Christmas: God's Plan

Good morning, I'm Russ. I feel like Josh raised your expectations.

Just real quick, just to say, how long have you been here, Josh? Eight. Eight months. You all have seen him from this space do a job so well. I've gotten to spend time with him past stages.

Right. Sitting at table, sitting in conversations. And just to fill you in, the character is as strong as his ability to do this and so, so grateful to have a comrade here in him. I think you need to hear that from some of us that get to work day in and day out. So even though he raised your expectations and there's no way I can meet them in that grace sermon right now.

Hey, Merry Christmas. We are headed in to celebrating the birth of our king. And it is so good. Love the twinkly lights. It's all great.

We're going to start today by looking at the birth of Jesus in the book of John. So John wrote this. He's one of Jesus first disciples. He's the youngest of them. By disciple, I mean the 12 that he most specifically intentionally trained to be like him and to do the things he does.

John, later in life, he wrote this biography. It's one of the four Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. And in John's telling of Jesus life, it is so different than the others and maybe not even as much as anywhere else. In the very beginning, in his prologue, which is beautiful and honestly sort of strange at first reads this way, just the first few verses of John, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was God.

He was with God. In the beginning, through him all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life. And that life was the light of all mankind.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. One of my favorite things to do with scripture is just to ask a question when I'm reading it to say, hey, where does this word or this idea turn up first in the Bible? And when you ask that here, it takes you all the way back to Genesis 1. In fact, in the beginning is exactly the way that Genesis says starts. John's intentionally taking us to creation and actually before creation, in the beginning, in the beginning, Genesis 1 and then in Genesis 1, what happens?

God speaks and things happen. Let there be light and there is light. In the beginning was the. What does John say? The Word.

God speaks words and they burst with creative energy. And John's using a word, that word, word as a metaphor for Jesus as he's saying this. And it's so meaningful in so many different ways to so many different people, whether they're Jewish or Gentile. And there's so much we could unpack. I just want to make one simple observation that with our words, we can do two things.

We can reveal who we are, and we can get done what we want to get done. So with my mouth, with my words, I can say, I love pizza. And I've revealed something true about myself. Correct. I'm a lover of pizza because I'm smart.

Pizza's good. I reveal who I am. But I can also, with my words, I can say, give me that pizza. And now my words are getting done what I want to get done. Yeah.

Here is Jesus. In the beginning is the Word. Jesus is revealing who God is, and he is getting done what God wants done. And yet even more. In the beginning was the Word Jesus.

Jesus was the Word, was with God, and the Word Jesus was God. Yet so much more. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things. Through him, all things were made.

Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and the life was the light of all mankind. Jesus is in a cosmic context here. John is centering everything around him in the way that you only would to a God, right? And this is a major theme throughout his story, that Jesus is God, the Word was God.

And now the next two lines are where we're going to sit today. In him, in Jesus was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Jesus is the Word, he is the life, he is the light, and he's a light who shines in the darkness. Again, when I ask that question, where does that word turn up first in scripture?

Genesis 1, verse 3. Darkness is what happens before creation. So in the spring. As members of God's church, we often observe these certain days, commonly, right. Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter.

And we are part of a historic, global Jesus movement, right? And that means that many of our brothers and sisters, both here and around the world, not only celebrate those days, as they may call them holy days, but other seasons are days throughout the year. They call it a liturgical year. There are these ancient rhythms that go back 1500 years. Some of us are familiar with something like Lent.

That's one of those. That's the season leading into Easter. There's Pentecost, there's Epiphany. But right now, they are celebrating a season called Advent. And so you may have picked up an Advent calendar.

You know, sweet little Chocolates inside the thing. Advent is a season. It's a season. It's a time to walk in between now and Christmas Eve, to practice preparing and expecting. Growing expectation for the coming of Jesus, both the first time when he came to us in Bethlehem, and then looking forward to his second coming.

So people use this season to focus on waiting and longing for their Savior, culminating in a celebration of Christmas. And I mention all this because I came across an extraordinary sermon on Advent by Fleming Rutledge, and this is what she said in the church. The season of Advent. It's superficially understood as a time to get ready for Christmas, but in truth, the season for contemplating. It's the season for contemplating the judgment of God.

