Advent 1: Begin With the End

John 1:1–18 (ESV)

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it... 9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth...

If you have your Bible turn to the book of Revelation. If you don’t have your Bible please grab one of the Bibles from the pew in front of you. If you have one of the hardcover red ones, that is a King James Translation and it uses some older English and the page you are looking for is page 1273. If you have one of the blue ones that is the English Standard Version and it is more modern in its English and you are looking for page 595.

I’m sure most of you have some idea of what the book of Revelation is so maybe my use of it to open the Advent season is a bit confusing. In fact, over the past few decades Revelation has become a book that has caused a lot of fear and confusion in people. How many of you regularly seek to read and think about the book of Revelation? How about those who are intimidated by the book and don’t open it much?

It’s really a shame that our Christian culture because that hasn’t been the case in much of church history and it hasn’t been the case in my own life. In fact, it is only through the great promises of the Book of Revelation that the Gospel makes the most sense and is best understood.

The book of Revelation is the single most encouraging book in the Bible to me and I think it will help us go into the Advent season with the right mindset. Sure, the imagery is vivid and that can lead to fear and confusion, but the vivid imagery also gives us the greatest and clearest view of who Jesus truly is and it is truly glorious.

So let’s look at the Word of God and see what it has to say about this.

Revelation Chapter 1.

Jesus is Glorious!

So often our view of Jesus tends to be distorted by our own experiences. There are books written called “The Many Faces of Jesus” that talk about how we all define Jesus by our cultures and our experiences.

For an example, I’ve compiled a collection of pictures of Jesus I was able to find online

we have the famous “Head of Christ” painting by Warner Sallman - this is often the one we think about when we think about pictures of Jesus, but did you know this painting is from 1940? In the story of history, that is astonishingly new!

But we don’t stop with the traditional “white Jesus” painting, we also have “black Jesus” based on the same painting

“Ancient middle-eastern Jesus” made by modern computers and artists

We also have “popular tv show Jesus”

In the comedy movie “Talledega Nights” one of the characters expresses his preference of praying to “sweet baby Jesus” which we will be seeing a lot of in the coming weeks

And then there are even more diverse and interesting versions of Jesus, like the super buff “Korean Jesus” that is based on an actual statue of Jesus in Korea.

the “super chill cool guy Jesus”

the “(a)Merica!n Jesus”

But not to be left out we have other religions with their depictions of Jesus like “Hindu Jesus” and this is the least offensive Hindu interpretation

But we also have “Buddhist Jesus”

And finally, we have “Mormon Jesus” who after his death and resurrection came to America and preached to the Natives even before His disciples left Jerusalem!

Now, some of these are quite humorous, but are you a little bit offended by these? I know I am, and I debated even showing these, but I think it is important that we see we are not the only ones doing this and that our renditions of Jesus should also be rather offensive.

Did you notice that all these depictions of Jesus are actually projecting the image of the artist onto God the Son? That, in a sense, they are making Jesus in their image?

There is a reason that God commands His people to not make images of Himself in the Old Testament and the primary reason is that they could never actually capture His image perfectly and that they will inevitably start envisioning him as someone he is not. There was only ever one perfect physical image of God and that is in Jesus the Christ.

So how do we avoid this conflict? By allowing Him to define for Himself what he is like and being free from the human desire to always put the object of our worship into physical terms.

We see Christ through his body, the church, Christians gathering together and fulfilling their duty to one another in love, not through pictures made in our own image.

So then, if you are found in Christ, if you are a Christian, you are blessed!

And the first advent that we are celebrating over the next month is all the more wonderful because this magnificent Lamb whom the angels adored in heaven has seen fit to step into our human weakness and bring us from death to life! And this isn’t a one-off blessing! This is an eternal blessing and a future blessing that grants us hope and faith to carry on through even the darkest night!

“If I should see the light again I shall love it all the more!”

If you are not a Christian though, you are promised the weight of your sin upon your own head.