Paul tells the Christians of Philippi, ‘I want you to be happy (Phil 4:4) … there is no need to worry … the peace of God … will guard your hearts.’ Luke tells us, at this time of the year before Christmas, that there was ‘a feeling of expectancy’ among the people (3:15). They knew something was afoot. John the Baptist was an extraordinary person speaking with great directness and urgency.
They responded and asked, ‘what must we do?’ John was quite straightforward in his replies: if you have more than you need, share with others who are without; if you are a collector of tax, demand no more than the rate; if you are a soldier, ‘No extortion! No intimidation!’
Clear direct stuff! But where are we 2000 years down the line? Luke tells us that when John was gone and the early preachers took up the message of Jesus, the people again asked, ‘what must we do?’ (Acts 2:37).
On that occasion it was Peter who replied saying, ‘You must change your way of thinking and be baptised, that is, enter into an intimate relationship with God through Jesus’. If he lives in you and you live in him, you will really go somewhere. We are told that about 3000 people accepted his word.
I often meet people who are worried about something and I am sure you do too. We all have our anxieties. Sometimes they are just ungrounded fears. What seems to me is the message of this time before Christmas is that our worries all circle round ourselves; and we are being called to break out of the circle, ‘to change our way of thinking.’ Paul is not telling the Philippians to ‘be happy’ and forget their worries.
He is telling them to ground their worries in the much bigger picture of the new relationship with God that we have through the coming of Jesus. Once we have broken out of the ‘no go’ area of just looking at ourselves, we are open to the wide panorama of ‘the mystery of his purpose’ (Eph. 1:9) for each of us and for the world. That is true happiness.
Post published in: Faith