Advent is a season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all. In this world, Advent begins in the dark and moves toward the light. But the season should not move too quickly or too glibly, lest we fail to acknowledge the depth of the darkness. As our Lord Jesus tells us, unless we see the light of God clearly, what we call light is actually darkness. How great is that darkness?

She finishes with this line. Advent bids us take a fearless inventory of the darkness, the darkness without, and the darkness within Advent, because they Christmas begins in the dark. There was darkness before the light, both in Genesis and in the Book of John. Darkness without out there, darkness in here. Now, darkness, often in the Bible is talking about the realm of sin and death and our disordered desires, our deceptions.

It's darkness, sin that forms in us. Things like depression and anxiety and fear and brokenness between people or brokenness between nations, or brokenness with ourselves, brokenness with God. This is what life is like without the light. Right? And I know we said, hey, here's an excuse to party, and we will party well.

And I want you to know that I'm not trying to Grinch your Christmas today. There's no garlic in my soul. Okay? Our tree went up on Friday. I'm listening to the soundtrack from that Peanuts Christmas special way back in the 70s.

Right, the Vince Guaraldi jazz album. Yes. And so I will watch what I believe is the best Christmas movie of all time. And that would be Home Alone. And if you disagree, come to my house, because I'm going full Kevin in my house this year.

And so you're welcome.

I'm not trying to Grinch you Christmas. Look, we are beginning in the darkness, not to sour our Christmas, but to make it all the sweeter. And we do that simply by being honest.

Here's the thing, honesty. Truth has an extraordinary ability to bring with it healing, restoration and wholeness. And maybe you've experienced this. Maybe you've had friends who are truth tellers who have told you things, Honest and hard things. I think about a moment for me in 2018 when I found myself in an unexpected job transition and I'm fully disoriented.

And I sit down with a friend who looks at me and he says a thing. He looks at me and he says this. He says, well, let's think about what you like to do. Because I wasn't sure what I was going to do next. He said, let's think about what you like to do.

You like to drink coffee with people and talk about ideas. And it's true. And it ticked me off. Not because it's bad, but it called something out of me. It exposed something in me.

Cause here's the thing. How much are you actually getting done if all you do is sit around drinking coffee with people and talking about ideas? And it called something out in me that there was something more and that in some way I had settled. And honestly, when I think about pivotal moments in my life, I go back to sitting at Panera with that friend and those words that called something out. And the experiences.

2018 for me has been a growth in Good night. Having this clarity of purpose and this joy of accomplishment and getting to see and know human story after story after story of people who were living more and more into the life that comes in the way of Jesus. The best possible, not easiest, but best life beginning with me. And I point back to a friend who was willing not just to go, hey, it's okay. But to say a thing that they knew would expose something, because honesty, telling it true has a way of bringing healing with it and wholeness and rightness.

I don't know if you have a friend like that. I hope you do today. Let me be that friend. Let me be a friend who will speak it true. Not just about you, but about all of us.

But certainly that means you, right? What is true about our human condition? What is true of us as humans, who we are? So let me say it, and I'm going to say it as straight as I can. And I'm not going to make the words up.

I'm just going to say stuff the Bible says, just for a minute. This is what the Bible describes us to be. Without God. This is who we are. Without God.

We are dead in sin, ignorant of the truth, blinded by Satan, alienated from God, disobedient to his will, hostile to his commands, unloving towards him, ungrateful for his mercy. Enemies in our minds, children of wrath, slaves to sin, lovers of ourselves.

And I don't know about you, but when I read that list, and I know that Jesus is my rescuing and life giving king, right? I've been enjoying life with him and following him for longer than I can remember at this point. But when I read that list, far too much of it is true of me right now. Ungrateful for his mercy, slave to sin, lover of self.

Can you find yourself in that list?

You see yourself in that darkness.

Jesus just ramps this up for me, right? Because he's that kind of friend. He's the kind of friend that tells us straight. And in his famous sermon on the hillside of Galilee, we call it the Sermon on the Mount, he says this thing. He says, hey, you know, murder is wrong, right?

