Waiting for What? | December 3rd, 2023
Call To Worship: From Psalm 145
I will exalt you, my God and King, and praise your name forever and ever. 2 I will praise you every day; yes, I will praise you forever. 3 Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise! No one can measure his greatness. 8 The Lord is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. 9 The Lord is good to everyone. He showers compassion on all his creation. 17 The Lord is righteous in everything he does; he is filled with kindness. 21 I will praise the Lord, and may everyone on earth bless his holy name forever and ever . ____________________________
Advent 2023 The Return of the King
Waiting For What?
John 1.1-5
December 3, 2023
First Sunday in Advent & Communion Sunday CPCC
Big Idea: Jesu’s birth represents the Past, Present, and Future for believers.
INTRO: Many of us grew up with Advent and Christmas traditions that come flooding back into our memories this time each year. Like many families, our family had a few traditions that were fun at the time, but did not survive into the next generation. One of the traditions we left in the past was the silvery magic of Tinsel.
The first decorating task I remember participating in was placing tinsel on the Christmas tree. When I was little, my Mom would let me cover the low branches. I would start out placing the thin strands one by one on the branch, but after a while, I grew bored and started tossing it in bunches onto the branches. That’s when my Mom would let take a cookie break, and unclump my mess, spreading it out among the other branches.
The thing I never understood about tinsel was why we spent so much time hanging lights, ornaments, angels, and the homemade popcorn & cranberry garland my sisters and I were forced to make every year, on the tree, only to completely hide it with a blanket of tinsel? Maybe it was my Mom’s subtle way of covering the homemade “treasures” we made in school out of macaroni and spray paint.
I have not festooned a Christmas tree with tinsel since 1975. Carey and Grace have no connection to this once popular tradition. This is not to say I am found of the new traditions that has replaced the old. I have never placed an Elf on the Shelf, nor am I found of one of the hot trends this year: an all pink Christmas tree, including a fake pink tree. I hope that one dies out before the New Year!
My fondest memories of this time of year is the music of Christmas. Not Jingle Bell Rock or All I want For Christmas Is You, rather, the Carols proclaiming the birth of the Messiah. I grew up listening to famous crooners such as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Andy Williams singing Carols of our faith declaring that Jesus the Savior is born. They are still my favorites Christmas songs, though I do like the Beach Boy’s Christmas Album, as well. Sadly, the majority of the festive music on the radio in December is really celebrating is Winter. Very few Christmas Carols make it to the airwaves during Advent. It seems that Jesus is not welcome to His own birthday celebration!
Technically, we are only singing one Christmas Carol this morning, Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus, which we just sang. Holy, Holy, Holy, Crown Him With Many Crowns, and The Lord’s Prayer; which we will sing after communion, are hymns. The difference is that a hymn is a song of praise. The Greek word Hymnos means praise, but that’s not to say Carols are without praise. The difference is that a Carol focuses on the celebration of the biblical stories of Jesus. For example, we just sang an Advent Carol. This month we will sing, Joy to the World, which is a Christmas Carol, and on March 31, we will sing the Easter Carol, Christ the Lord Is Risen Today!
Every Sunday we sing Hymns and songs of praise and worship, yet if I were to put the Carols celebrating the life of Jesus into the rotation outside of our Advent, Christmas, or Easter celebrations, many of you would not be excited. This is because many of our traditions dictate when we can focus on certain aspects of the overarching Story of the Bible.
Interestingly, similar traditions are what kept most churches in early America from singing Christmas Carols, let alone recognizing Christmas as a religious holiday. You can thank our Puritan ancestors for that one.
Most of the early colonists shunned the idea of celebration the birth of Jesus because the Resurrection of Jesus is the central Tennant of our Christian faith, not His birth. In our Reformed tradition, we say that EVERY Sunday is a celebration of the Resurrection. The early Reformers would have no problem singing, Christ the Lord Is Risen Today! any Sunday of the year.
So, how should we, as modern followers of Jesus Christ, heading into 2024, approach the birth of Jesus? Surprisingly, I would suggest we take a lesson from the early Church. The ancient Church used Christmas as a time to emphasize Jesus’ past, present, and His future return. After all, this was the vision Jesus gave the Apostle John in the opening of Revelation where Jesus gives John a vision of who He is:
Revelation 1.8
I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,” says the Lord God. “I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.”
This is the theological heart of our Advent series, Return of the King. In a nutshell, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, because in His birth, the God who created everything lowered Himself to our level and became human, to take our sin, and replace it with his love and restoration, so that we might live with Him forever.
However, the birth of Jesus would mean nothing if it was not eternally-linked to Jesus’ deity from the beginning of creation, the one who always was, to his birth, the one who is, and to His restoration of all creation at His return, the one who is still to come. Celebrating Jesus’ birth is only significant when taken as a whole: Past, Present, and Future. Remove just one of these aspects,, and you remove the significance and power of Who Jesus is and Why He came. Christmas is no longer the story of how the God who created the Heavens and the Earth lowered Himself so we could spend life now and forever with Him. Instead, we end up with a counterfeit Christmas built around gifts, snow, and rocking around the Christmas Tree.
