Epistle for Advent 3

Philippians 4:4-7 (NRSV)

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. ⁵Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. ⁶Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 

Don’t you just love the way the Apostle Paul captures the essence of life with Christ? In this reading he focuses on two great qualities of the Christian life; the first being joy. “Rejoice!” he says. Yet he is writing from prison with certain death awaiting him; the Philippians were set upon a path that was going to be difficult and yet despite everything Paul exhorts them to rejoice!  Barclay comments:

The Christian joy has its source in the continual presence of Christ. Two lovers are always happy when they are together, no matter where they are. That is why the Christian can never lose his joy, because he can never lose Jesus Christ.

But, for me the more remarkable quality is the second – what the NRSV translates as gentleness. Barclay comes into his own again as he reflects on this verse. The Greek word is epieikes and translators find it difficult to render in English. The AV used ‘moderation’, Barclay is close to the NRSV using gracious gentleness. The Greeks themselves explained it as “justice, but something better than justice”. This was a term used in those cases where strict justice becomes unjust because of its generality. A law may be perfectly just, but in some circumstances, to apply it strictly causes injustice. Barclay uses the example of two students: one earns a top grade, the other just passes. The one who earns the top grade has ideal conditions, the one who just passes has to struggles against the odds. The latter’s paper is worth more in epieikes! When the women found in adultery, Jesus would have been perfectly just to allow her to face her punishment according to the law, but he went beyond justice. Paul is exhorting us to know when ()and when not) to insist on justice because there is something beyond justice ‘… and which makes a man like God …’ Our mark is justice applied with love (or grace). Barclay concludes: “Justice is human, but epieikeia is divine.”

And so to verses 6 and 7 …

There is a lot to worry about, as Barclay puts it, ‘… to be vulnerable to all the chances and the changes of this mortal life, is in itself a worrying thing …’ To the early Church, this was added to by simply being a Christian because to be one, meant that one’s life was often in danger. But Paul’s solution to worry is prayer. It is in everything that we are to pray for there is nothing too great or too small that we cannot take to God as our Father.

We both have the privilege of being parents and we know first-hand, that there is nothing that happens to our children that is not of great concern to us. We should be exactly the same with God. There is also nothing wrong with praying for ourselves. Too often I pray for the world, the sick and the struggling in any way, the Church and our School, and generally others and forget to pray for myself (other than for forgiveness). The offer is there, that we can and must pray for ourselves for our needs in the present and for guidance for the future. As Barclay writes:

We can take our own past and present and future, with all our shame with all our needs, with all our fears, into the presence of God.

Thanksgiving is vital as our lives are ‘… suspended between past and present blessings …’ At the core, we ought to give thanks for the blessings of prayer itself. In prayer we offer our gratitude for our many blessings and we also submit to the will of God for it is only when we realise that God is working all things together for good (Romans 8) that we can become truly grateful.

Thirdly, when we pray, we must remember three things: (i) the love of God, (ii) the wisdom of God and (iii) the power of God - for when we do this, we will know real and meaningful peace which is nothing like any ordinary human experience – ‘… which surpasses all understanding …’ This peace will ‘… guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus …’

People need this type of peace. In a world where depression is on the increase, one of the reasons (in my opinion) is because their minds are not at peace and real peace is not to be obtained by human effort; it is a gift given by God and received in prayer. Barclay concludes:

The way to peace is to take ourselves and all whom we hold dear, to take all life, and to place them and ourselves and it trustingly in prayer in the hands of God.

I now refer to the of A M Hunter. He points out that the repetition of ‘rejoice’ probably means to make the point that joy can accompany afflictions.  And from our experience, we know this to be true.

He translates ‘… gentleness …’ in verse 5 as ‘… forbearance …’ and comments how Matthew Arnold translates the Greek word epieikes as ‘… sweet reasonableness …’ because the Greeks used this word to describe ‘… justice and something better …’ Hunter explains:

It describes the man who knows when to relax justice and let mercy come breaking in …

“The Lord is near …” (verse 5b) is not (as one would initially think) a reference to our Lord’s second coming, but rather to the wonderful thought that God is near when we call upon him. This is why there is no need for worry. Jesus himself warned against worry, and Paul explains why, because “True prayer and anxious care cannot coexist: the way to be anxious about nothing is to be prayerful about everything.”

It is lovely also to reflect on the word ‘… supplication …’ the cry of personal need, when God is especially near to us. The result: “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”