25

“If I give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

Following Jesus can sometimes be costly. Sacrifice is an experience we sign up for when we give our lives to Christ. But the blessings of a faithful life have a condition. That word ‘if’ again. If I do not have love, I gain nothing. All through these verses Paul insists that love for Christ must radiate outwards to love for other folk – the annoying and the lonely, the poor and the hurting, the stranger and the person we sometimes try to avoid. “Lord, show us how to love with a heart schooled in welcome.”

Sunday Nov 26 (Advent Sunday)

“Faith, hope and love remain, these three, but the greatest of these is love.”

Sometimes we know, but act as if we don’t know. Christians know fine well that the barcode of discipleship is that we love one another as Christ loves us. That’s Step One. Then Step Two, love for our neighbour by caring for them. Finally comes Step Three, love for our enemies by doing them good, and forgiving them. Faith is loving trust in Christ. Hope is love looking forward. Love, then, is the faithful and hope-filled life, opened up to the world by the Spirit of the love of God, in Christ.  “Lord, faith hope and love remain, give us such faith and hope that we too will always remain, in your love.”

Thought for the Day from Monday November 13 – Sunday November 19

These brief thoughts on peace are mainly based on the sayings of Jesus. The prayer at the end gathers these thoughts together, and can be used each day. 

Monday

Matthew 5. 9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

This is the starting point for every follower of Jesus. Written into Jesus’ manifesto for the Kingdom of God is this unusual compound word. Think about it. You have to use energy, imagination, skill, and know-how to make something. Peace doesn’t just happen. It has a cost in time and energy. To be a child of God is have a family resemblance. We are children of a Creator who makes things, including peace.

Tuesday

Mark 9.50 “Salt is good but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

Preserve your saltiness! In Jesus’ time salt was a symbol of wisdom, for example, well-seasoned words that lead to forgiveness, or loving support. If we have salt (wisdom) inside, that will make us think, act and behave wisely. One of the most important outcomes will be living at peace with one another. This ties closely with, “You are the salt of the earth” – which brings us back to peace-making as who we are and what we do.

The colouring is by my friend Ben, whose pen work is vibrant and skilled

Wednesday

Luke 1.78-79 “Because of the tender mercy of our God by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven, to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

This is about the role of John the Baptist, who will point to “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Tender mercy, the rising sun, a shining light, guiding us into the path of peace. From start to finish, Jesus is the way of peace, God’s Son from heaven, the life giving light that illuminates a dark world and leads us back to God. Peace is God’s purpose, long before it becomes our project. Christ is the light that guides and impels us into the path of peace.

Thursday

Luke 2.14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to all the peoples, on whom God’s favour rests.”

I know. It’s annoying when the Christmas carols start playing at the end of October. But peace on earth and goodwill amongst the people of the earth isn’t a message for one month only. Jesus has come as God’s peace-maker, the One whose life and death and resurrection, reconciles a world at enmity with itself, and with God.

Friday

John 14.27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not be afraid.”

The inner turmoil of anxiety, worry and fear – three of the great disturbers of our inner peace. At the very time Jesus is telling the disciples he will be crucified and be taken from them, he says, “Peace I leave with you.” We’re only human – of course we worry, and sometimes life is scary. But Jesus promises a durable peace, deep down somewhere in the core of where we live. We are in safe hands. Trust those hands, the nail prints are the proof of his love, and his promised presence.

Saturday

John 20.26 “Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

Sometimes we blame ourselves for not being people of faith, the best of disciples, and it all gets a bit too much. So we lock the doors, play safe, keep our heads down. But the promise of Jesus to be with us is not frustrated by our locked doors. “Though the doors were locked” – love unpicks the lock, passes through the barriers, comes within our hearing distance and says, “Peace be with you.”

Sunday

Colossians 1.19-20 “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross.”

The God of peace, the God who was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, the God who in Christ “breaks down dividing walls of hostility, this is our God, the Servant-King:   “Come see His hands and His feet, the scars that speak of sacrifice; hands that flung stars into space to cruel nails surrendered.”

Prayer for Trainee Peacemakers

 Jesus, you came amongst us as the Prince of Peace; and your way of making peace is to make peace-makers out of trouble makers.

Restore the salt of wisdom in our words and actions, making us conduits of peace and channels of grace.

Break through the locked doors behind which we hide, and stand amongst us speaking into our lives the peace that makes new.

Jesus, you are God’s Peace-Maker – help us to follow you in the paths of peace, as peace-bringers and peace builders, children bearing the likeness of the Father.

Prayer written to be part of the Service of remembrance, in church this mornng:

May God lead us in the ways of peace – make us witnesses of reconciliation – give us a holy impatience with the short cuts and the political expediencies.

And yes, give us courage to question assumptions that conflict is inevitable in a globalised, polarised and destabilised world. God help us to see all those structures of violent power, of oppressive ideas, of instilled hostility, as part of that great song of the ruthless, and help us by God’s grace and strength to silence it –

by persistent, patient actions of peace,

by resilient, responsive acts of reconciliation,

by gentle, gracious words of goodness

by faith-filled, faithful prayers of friendship

by holy, hopeful gestures of  healing