Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
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For those living in the land of the shadow of death
To the church that shines in dark places,
that sets the Table for rich and poor,
young and old,
to the church in Tucson and the unincorporated regions of our county,
grace, mercy, and the peace of our Risen Lord be with you all.
May you remember always that you are Christ’s and Christ is yours.
Dear loved ones,
We have reached the season of Advent together.
What is Advent you ask?
Advent isn’t just about the birth of Jesus.
Advent is the beginning of a new year.
It’s the beginning of the church year.
The beginning of the year for God’s people.
We have all celebrated the New Year that comes on January 1st every year that we’ve been alive.
For me, I’ve found the New Year in January to be a helpful turning of the page from year to year.
A time for reforming habits,
for letting go of sadness and sin,
and for pressing further up and further in to the things that really make up reality and truth.
I’m sure many of you have experienced the same thing.
Where new years feel like a breath of fresh air and the start of something new.
The Christian New Year does much of the same,
but it starts out of a place of difficulty and sadness.
We don’t ring in Advent with glitter and the dropping of a ball while we toast champagne.
It is not a holiday full of cheer irregardless of how we feel.
In fact, Advent is not even Christmas.
It’s what comes before.
At Christmas we celebrate the incarnation of the Son of God,
but during Advent, we wait for Him.
In many ways, Advent is the season that we all need.
A season that acknowledges the pain of this present evil age.
But it is also a season that reminds us that this present evil age has been invaded by the age to come.
It is a season of hope,
but we cannot know what we hope for if we do not yet know our problem.
And to the extent that we take a good hard look at our problems is the extent that our hopes are kindled into roaring fires of anticipation for the return of the King.
And that is OUR hope.
A hope that the lamb who was slain,
who sits in the throne of God,
will return one day for His people.
That the sad things will take their place as only memory,
and the kingdom of heaven will have no adversaries in the hearts of men.
The word Advent comes from the Latin word “Adventus”
Which means “coming”.
But it’s more than that.
This word denotes invasion, ripening, and the arrival of something anticipated for a long time.
It’s a word that reminds us not only of the arrival of a baby in a manger, but the invasion of the kingdom of God into the kingdom of darkness.
God’s kingdom really is like a seed planted in the earth.
When we plant a seed in winter, while the ground is still hard,
we do not yet see the fruit that will be enjoyed on warm spring days.
But we know that spring is coming.
In many ways, the history of mankind on this earth is the story of a long winter.
a winter that’s ruled by a tyrant.
A winter that has been marked by sin, plague, sorrow, and death.
Advent is the season where we say say,
“Yes, it is winter.
And spring is coming.”
We are not the first to experience the effects of a spiritual winter.
And in order to recover the richness of Advent for us, we must discover the richness of waiting that the people of Israel experienced as they waited for the Messiah.
long before the birth of a Jewish baby boy in Bethlehem,
God’s people in ages past were in distress.
They had enjoyed good kings,
they had suffered under evil kings.
And mostly, they had rejected God’s covenant and call to be His people and bless the nations.
Their current king was the wicked man Ahaz.
A descendant of David, he should be ruling with justice.
But instead he was evil.
He sacrificed his baby sons in fire to false gods,
he worshipped demons on mountains,
and he betrayed His people to Assyria.
The prophet Isaiah was living in Jerusalem at this time,
and he was sent by God to warn Israel and Judah that they would be cut down to a stump for the wickedness they had committed.
And the way He was going to do this was to allow them to fall into exile.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Israel and Judah, two sister nations that never should have been divided in the first place are taken into captivity by the Assyrians and the Babylonians.
2nd Kings tells us that the reason this happened is because of Israel’s great sins.
They never stopped serving idols.
They never were wholly devoted to Yahweh.
The Israelite people will find themselves asking the question,
“Is God going to keep His covenant?”
“Will he keep His promises even when it seems like He can’t?”
This nation, descended from Abraham was supposed to bless the world,
not be scattered all over it, slaves to false gods and evil nations.
But God had given them a promise BEFORE they went into exile.
A promise that they would look back on while in exile.
A promise that would sustain them while they waited for what seemed impossible.
In the midst of the judgment from God, a flicker of hope is seen.
A LIGHT HAS DAWNED.
Friends, think about when you see a light a long way off at night.
Maybe it’s a campfire way up a mountainside.
Or a car’s headlights several miles down the road.
It might still be completely dark where you are but the light you see in the distance is very real.
Think about what it means that this light is like the dawn.
If we wake up in those predawn hours and stand and look east with a coffee cup in hand,
there is a moment in the morning when the dawn light can be seen in the eastern sky,
but no warmth is felt from it yet.
We see the dawn light, and know that our star is going to crest the horizon and warm our day.
This is the promise found in Isaiah.
The S-O-N is going to crest the horizon, and warm the day with His rule.
But he’s not just going to warm the day.
He is going to break the oppressors yoke.
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