faith

Still Waiting For Christmas?

Animated image of Jesus asleep in a manger with Jerusalem in Israel in the background
| flexanoel

We might spend all year waiting for Christmas. When Jesus was born on the first ever Christmas, Israel had already waited years for the gift of their Messiah.

Read article below or listen to the audio of the talk (delivered on Christmas morning 2022 at St Albans, Fulham):

I spent part of my childhood in Australia – on the other side of the world, and where currently it is summer not winter. Barbie on the beach anyone? When I was there, there was a children’s TV character called Mr Squiggle. In each show he would draw a picture which started out being totally unrecognisable. You’d wait with great anticipation, guessing ‘Is it a this?’ and ‘is it a that?’. If you were lucky you might guess it, but often it just looked like a jumble of lines. That was until, at the very end he would turn it upside down, and you would realise what the picture was that he had been drawing all along.

Israel was waiting for the picture in front of them to make sense. The Messiah they were longing for, the promised deliverer of Israel, wasn’t forthcoming at all. On top of years and years of division and battles, displacement and oppression, their story was continuing to play out in the worst possible way – Israel was now under occupation by a foreign power. And Israel was longing for a Saviour to come and dramatically overthrow the occupying Romans – gloriously emancipating them from the years of oppression, delivering them to live in their own land again, freely and peacefully. This hope was a nation-state scale hope – they wanted a mighty leader to politically and militarily liberate them – for all to see. Hadn’t Isaiah’s prophecy promised this? Didn’t it say that David’s throne would be restored? All those victories, their heroic warrior King – the glory days of Israel restored again.

But, the fulfilment of this promise was nowhere to be found at this Macro level. Instead: down and down, smaller and smaller, focussing finer and finer into the Micro, something was happening at the cellular level of Israel. Because quietly, anonymously, invisibly… in a hidden corner of the nation a young, inconsequential woman discovered she was pregnant with a microscopic foetus, suspended in secret. In her womb was the Son of God, the Saviour of Israel. The gargantuan hopes of a whole nation, a multitude of people with a long complicated history had not only been turned upside down but completely inverted. Their Saviour hadn’t arrived to dramatic fanfare in public glory, but into secret obscurity and vulnerability, and circumstantially, into shame. 

Not that they knew it at the time but their actual Saviour had arrived. Not as Powerful but powerless, not as Visible but invisible, not as Glorious but as shameful, not as Famous but as obscure, not from Without but from within. They couldn’t imagine this, let alone see it, but their hope for a Saviour was being fulfilled… it was nascent, in the form of an utterly dependent baby.

An animation still showing a sleeping Baby Jesus in a manger under a starry sky, with buildings in the foreground, telling the Christmas story.
The first Christmas: The Birth of Jesus: Luke 1-2 by The Bible Project.

What Israel was imagining its Saviour to be was perhaps a projection on to those ancient prophecies of some very human desires… of greatness and vindication and a grand notion of their identity, of Who they wanted to be, and How they wanted those hopes fulfilled. However, had the promise they were waiting for been fulfilled in the way they were imagining, their saviour would have been born of the same substance as the years of trouble they’d already endured. It’s likely their saviour would have been vainglorious, proud and insufficient to resolve their deepest longings. Disappearing as quickly as he had appeared, failing as quickly as he had succeeded, falling as quickly as he had risen. It’s likely this would have been a fragile, brittle, precarious answer to Israel’s predicament at best.

While the nation of Israel’s hopes for a saviour had grown nebulous and distorted over their years of waiting; their actual Saviour was multiplying and growing with purpose inside that young, pregnant woman. She was being enlarged in quite another way as she waited for Jesus to be born. Not only was her body being physically enlarged by her pregnancy as his life literally multiplied and grew inside her, but her very real sense of expectancy, and joy was increasing every day, along with God’s vision for the life planted within her. Israel’s Saviour would be born of an entirely different substance, of heaven and human humility. 

Because only this could really save Israel… because Israel actually needed saving from themselves. From their pride, rebellion and sinful humanity.  The ultimate answer to Israel’s predicament was the inverse of everything they were imagining. In order to truly deliver them, their Saviour would need to redeem them from the oppression of sin, rescue them from themselves, and transform their lives from within. His kingdom would multiply through surrendered lives, expanding horizons, as light does in the darkness – into all the earth and on into eternity. 

