The Light of Christmas: "Delayed" Joy

Advent is about waiting.

This is a reminder I know but it is an important one. Waiting puts us in the “Biblical” story alongside many others.

Exodus 23:20 (NIV)

“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.

Isaiah 40:3 (NIV)

A voice of one calling:

“In the wilderness prepare

the way for the Lord;

make straight in the desert

a highway for our God.

Malachi 4:5–6 (NIV)

“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”

Advent is about God finishing what has been started.

The verses already mentioned in this message prepare us for the coming of our Lord in the manger but also the coming of our Lord in the End.

Whatever God starts, He will finish!

So often we forget this truth found in Scripture. Take our Exodus 23 passage from earlier. God was sending his angel to the nation to help them get to what he had prepared. The preparation was done many years prior, if you ask me, the nation just needed to be ready to get what God wanted to give. It would take another 40 years for them to be prepared for what God had prepared.

Mark starts where the OT stops.

As I have mentioned before, we cannot just be NT Christians. This sounds nice and neat but the reality is if we try to do this we will fail to be deep Christians. Yes you may know Jesus as Lord and Savior but you miss so much more. The OT is there to help guide us to see Jesus. The OT is how we know Jesus if the promised one. Because of the OT the good news can be found in Jesus.

John’s message was for God’s people.

John the Baptizer was not “looking for sinners” as we may think about it. His primary target was for those who were already in “God’s family”. God started with His people.

We need repentance and forgiveness.

Notice here and in the other Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) the call was to repent of their ways and start looking for God again. Repent and get back to the way of life God had called them.

Sometimes we fall asleep waiting.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but in our sleepiness we fail to see what God is doing. If we travelled along in the Gospel of Mark we would see the “sleepiness” of the nation of Israel caused them to miss Jesus.

Sometimes we get comfortable.

This was also the case for the nation, especially the religious leaders. They were comfortable in how life was they did not really need God to show up how he was showing up.

Sometimes because we think we “know it”.

Others, including the zealots and the disciples, thought the Messiah meant “freedom from Rome” and thus without repentance and forgiveness could they see the real plan.

I think Dan mentioned this in his prayer last week about how for many pastors Christmas and Easter are very hard. In part because we think we “know it”. I say to mean sometimes we pastors think we know it, and also because we collectively think we know it.

Joy comes after repentance & forgiveness.

If we want joy this Christmas we must entertain the possibility that we might need to repentant of something. Repentant from: perfectionism, having it all together at the right time, bitterness, hatred of others, hatred of self, apathy, despair, finding the “right” gift, being able to do anything, addiction, etc.

Christ gives the Spirit.

Jesus doesn’t just “baptize with water” which John and others realize does nothing truly in the long run. Jesus baptizes with the Spirit which will allow us to continue on the journey of the Gospel. We are not left powerless.