12/16 Advent- Joy
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Intro
Intro
I have been watching a lot of Christmas movies lately with Monica, some good, some were pretty bad. Recently, Monica watched the Grinch with me for the first time ever. It was pretty amazing to watch her excitement and joy when watching it. Generally Christmas movies have a happy ending. There is some sort of happy conclusion. Some are just terrible. Most Netflix Christmas movies are just the worst, do not even waste your time watching them. Some of the more interesting ones probably are the ones where Santa is a bad guy.
But some present a Christmas story that is sad and happy, it sort of brings you to have mixed feelings. El Camino Christmas, not the best of movies, is like that, and it made me think about another element of Christmas.
As you know, this morning we are going to be looking at how in this advent season, we can have joy. Even the angels marked the birth of Christ as a good thing.
10 But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: 11 Today a Savior, who is Messiah the Lord, was born for you in the city of David.
It is a good thing. It brings us joy and hope and peace. But on this side of eternity, in our fallenness and in a sin filled world, the sad truth is that not everyone has joy on this day. For some, the loss of a loved one is still too fresh. For others, it is a reminder that there is an empty seat at the table. And so we cannot be insensitive to this reality for many people.
For those of you who may be coping with grief we sympathize with you and invite you to be a part of our Blue Christmas. It will be on Christmas day, we will get together and just be together and to find strength, not in each other, or in some sort of grit that we may have in and of ourselves. But to reflect on how God has brought each of us to different places. We can trust Him while we await a future glory, because our hope and peace and joy rests in the finished work of Christ. And so we await that day, when he will return, in the midst of grief. Not giving in to the grief, but enduring through it.
But let’s open up our Bibles this morning as we consider joy in our waiting, joy as we look towards the advent the coming of Jesus, joy during this Christmas season.
Scripture Reading
Scripture Reading
2 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent a message by his disciples 3 and asked Him, “Are You the One who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
4 Jesus replied to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: 5 the blind see, the lame walk, those with skin diseases are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news. 6 And if anyone is not offended because of Me, he is blessed.”
7 As these men went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swaying in the wind?
Body
Body
One thing that we see clearly from this passage of Scripture is that not everything will go well in our lives. Consider John for a moment. Where is he? Well, he is in Jail. Not the best place to be. In fact, as you read on in Matthew Gospel, you will find out the outcome of John’s time in prison. No, he does not get set free. Nor does an angel visit him and walk him through the prison cell. No, John is beheaded.
Now you may be thinking, what kind of joyous passage is this. Well stick with me. You see last time when we looked to John he was not in prison. He was boldly proclaiming the Gospel at the Jordan river and he was pointing people to a coming one. He was just the voice crying out in the wilderness. He was preparing the way for the Lord.
And it is while in prison, possibly reflecting on his life and his ministry, he hears what Jesus is doing. And so what does he do? He sends disciples to go and speak with Jesus and to get confirmation on who he is. Why? Did John not believe? No way. Remember this is the same John who declared publicly “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The same John, who did not consider himself worthy even to baptize Jesus. The same John, who saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus like a dove. John already believed in Jesus. But John was doubting. He wants full confirmation to restore his confidence in Jesus’ messiahship.
The Jews had been rightly expecting a king messiah, and Jesus is that King Messiah, but of an eternal kingdom. And so John with some doubt, needs sends some of his disciples to Jesus. And Jesus sends them back to deliver the evidence for Jesus’ identity. “Go and report to John what you hear and see”
Hear…and see… His words, teachings, preaching, and the signs, some of which we have looked at, even the miracles. The disciples then go back to John to report to him what they were told. That is the first half.
That is good news for John. Even in the midst of imprisonment, harsh conditions and impending death, John can find cause for joy. His doubt is replaced, with confidence, assurance in Christ.
And if we are completely honest, we are all, at times, like John. We doubt Him. We believe, but sometimes discouragement will come and we will doubt. Advent brings us joy because just as the people of God were waiting for generation after generation after generation, Jesus did come. And He is coming again. Even if it is not in our generation, in our lifetime, we can know that He is coming and that He is who He proclaimed to be.
What we believe, is not some sort of fairy tale. You know the tendency for some is to be hyper critical during the holidays. Someone comes up to says “Happy Holidays”, and you can feel it festering up inside of you. “No!” and you stick your finger in their face, you mean “Merry Christmas”. Or they may say something like “have a good season” and you pause and slowly turn and respond “Jesus is the reason for the season”.