Though unaware, somewhere in Israel, a young woman was patiently waiting, incubating a Saviour, an answer, a solution… for Israel, and for the World. At a time when their own land felt so reduced and shrunken under occupation, and at a time of great distress; in the words of Isaiah, God had in fact, paradoxically ‘enlarged their nation and increased their joy’. He was enlarging Israel, along with Mary, in pregnant expectation. Their joyful expectation increasing while they wait for the time that Jesus is born, to them – when they finally recognise the picture that God has been drawing all along. Waiting for Christmas; the birth of Jesus – the Saviour of the World.

So, what are you waiting for? Waiting is often the incubator for God’s solution to our problems. For our redemption, and for His full answer to our predicament. It’s where our human desires are reckoned with. And it’s where, if we choose to surrender to the process, God refines us and aligns us with his redemptive purpose; enabling us to see what he’s doing. It’s where he enlarges our capacity to hold what he’s giving us and where he maximises the joy we’ll experience when it arrives. So whatever you are waiting for, be encouraged, because as Romans says ‘ …the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy’. 

© Alexandra Noel – All rights reserved. 25th December 2022

Look at His Noodles

A hand holding a cup of Kabuto noodles with the text 'When the character of a man is not clear to you look at his noodles'
| flexanoel

This article was originally published in 2016 as ‘The Two-Timing Texter’ for Girl About Town on Threads UK. Read on below:

Photo by author of Kabuto Noodles advert circa 2015, and the inspiration (partly) for this article.

I was fairly late to the dating game. For a long time I believed that my future husband would just pitch up at the right moment, without much action needed from me. Not much action that is, apart from focusing on being faithful and good, and waiting patiently for Mr Right, without complaining too much.  I wasn’t hung up on it, but if I’m honest, deep down that’s what I believed.

After years of Not Much on the man front, apart from a few flirtations and a bit of heartbreak, something in me snapped. I was totally disillusioned, [as a Christian this was] mostly with God, who I thought should have brought someone along by now. I’d been good, I’d made sacrifices! And He’d let me down!  I felt disempowered. I hadn’t felt permission to try, fail, and then do better next time. I wasn’t a complete rooky, but I’d never learnt how to make confident decisions in this area of life, and I wanted to get experience. I wanted dating to feel more ‘normal’.  

So in protest I rebelled – against waiting, and against being faithful and good. It was a bit chaotic at first, but I got something out of my system. Then I became more intentional with my dating. And so I went online. I filled out my profile, then held my breath and watched to see what would happen.

I got in touch with a guy who’d sent me a great first message: a bit forward perhaps, but I liked his honesty. After a couple of failed attempts to meet up, we arranged a date for after work the next week.

I was on holiday with a big group of friends at the time, and mentioned my date with this guy, let’s call him ‘Jonny’. He even lived round the corner from my office – fancy that?!

Later that evening, a woman I’d only met that week on the holiday drew me away for a chat.

“This guy you’ve got a date with next week, he wouldn’t happen to be called Jonny Smith, would he?”

Um, yes. Why do you ask?

“Um well, I’ve been dating him for the last two months.”

Oh.

The small size of the Christian dating pool had exposed this guy’s two-timing. So what to do now?

I texted him the next day, and after a lot of excuses and wrangling I received a grovelling apology written in excellent ‘Christianese’. Words like ‘sacrifice’, ‘integrity’ and ‘altar’ featured heavily. Needless to say, I didn’t go on that date with Jonny. But he did contact me a few months later to say that he’d now broken up with the other girl, and would I meet him after all? Not a chance.

There are more stories I could tell; but after my first foray into online (Christian) dating, I’ve definitely learnt a few things and gained valuable experience. Here are a few things I’ve figured out:

• Although it’s important to get experience, dating for experience-only is not a good idea. You’re likely to make compromises with who you date, and what you expect from them. Date people who you genuinely fancy and could see a future with.

• If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. It’s important to listen to your ‘gut’. How we feel about things is valid, and can even be a warning sign. Listen to yourself and trust your instincts.

• Involve your friends. We need community – one of the catches I found with online dating is that although you get to meet a wider group of people and create more opportunities, it’s as if this takes place in a vacuum. You often only have a profile, some photos, and your limited experience of someone to go on.

