Christmas Eve Candlelight Service 2023: Rediscover Christ

Opening

Merry Christmas! Merry Advent! Happy Advent? Blessed Advent? Take your pick of the greeting. We are here! We have made it to the eve of Christmas. Thanks to everyone who has shared your gifts, talents, and time this evening as we have worshiped together. I know you kids are still counting down to tomorrow and the excitement that will come. Christmas can’t come soon enough!

And I think that’s true for many of us. Christmas is a time when we can slow down, take a minute, and be reminded; to be refreshed; to rediscover some things that maybe we forgot during the year.

Before we dive in, let’s pray:

PRAYER

We’ve been on a journey together over the past several weeks through Advent. Guests and visitors tonight, if you wanted to go back and experience that journey that we’ve been taking, you can catch all of those messages on the app, our website, Facebook, and Youtube channels. Throughout Advent this year, we’ve learned together that Advent is a season of expectant waiting as we focus and reflect on Christ’s coming—His coming to earth on that first Christmas long ago and His eventual triumphant return to earth to complete God’s ultimate work of redemption. Each week of Advent we have focused on a different aspect of God’s character embodied in, brought into our world, and lived out in Jesus: hope, peace, joy, and love.

The Christmas story is a powerful story, filled with wonder and miracles and very real life. It is the story of Jesus come to earth as the most wonderful gift of all eternity. As we have walked through various parts of the Christmas story these past few weeks, we have explored the intersection of Jesus in the lives of real people who played a role in His arrival. And we have seen that as He brought hope, love, joy, and peace into their lives in very real ways, He can do the same for us today.

In our time now together, let’s briefly trace our way through portions of this Christmas story again, highlighting all that it means that Christ has come, and all we can rediscover about Christmas in Him.

1: Finding Hope in Our Uncertainties

When uncertainty surrounds us, the promise of Christ fills us with hope to carry on. Hope_not “wishful thinking” hope_but “confident assurance” hope, biblical hope is the fuel of faith. And dreams. And possibilities. Hope is that whispered reminder of the trustworthy promises of God. It’s the spark in the cold darkness that catches flame. It’s the flicker of first light on a new morning.

Hope, by its very nature, exists in the uncertainty before the reality. It exists in the questions. In the doubts even. In that unclear sense of what is to come. But hope is the willingness and desire to believe beyond what our present circumstances and reality are presenting to us because of what God has promised.

Throughout the history of the Jewish people, there was the hope of God’s covenant. There was the promise of restoration and blessing through the Messiah. But time dragged on, and the nation was plundered. Its people were exiled and conquered. “How long, O God?” was the cry of the ancient Israelite people as year after year, century after century passed.

But there were those who kept hope alive, living expectantly and faithfully, trusting openly and wholeheartedly that God would come through. Simeon and Anna, who we read about in the middle of Luke 2, were two of those people who encountered the baby Jesus. They had lived long, difficult lives. They had known loss and disappointment. But they did not abandon hope. And when they saw the baby Jesus in the temple, they knew without a doubt that this was the Messiah, the promised one, the Son of God. They were ready and waiting for this moment. And they embraced the moment of this hope fulfilled with rejoicing and worshiping and spreading the news. The flames of their hope spread beyond and multiplied.

This Christmas, we can find hope in the arrival and life of Jesus, Immanuel, God with Us. We can draw hope from God’s faithfulness in fulfilling His long-awaited promise of the Messiah. We can focus on the hope of God’s continued work in and all around us, that will one day take away even the need for hope as we realize and forever live in the reality of God’s full restoration if we belong to Him by faith. And in the midst of whatever life is throwing at us, we can experience the hope of God’s Spirit within us, carrying us, emboldening us, and giving us the strength to take the next step before us.

With this verse as our prayer, let’s rediscover the hope that Christ has come and He is working in our lives today:

Romans 15:13 CSB

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

2: Finding Peace in Our Struggles

The struggles are real, but the peace of Christ can live within us, even in our darkest days.