Why do we do that? Like we need to defend Jesus. Some go to the extreme and even pit Jesus against Santa. And there is no battle there. Santa is not even real, this is not a debate that we should even be engaging in. We hear him, when we read his word and hear it proclaimed. We see Him as well in His Word.
Enjoy Christmas, but let’s live like we believe it. Not the Holiday with the lights and the music, but that we believe that He came and is coming again. We ought to be living our lives centered around this truth, but too often, maybe even unintentionally, we live like doubters. Doubting who Jesus is.
That truth, it changes us. It really does. Speaking from a negative perspective, for those who reject this truth you are not rejecting a myth or a fairy tale or a religion or a belief system. You are not rejecting a fictional person, like for some who believed in Santa when they were younger, but reject him later, you are not doing the same thing. You are denying God Incarnate. This is not a little Jesus who just comes around during Christmas and Easter. This is the God who created you. The God who created you and me and everything in this world.
This is a large, sizeable, substantial, great, huge, immense, enormous, extensive, colossal, massive, mammoth, vast, prodigious, tremendous, giant, monumental, , unlimited God. And like I said earlier, this truth changes us. Why is it that people seem to be happier and friendlier around this time of the year? It is because they are hopeful of better things, They want to be better. And they cannot do it on their own. It is a fools errand. You are like Sisyphus, ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, when the stone would fall back of its own weight.
We need to believe in Jesus. When we do, we have joy. Real joy. And Advent reminds us of this. It calls us those who are distracted or focused on the things of this world, center your life around Christ. In this world, you will have troubles, but He gives rest. He is coming again to call His own to a place with no sin, darkness, sickness, or death.
John understood that in prison, he may lose His life on earth, but he can never lose it in eternity because his life is not his own. It is found in Christ.
Source: An article from First Things (https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/12/bonhoeffer-in-advent)
During the Advent of 1942, Dietrich Bonhoeffer had written a circular letter to some of his friends and former students. Part of it read, as follows:
The joy of God goes through the poverty of the manger and the agony of the cross; that is why it is invincible, irrefutable. It does not deny the anguish, when it is there, but finds God in the midst of it, in fact precisely there; it does not deny grave sin but finds forgiveness precisely in this way; it looks death straight in the eye, but it finds life precisely within it.
Those words took on a deeper meaning in December 1943 as Bonhoeffer found himself one of eight hundred prisoners awaiting trial in Berlin’s Tegel military prison. A prison, interestingly enough was shaped like a cross. Bonhoeffer hoped he might be released, perhaps to spend Christmas with his family and his fiancée but he did not. He moved around a bit and eventually was executed at Flossenbürg in April 1945
Eight months after his arrest, Bonhoeffer wrote these words,
“By the way, a prison cell like this is a good analogy for Advent; one waits, hopes, does this or that—ultimately negligible things—the door is locked and can only be opened from the outside.”
“We simply have to wait and wait,” he wrote. “The celebration of Advent is possible only to those troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.”
Advent reminds us that misery, sorrow, poverty, loneliness, helplessness, and guilt mean something quite different in the eyes of God than how we see things. How God turns toward the very places from which humans turn away.
That is sufficiently good news. The one the world needs has come and accomplished the perfect work on the cross. That is good news. And the first Advent is superbly good news, because had Jesus not been incarnate, he would not have tasted the same trials and troubles that we face. He took our sins upon Him on the cross bearing the wrath of God and defeating death three days later in the resurrection only after first the incarnation. Only after the first advent.
And so if we are living a bit like John, with belief and doubt, let this sink in to you. Let your mind dwell on this truth. Can you imagine the joy that filled the hearts of John’s disciples as they run back towards the prison to tell John? And how do we relate to joy in the advent season? We have been promised by God, by Jesus (first week) he is coming again. This brings joy in our hearts. Our Messiah will return!
Conclusion
Conclusion
I think too many of us do not feel the weight of the glory of God. We do not feel the gravity in the incarnation. And so it comes out in our gratitude, joy, our worship and pursuit of God as we should be doing. If we are seeing the Jesus that is revealed here in the Scriptures, we should be filled with joy. And then we will pursue him rather than the gifts.
How do we get there? I want you to dwell in the Scriptures and I want you to worship
The more we distance from the word of God becuase we think we know it, the less we feel its impact.
Pray not only for us to live for his arrival, but also for those to have an arrival of faith.