But not just that. He says, look, even if you hate somebody, if you've hated someone or if you have contempt for them in here without ever acting on is as if you have acted on it, and so therefore you too are a murderer. And then he says the same about adultery, right? He says, yes, adultery is wrong, but if you so much as have lusted after another, objectified another human being, it. Even though you've not acted on it, it is as if you have and you are an adulterer.

Now after the service, if you're in here and you have never in your life not once hated someone or lusted after somebody, I'd love to meet you, but I don't think you exist.

I think what Jesus is saying is we can all find ourselves right there. I think we're in a room filled with murderers and adulterers. Turn to say hi to the person next to you, Be the friend who says it true. And I'm going to raise my hand and go, what does Paul say? The worst of sinners.

So I guess I can take second, right? If he gets first.

What's it like to live in a world of murderers and adulterers, right?

I had my first girlfriend in first grade. We started early back then, right? Karen Bowman was her name. I remember. Honestly, I don't think much happened, right?

I don't remember ever talking to her much or sitting with her at lunch. I remember lots of chasing around the playground during recess. But she had big brown eyes, curly hair, and she was one of the couple of girls that was shorter than me. Class.

She was my girlfriend. It was first grade. I'm gonna flash forward to eighth grade Middle school. Y' all remember middle school. Some of you were there.

You know, I was the kind of guy who was too short, too shy, too awkward. And I had a tragic Porky Pig style stutter.

And this is the end of social studies class. We had five minutes of free time, and I probably picked up a book. And I'm sitting and reading a book, and there are two girls sitting behind me talking. And one of them said something derogatory about me intentionally loud enough for me to hear it. And I honestly don't remember what she said.

But I'll never forget what was said next. Because the other girl who spoke up, Karen Bowman, and she said this still loud enough for me to hear it. Rusty isn't all that bad. He's just so boring.

And I said, it is funny. Like you can giggle at it, but it's interesting. I remember it. We can call this 45 years ago. I was a little afraid to say that number out loud to you because now you're going to do some additional and go, wow, he's that old.

45 years. 45 years since that moment. Why do you think I still remember it? Why do you remember your story like that? Right?

Because we've all had those moments. We've had worse. Much worse. What's it like to live in a world filled with murders and adulterers? It's a world like filled five minutes of free time at the end of middle school.

Some studies class, right? It's dangerous because the darkness in us runs headlong into each other. And sometimes we're the stuttering kid who receives the contempt. And sometimes, often, we're the one who pours it out. And we all suffer.

Christmas begins in darkness.

So I want to take a moment for all of us, to be honest, invite us to face the darkness and to face what's true about the world. To name the darkness.

I guarantee there is nobody in this room better at avoiding hard things than me. I have mastered it over the course of my life.

But I know that we can all be prone to this, right? To rush into the happy, happy joy, joy of Christmas. To get caught up in the busyness and all the trappings, and to pretend like things aren't dark.

So today, for us as a people of God, let there be no pretense, no avoiding, no shoving it aside, no rushing through the darkness.

So I've asked if the lights can come down for us, that as we talk about darkness, we can experience it a bit.

And as we sit here in the dark together, I want to invite you to think about the darkness as you experience it.

What words would you give to the darkness?

Now I'm going to welcome you to participate, to name it. That this is a moment to pray, to name it and to bring it into the light.

I'm going to invite you. There's a word to the darkness as you're experiencing it in your life right now. For you to say it out loud and say it loud. To give a word for the darkness. Not just for yourself, but for each other.

It could be words like war or depression or anxiety.

And in between, in the silence. We'll let the silence hold our space.

So if you have a word, you can say it out loud.

Loneliness. Contempt. Greed. Isolation. Anger.

Guilt.

Death.

Anxiety.

Hurt. Hurt.

Lord, hear our prayer.

Hear this again. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. It was with God.

In the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life. And that life was the light of all mankind.

The light shines in the darkness. And you can bring the lights up.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Do you hear the promise?

We can face the darkness because the light shines in the darkness. See, there is good news. Unbelievable news. Jesus says it himself this way in John 8. I am the light of the world.