Of course the announcement came in the dark of the night. Of course the angels began their announcement to the shepherds with the words, “Don’t be afraid!” Because of course they were afraid. Because they were human, and there’s so much in our world that causes us to fear. There’s so much that happens that we struggle to understand. For the shepherds, that included why these magnificent, terrifying heavenly beings were showing up in the middle of the night sky. For us, it’s the normal pressures and disappointments and uncertainties of our frailty in a broken world..

But in Jesus, the Prince of Peace arrived on earth. And the angels proclaimed a new peace:

Luke 2:10–14 CSB

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: Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger.” Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors!

The peace of shalom, the Jewish concept of fullness, safety, completeness, and wholeness, is available to us in Christ. This is the peace of restoration with God. It is the peace that settles our souls deeply. It is the calm acceptance that “it is well with my soul” no matter what swirls and storms around us.

In a sense, it’s almost like the coming of Jesus was the eye of the hurricane of human existence. The chaos of our world swirled before Jesus’s earthly life and ministry, and it swirls after. But it’s as if there was a cosmic pause that night as angels sang and ordinary shepherds gathered around a baby who was God.

It’s my hope that we will rediscover the peace of Christ this Christmas, the peace of that contented wholeness that provides the eye of the hurricane for our spirits even in the midst of life’s hurricanes. Those storms will come. We know this. Those winds may be howling for you right now. But let me invite you to step into the shelter of the peace of Christ. Let me encourage you, if you’ve never believed in Jesus, and if you hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this: The Jesus from the manger is the Jesus from the cross. He lived a perfect life in our place so that He could become the perfect sacrifice to cover our sinfulness, dying the death we deserve so that we can be forgiven, and rising from the grave so that we can have eternal life if we believe in Him. Turn your heart to Christ and believe, and receive the peace that only He can bring:

John 14:27 CSB

“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful.

This is the rediscovery of the peace of Christ in this season.

3: Finding Joy in Our Discouragements

We all have one of those days, or weeks, or years. Even then, Christ fills us with joy that defies our circumstances.

King David wrote in the Psalms that, “Weeping may stay overnight, but there is joy in the morning.” (Ps. 30:5)

Sometimes that night can feel so long. Sometimes it’s night after night after night as we try to carry on. Sometimes joy feels so elusive and distant. Sometimes it pours out of us like the eruption of Old Faithful. And sometimes joy bubbles up slowly. But as we can rediscover this Christmas, the good news of great joy that is alive in us through Jesus is the strength that sustains us.

We’ve seen this in the stories of Elizabeth and Mary, united in the shared joy of their pregnancies, both miraculous. For Elizabeth, joy was a fulfillment of long-dashed dreams of motherhood and the erasure of cultural shame because she had never been able to bear a child. Her joy erased decades of disgrace. For Mary, joy was a relief of acceptance and understanding, and a celebration of being in the middle of God’s greatest miracle. Surely Mary knew that she would face scorn, disbelief, and misunderstanding for her pregnancy, but in her encounter with Elizabeth, she finds the freedom of joy.

For some of us, Christmas is a joyful season filled with songs and celebrations and traditions and comforts. For others, the expectations of Christmas joy serve as reminders of deeper pains and disappointments and the lack of all this merriment we’re supposed to be enjoying. Probably for most of us, Christmas brings a mixture of both.

It’s my hope that we will all rediscover joy this Christmas season as we choose to rejoice. As we return our focus to Jesus, we can find His strength. As we pour out our hearts to Him even in the midst of our pain, He can transform our weeping into the joy that lets us appreciate and enjoy the goodness of His greater work within us and in our world.

It’s my prayer, written by the apostle Peter, that:

1 Peter 1:8–9 CSB

Though you have not seen him, you love him; though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

4: Finding Love in Our Differences

There’s so much in our world that drives us apart. The love of Christ runs deeper than our differences with a flood of grace, forgiveness, and unity.