So let’s begin at the beginning.
Only Matthew and Luke include the story of Jesus’ birth.
Mark, the oldest Gospel starts with an ancient prophecy about Jesus
Mark 1.1-3
This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. It began just as the prophet Isaiah had written: “Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, and he will prepare your way. He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for him!’ ”
Then Mark goes into adult Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist.
The Apostle John’s account goes back even further BEFORE the beginning of all creation:
John 1.1-5
In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He existed in the beginning with God. 3God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. 4The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.
While not a birth narrative, John’s Gospel gives us the tools to understand why the birth of Jesus is an important celebration: Before creation existed, The Word, Jesus, existed, because Jesus is God. John explains this is greater detail in his letter written after his Gospel accounts of the One who is.
1 John 1.1-4
We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. 2 This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.
Here’s why understanding the One Who Was is crucial to understanding and knowing the One Who Is and Is to Come. If Jesus was just a man, his death on the cross would mean nothing. It would be a honorable gesture, but it would not save us. It would not change us, and it certainly would not be a substitutionary act of salvation by paying the price of our sin in full. Only God can do this…and God did this in Jesus.
In the Law of Moses, God gave instructions to His people to atone for their sins. An offering was made by sacrificing an animal whose blood was shed to TEMPORARILY substitute for a person’s sin. It was an act of obedience that cost something to the one seeking forgiveness and restoration. Yet, God promised through His prophets that He would send the Messiah, Savior who would come a pay the price for our sins through a final blood sacrifice. The Messiah’s sacrifice would be sufficient to cover all sin. It would end the need for the sacrificial system given to Moses. The Law of Moses pointed out a person’s sin. God’s Messiah would forgive and cleanse the sins of those who earnestly sought God and his forgiveness.
In Jesus, God came in the flesh to take our sins and put them to death on the cross. In His death and resurrection, Jesus took on our sins, and rose again so we could have new life with God. Only God could take away the sins of the world, so only God’s sacrifice of himself in Jesus would be worthy enough of this monumental task.
The One who put this in place, the One who is was obedient all the way to the Cross, the One who sacrificed His life as a ransom for ours, the one who offers us life in fellowship with God now and forever, the one who will spare us the penalty of sin when He comes to judge the world at the end of time, is Jesus. Fully God. Fully Human.
Those who are faithful and obedient to Jesus will be with God forever.
Those who reject Jesus, will receive the consequences meant for those who defy God.
Here's the point: If Jesus Christ is actually God come in the flesh, you are going to know God more intimately. Jesus’ birth is God entering our space. His Life gives us the opportunity to know what God requires from us, AND His death and resurrection empowers us to be forgiven, restored, and belong to God forever!
Jesus’ birth is God’s original Christmas Party invitation, an opportunity to know God personally through Jesus. Christmas is also a reminder that God came to us on our level to invite us to join Him at His level.
I like how Theologian Tim Keller puts it. Christmas is God’s way of saying to us, draw near to me. I don't want to be a concept; I want to be a friend.
God wants to have an intimate, loving relationship with each one of us through Jesus Christ, regardless of our understanding of Him.
Traditionally in the Church, Advent is meant to be a time of preparing for two celebrations: preparing for the birth of Jesus Christ, and preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Unlike scrambling to buy last minute gifts in our modern celebration, everything we need to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas has already been given to us in Jesus Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come: the Almighty One.
One this first Sunday in Advent, we celebrate that in life and in death, we belong to Jesus, the Messiah. The only thing we wait for is Jesus’ return.
In John’s final letter to the Church, Revelation, he describes the vision Jesus gives him of that day when Jesus triumphantly returns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It is the reason we celebrate the birth of the King, while we wait for the Return of the King.
Revelation 19.11-13
Then I saw heaven opened, and a white horse was standing there. Its rider was named Faithful and True, for he judges fairly and wages a righteous war. His eyes were like flames of fire, and on his head were many crowns. A name was written on him that no one understood except himself. He wore a robe dipped in blood, and his title was the Word of God.
And then John gives us this vision of our future with the One Who Is To Come.
Revelation 21.3-7
I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.
The Birth of Jesus set in motion our HOPE in the coming Messiah who redeems all those who love and follow Him.
TRANSITION TO TABLE
PRAYER OF CONFESSION/PARDON
WORDS OF INSTITUTION
BREAD FIRST Take Individually
THEN CUP TOGETHER
COMMUNION MUSIC
BENEDICTION: Romans 15.13
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Opening Hymns
#136 Holy, Holy, Holy! v.1,2,4
#153 Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus v.1-2
Closing Hymns
#317 Crown Him With Many Crowns v.1-3
#740 The Lord’s Prayer