He says, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. More Good news. Colossians 1. And giving joyful thanks to the Father who has qualified you, you to share in the inheritance of his holy people. In the kingdom of what?

The kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins. More good news. How about that? Ephesians 5.

For you were once darkness, but now you are the light. You are light in the Lord. Live as children of light. For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth. Truth.

And find out what pleases the Lord. More good news. Peter, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. God's special possession that you may declare the praises of him who did what, called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

All made possible. Back to John. John 1, verse 14. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. He moved into our neighborhood.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. The word we use for this is incarnation. Carne is in the middle of it. If you like tacos. You know what Carne is, right?

It's me, it's flesh. That God would become one of us. You see, God had a plan all along, from before the beginning of time. The good news is that he had a plan. And that plan was that he who was before all things and in whom all things hold together, that he who was in the beginning would make himself nothing.

Literally empty himself out in order to become like you and me, to be in human likeness. And not just that, but to humble himself to being obedient, to death, even death on a cross. This was his plan all along. And where is he now? This is from Philippians.

Therefore God exalted him, our King, to the highest place and gave him the name that's above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ our King, Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Good news?

The best.

Fleming Rutledge. Back in that sermon, she talked about having love this phrase, an authentically hopeful Christmas spirit. Authentically hopeful Christmas spirit. That's not a hope that ignores the darkness. It's the kind of hope that faces it and then looks beyond to the final breaking in of God upon our darkness.

See, here is the thing. We are right here, in between. In between the Word made flesh. The one who lived and died and rose again and who's ascended into heaven between his first coming and his second. And to be Christian, to be followers of Jesus is to be able, as no one else can, is to be able to sit in the darkness, in the shadow of death, with each other and for each other, but also live in the unshakable hope of those who expect the dawn.

Because it's coming. So we can be clear eyed in this season, we can walk clear eyed through it, embracing reality, no delusion. We can be honest about the darkness without despair. And we can be hopeful about the light without falling into blind optimism.

And how can we do that? I got a simple practice for you. It's just a prayer really. It's an ancient prayer. It comes from the book of Revelation.

In the book of Revelation, Jesus keeps repeating a promise. His promise is, I am coming soon.

I'm coming soon. I'm coming soon. And at the end of the book, there's this prayer in response to him saying, I am coming soon. And the prayer, come, Lord Jesus, come.

Like I said, it's an ancient prayer. The brothers and Sisters have been praying it from our earliest days. One of our oldest. It's interesting to the church in Corinth. Paul writes and he reminds them of this word, and it's not a Greek word.

It'd be really a weird word for the people in Corinth, the Greeks. It's an Aramaic word. It's a sort of obsolete word, maranatha. And so he must have trained them to say, hey, here's a prayer to pray. Here is a prayer to pray our Lord Come, come, Lord Jesus we sang this prayer just a minute ago.

Come Thou long expected Jesus. Or maybe you're familiar with the hymn Come, oh, Come, Emmanuel. It's a prayer of longing. It's a prayer that recognizes the darkness. We need him to come.

But it's also a prayer that expects him to come because he's the kind of God who holds up to his promises and that he will.

So I invite you into practice. We it is December 1, and we have this Christmas Advent journal. If you haven't grabbed one last week, there are some out here on the tables as you go, you can pick them up. Man, what a wonderful thing that for all of us, that we can know even as we do these on our own, we're doing them with each other in our own spaces. And simply a very simple, short way for us to pay attention through Scripture and some reflection and a simple action.

So I invite you to join in with this, that it's a thing that can continue to bond us together as we follow Jesus together. But what I'll be doing with this is each day, as I do one of these activities, I'm just going to write in the margins up here a prayer. And as I write it, I'm going to pray it. Come, Lord Jesus, come. As a way of sitting and facing the darkness.

This is a prayer that doesn't ignore the dark that's real. And it's a prayer that longs and hopes and knows one day that he will come and set all things right. So in whatever way, you can just simply pray that prayer, whether it's through the Advent Journal or you set a reminder on your phone, whatever it is, if you take a moment every day to pause, even for a minute to pray, come, Lord Jesus, come. Maybe then we might have. What was it?

An authentically hopeful Christmas spirit.