Study Guide: "Holy Intrusions"

Text: Luke 1:26-38

OPEN:

The Apollo Theatre in central London was packed for a performance of the ‘Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.’  Settled in for an enjoyable performance, no one expected their lives were about to be rudely interrupted.  Without warning, the roof collapsed.  An eyewitness heard "a crackling" noise before the collapse.  A spokesman said that the theatre was almost full with "around 700 people" watching the performance.  Theatre-goer Lucy Atherton: "The ceiling just fell in."  "We thought it was water... We thought it was a part of the show. I grabbed my kids and ran."  The Met Police said more than 40 walking wounded were being treated at the nearby Gielgud Theatre, while a London bus used to transport others injured to hospital.

While most of life’s interruptions are thankfully far less traumatic, the truth is that there are moments for each of us when our routine is arrested, our plans disrupted.

And the truth is that the Christmas event is essentially the highest example of holy intrusion in human history.

Life is not so much about how well you plan, but how you handle interruptions.

For the individuals involved in the Christmas drama, it was one unexpected interruption after another:

     ·        Look at Zacharias. He was going about his priestly duties, offering incense in the sacred holy of holies, when he is arrested by an angel who turns his life upside down.

·        Look at Elizabeth. An upright woman who observed the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly in the sight of God. Her husband goes away for his two weeks of priestly service in a normal condition and returns home a mute man. He went away talking and comes back silenced.

·        Look at Mary. A young virgin engaged to be married to a good man, but is met by the same angel who met Zacharias, who also flips her life upside down.

·        And then there’s Joseph, whom Luke does not talk much about, but we know from Matthew’s gospel that he gets the shock of his life when he finds out that the virgin he is engaged to is already pregnant and he knows it’s not his. He knows that he’s an honorable man, and he knows that he did not have that honor.

All of these holy interruptions come on their own time and their own schedules. God did not wait for the perfect moment to come into any of these lives. In fact, in all four cases, it was probably the most inopportune moments he could have chosen.

I.       Holy Intrusions Remind Us of Who is in Charge. 

Although it was a surprise to all and traumatic for some, Christmas came exactly as God had planned.

Gal 4:4,5 “When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a virgin, born under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”

1.     Sometimes life is divinely interrupted because our plans run counter to God’s plans.

·        Living life with God means understanding that God will have God’s way. It means understanding that He has a plan and is working out His plan and whether we are in agreement with it or not, whether we understand it or not, whether it fits our schedules or agendas or not, God’s plan will go on on schedule.

·        It’s often not that our plans are bad or wrong, it’s just that when our plans conflict with the plans God has for us and the plans he has for the world, then we are the ones who will need to make the adjustments. God’s plans for us will go forward.

2.     I call these holy intrusions – those things that interrupt us and cause us to readjust our lives.

·        This Christmas make room for some divine disruptions in your life, because if you have not learned it already, that’s where the miracles of life take place. Truth be told, Jesus’ entire life was a series of holy interruptions – either by him or to him.

·        He interrupted the fishermen and said follow me, and I’ll make you a fisher of men. He interrupted the woman at the well and said believe in me. He interrupted the pity party the sisters were having for Lazarus and told him to get up from the tomb. He interrupted his own mountainside worship service to secure a little boy’s lunch in order to feed 5000 people. He interrupted his trip to see about a dying 12 year old girl to tend to the needs of a bleeding woman.

Christmas comes to remind us that our job is not to get God on our program, but to get on God’s program. Because miracles happen when we get on his program.

II. Holy Intrusions Invite Us to Join God in His Agenda.

 Ryan Dueck blog:

A wise friend and mentor once told me to be very careful to cultivate what he called a “theology of holy interruptions.” “Sometimes God speaks in the unplanned, unexpected, even apparently annoying human interjections in our days,” he said. “Make sure you don’t allow your other ‘important work’ to trump the divinely appointed conversations that might cross your path when you least expect or want them.”

 

1.     Are you able to discern the difference between an inconvenience and an opportunity?

·        Jesus was a master at recognizing the divine disruptions in his life. I think of the countless healing stories, or teaching moments, when Jesus hears the intrusive cries of those clamoring for his attention, and somehow manages to let go of his own agenda, to abandon his own schedule, to forget about the many things in favor of the main thing.

·        I don’t know about you, but in my life, there are many days when taking the time to see what is going on around me, or broadening my perspective even a little bit seem like too great a task. But what a miracle it is, when I am able to let go of my own agenda, and pay attention to that broader perspective just long enough to recognize a holy interruption when it occurs.

·        A holy intrusion is an opportunity to take the Gospel seriously. It is a chance to sort out the “main thing” from the “many things”.

2. What’s required to recognize holy intrusions and respond accordingly?

           1)    Spiritual Discernment—comes from one’s intimate relationship with Christ

2)    Humility/ servant spirit—allows intrusions to move from inconvenience to opportunity.

3)    Courage- See where He is moving and courage enough to join Him.

 

CLOSE:

Life is not so much about how well you plan, but how you align yourself with God’s plan and how you recognize and respond to holy interruptions.