We long so deeply to be loved. The desire for love is so dominant in our culture. If Jesus tarries in His coming, when future archaeologists and anthropologists explore artifacts of our era, they’ll probably conclude that love was one of the most, if not the most important quality of our society. Our songs and movies and TV shows and literature are filled with themes of love—longing for it, celebrating it, mourning its loss. At Christmas, there’s even a whole genre of holiday romance songs and movies and shows (Hallmark Channel right now?). We are captivated by the idea of love, but we struggle so badly to actually love each other on individual and societal levels. Instead of a culture that exemplifies love, we are a nation and a world filled with division and conflict and hatred. Despite our best intentions, our broken human nature divides us. Maybe that’s because our idea of what love is and does and looks like is a mere shadow of the real thing.

Jesus, on the other hand, is the embodiment of love, the bridge of love that reunites us with our holy God. He is the long-promised Messiah, sent because God loves us so much that He allowed His only Son to be the sacrifice for all our sins and shortcomings. And when He did, Jesus made the way for us to be restored into relationship with God, love Himself, through surrender to Him as Savior and Lord in faith.

As we explored love this morning, we saw how God gathered a varied group of very different people to be involved in the arrival of His Son. And we discovered how these people represented the barriers and divisions that God was uniting. Old and young. Past and future. Death and life. Earth and heaven. Physical and spiritual. Rich and poor. Royal and common. The holy and the base. Gentile and Jew. Divinity and mortality.

As we rediscover this Christmas, it’s my prayer that we rediscover the love of Christ, the perfect love that allows us to experience complete forgiveness by God, the perfect love that removes our fears. And as this love washes over us and fulfills us from within as we trust in Him, I pray that it propels us to reach across the divisions around us, even to our enemies, with humility and grace.

And like the apostle Paul wrote:

Ephesians 3:17b–19 (CSB)

I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Wow, what a love! This is our God. This is our Jesus.

5: Finding Christ in Our World

Christ has come with hope, peace, joy, and love. Christ has come to change our world—and us—forever.

This is His arrival into our world as described by Luke:

Luke 2:6–7 CSB

While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. Then she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him tightly in cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

It’s such a humble birth, such an understated beginning to life, yet such a normal entry into our existence. Human birth as a fragile, helpless baby. Jesus is one of us, able to understand everything we go through, all of our longings and struggles and pain. Yet Jesus is God. He is hope, joy, peace, and love personified, here to restore these characteristics in us as a byproduct of restored life in relationship with God through faith in Him.

Jesus is life rediscovered.

Friends, if you are struggling this year, asking, “Where is Jesus?” let me offer this.

Jesus is …

In our uncertainties, struggles, discouragement, and differences.

In our celebration and mourning.

In our crying and rejoicing.

In our fear and in our triumphs.

In our losses and our victories.

In our brokenness and healing.

In our sickness and our health.

In our life and our death.

Wherever you are, Jesus is already there.

And He is working, and He is moving. He is offering life and forgiveness. He is calling us to trust and to see beyond our immediate circumstances to His deeper, bigger, broader, wider, higher picture and work; to trust Him with all that we are and in all that we experience.

He is Immanuel, God With Us, for eternity. And if you belong to Him, He will never leave you or forsake you.

Jesus is the discovery of Christmas. Let’s run like the shepherds to encounter Him this season. Let’s worship and find renewal in His presence this year. Let’s rediscover Christmas in the life He brings within us and around us. Merry Christmas! Christ has come! Christ is here among us! Christ will come again!

PRAYER

Candle Lighting

I’m going to ask the deacons and other pastors to come and receive the first candle lights as we begin “Silent Night.”

Close in prayer:

Lord, we thank You for this holy night, and we praise you for Your perfection. And now Father, we ask that by the power of Your Spirit, as we go from here that we would go in the hope of the return of Jesus, looking forward to the day that He will return and set all things right again. We ask that we would go in peace, trusting in You and seeking to be peacebringers in this world. We ask that we would go in joy, celebrating our Savior in our hearts and showing that joy as we come together. And we ask that we would also go in the love of Christ, seeking to show that love to others in how we live and how we serve, and most of all, in how we share the message of the hope of the Gospel. Thank you for sending Your Son into the world so that we might be saved. Thank you for this gathering of people for this celebration tonight. Be with us. Bless us. Guide us by Your holy light. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.