• Even though someone ticks the ‘Christian’ box, and plays guitar in the worship band, and says grace before a meal, they can still lack one major thing. Character. When it comes down to the way someone behaves towards you, how much they value you, and what you can expect from them, it takes character to set someone apart from the rest. It really is as important as they say it is. Oh, and a whole lot of chemistry.

There’s a lot of good Christian teaching on this subject, but some of our understanding isn’t always 100 per cent biblical. We may have absorbed a mixture of Christian culture, interpretation and Church rhetoric as well, which has shaped our values. It’s always worth questioning things, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, weighing them against the Bible. I’m really struck by the stories of women in the Bible, and how Jesus empowered them, even if their culture didn’t. There are lots of stories of women being audacious – for their culture and their time – in their boldness. If you feel disempowered, and find yourself obligated to take a passive role in dating look again at those biblical stories.

© Alexandra Noel / Threads UK – All rights reserved. 2nd March 2016.

Project Bible

Woman Alive Magazine pages showing text and a woman in a yellow jumper holding a Bible
| flexanoel

An expanded version of this piece appears in print and online for the August 2022 edition of Woman Alive magazine.

Last year I embarked on a project. It was a project to read the whole Bible. I’ve always intended to make reading the Bible a regular practice – fully familiarising myself with it has felt like an important aspect of my Christian faith. I’ve been reading the Bible in parts as long as I’ve known of Jesus, which goes back to early childhood, but now with midlife approaching it definitely seemed like the right moment to read the whole thing. And until last year it remained firmly on the bucket list. I’m not sure what galvanised me to the point of commitment but everything seemed to align this time. I wanted to challenge myself and I wanted to read it for myself. So fed up with bitty soundbites, second-hand knowledge and holes in my understanding; I wanted to grasp the whole ‘gamut of scripture’, and not just take someone else’s word for it.

Aided immeasurably by a reading plan which was bite-sized enough not to intimidate me, and meaty enough to feel like a challenge, I set off. Worth mentioning too is how helpful it was that the plan was laid out in a grid, with daily readings from both the old and new Testament, providing a great balance. I could tick them off as I went which added to the sense of accomplishment. I’m definitely someone who likes to feel that they are ‘getting things done’ and ticking anything off has the psychological effect of feeling like progress.

I’m now only 6 weeks away from finishing the plan and have almost read the whole Bible. I can hardly believe it – it’s so exciting to be at this point. So how’s it been going? Well, I’ve managed to read almost every day. At times it’s felt like a breeze, but there have been plenty of occasions when I haven’t felt like it, and I’ve needed to catch up a few days at a time – no problem. Or when I couldn’t face reading at all I listened to an audio version instead. I’ve had moments of revelation – a sense of the lights going on in my understanding, and moments of emotion as I’ve felt simultaneously confronted and released from things that have been inexplicably nagging at me for a while. I’ve experienced a deep sense of connection with God, and then for days I’ve just read from a sense of discipline, not from inspiration or feeling. Even then I’ve felt reassured that if I show up regularly I’m ‘sowing seeds’ and with that principle in mind I would reap the benefit later. So everyday I have had in mind that I will simply sow a seed, and everything else is a bonus. It’s turned out to be a good strategy with just the right level of expectation for me.

So what has it done for me? Am I a different person, have I changed at all??

I have definitely noticed that I’m reaping some great benefits. Far from tiring of it, my hunger to understand the Bible has deepened, as has my respect for it. There are countless passages and chapters that I had never read before, and there are numerous areas of life and experience that I never imagined the Bible would touch on or have any relevance for. I’ve become much clearer about what the Bible says about certain topics, and how well integrated it is, especially when read together as a whole. I’ve got to know the cast of characters and people of faith so much better, and my understanding of God and how He relates to us has broadened immensely. I’ve been surprised by how clear it is and while I might struggle with what it says, and how to apply it to my life sometimes, it’s not half as confusing as people have suggested. When I get stuck, I pray and a couple of days later things ‘shake down’ and make better sense. I’ve discovered that its understanding doesn’t only belong to the theologians and church leaders, and that they don’t have any sort of monopoly on unlocking it’s wisdom, despite preaching it and studying it for a living. While their learning and insight can help me, there is no aspect of it that is off-limits as I read it for myself. Better still, perhaps I might contribute a thing or two to their understanding! And, far from feeling that my Bible project is over, it’s actually as if my adventure has only just begun.

© Alexandra Noel – All rights reserved. 20th April 2022.