Christmas Eve (2)

The Analogy

I was on an airplane a few months ago I started flipping through the movies trying to figure out what I was going to watch

and I came across this movie called Young Woman and the Sea. Have you seen it?

I had never heard of it before but you know I read the description and I found out that it was about the first woman to ever swim the English Chanel…

Well I love history and I love sports so I was in…

The story is about Gertrude Ederle…Her family called her Trudy…

She was swimming before it was fashionable for women to swim

Then she started swimming competitively

She starts setting world records and then multiple world records

She goes to the olympics, does well and then she sets her sights on swimming the English Chanel

Well this is no easy task…

first you have to do it unaided…Which means no one can even touch you or else you will be disqualified…

You can’t even hang on to a boat…They can give you food in the water but that is it

The water is like 55º and I dont know if you have ever jumped into water that cold but it is just awful…

Not only that but there are Jellyfish and 21 known species of shark in that water

and at the time that Trudy Ederle crossed, only three other people had swam the channel and it took them over 16 hours…which was fast

So she had one attempt but it was probably sabotaged by her swim coach

And she decided to defy everyone and make the swim again and this time she is doing it..She basically made people promise that they woundn’t take her out of the water

The swim ends up being 35 miles because you have to twist and turn for the tides she goes through Jellyfish…and it just gets super treacherous

But that is not the most dangerous part of the swim.

For the last 5-7 miles there is this place called the shallows where no boat can follow her because its too shallow…and it is at night…

And I don’t know how many of you have ever been swimming in the middle of the ocean at night….But you are just in a sea of blackness

It could be really easy to lose your direction

So just from personal experience…I am a certified SCUBA diver and when I was getting my advanced certification we had to swim 100 yards alone at night time under water just using our compass

I remember we had to swim to our instructor and it was so freaky to be under water at night…to be just in the blackness of the ocean at night is a very scary experience …I’m just saying…I’ve been there

Well the movie depicts that Trudy is exhausted...

She had been swimming for hours…hadn’t had support for hours

And she is fading quick…The movie depicts that she is sort of sinking under the waves a bit…

She is about to give up because she knows that she is lost…

And it is at this time when she is the most lost and she is most ready to give up that people who had heard on the radio in England that there was a woman swimmer in the water attempting to cross and she was close by all made bonfires on the cliffs of England

We have a clip of that right now (2 min)

where it was estimated that she would come ashore and they began lighting these fires and when she finally saw them you can just see the relief on her face and the joy because she knew in that moment that she was saved….She saw the light…she knew the direction home!

I think that scene gets me becuase I have been there before in just little moments…

Where it feels like you are in darkness

It feels like you can’t see and then God does something unmistakable

God Brings light into the situation

And I am not ashamed to say that I teared up in that airplane

What came to mind for me was this scripture

Isaiah 9:2 NIV

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.

The way that Isaiah describes that God’s people are walking in darkness…They are lost

because God himself would send his son and his son would be the light of the world?

This is the story of Christmas…When all of humanity was swimming though the ocean at night

When all of humanity was walking in darkness…God sent his son…

And his son was like a huge bonfire!…Signaling that you are saved…Go to him!

Isaiah talks about God himself coming as a child and that this child will change everything!

Isaiah will never live to see the day that he is talking about…

He will never live to know this child

But later a man named John who spent three years of his life with Jesus would say this:

John 1:1–2 NIV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

In the Beginning was the word…

Now on Christmas Eve we only have a few minutes for a sermon but this phrase is just pregnant with meaning

Now the other gospel writers will give the genealogy of Jesus

They will tell you where Jesus is born…Other Gospels talk about the manger and the star and the wisemen

They will start the story with John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus but Not John

What John wants you to know is that the ancient of days. The Eternal God

The one who was with God at the beginning of all creation

The one who was the light of the world at creation..the one who when God said, “Let there be light” before there was even a sun in the sky

The one who is the second member of the trinity

Stepped out of heaven and into earth

With all the fragility of a newborn baby

Now people through the years have tried some theological jujitsu to try and make Jesus somehow subordinate and lesser than the godhead but make no mistake about it…

What John is doing here is saying that the Eternal word of God became flesh

God almighty…The one who has complete equality with God

Stepped out of heaven…

I love the lyrics of Oh Holy Night

Long lay the world in sin and error pining 'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth

This song is commentary on the holiness of the moment where God came to dwell with humanity!

When the creator takes on flesh only to die for you…it is like WOW! God loves us!

WOW God wants to be with us!

John 1:3 NIV

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

John wants to underline what he just said in verses 1-2…

This is the creator God

The one who created the ocean, the animals and the plants..>he is a full participant

He was not left out of the act of creation

He was fully present with God in creation and took part in it

He is the one who is in the manger

In fact in Genesis 1:26

Genesis 1:26a (NIV)

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…”

John wants you to know that when God said this in Genesis he was talking about Jesus!

But lets keep reading

John 1:4–5 NIV

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

“Light” according to the Prologue does not belong naturally to humanity. It is a gift or a power from outside the human situation that confronts the world

See at the time of John writing this…Light and Darkness have sort of the same symbolic meaning that they do today

In nearly all world religions and in every culture

Light is a symbol for Good and Darkness for evil…The same is true with the Bible

So when John is talking about Jesus being the light of the world, it is not just brightness but it is the source!

The source of all goodness and truth

And the big Idea is that there is a person behind the light! A person who is relational..>A person who wants to know his creation and have a relationship with us!

And then he says the darkness has not overcome it…and this line is huge!

And what he is saying is that light wins! and it always does!

No power of hell

No power of darkness

no power of evil will ever succeed

It didn't escape the ancient world that the very nature of light is that it overtakes darkness and not the other way around

Later on in John’s gospel…

On 8th day of the feast of tabernacles, which was a jewish festival that celebrated that God provided for the Jews in the dessert…The 8th day was a very special day that celebrated the culmination of God's plan for humanity, and a time when sorrow and death will cease to exist. It is also a time to look forward to the wedding of the people of God and Messiah

But even more than that, there was a special festival of light on the 8th day where you would light a bunch of candles in the court of women, and it was so that everyone would remember that when Israel was lost in the wilderness for 40 years God guided them with a pillar of fire…

With light!

So it is on the 8th day of this festival…When the Jews are antiscipating that God and humanity would actually be together again that Jesus does something absolutely remarkable!

He is brought a woman who is caught in adultery, and he doesn’t condemn her but he forgives her! And basically says go leave your life of sin…

He invites her to his light and he takes her away from darkness and then he will say this next line

John 8:12 NIV

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

You have to understand how remarkable and crazy this would have sounded to people listening

Many people claimed to have the light

Many people claimed to be enlightened

They claimed to have knowledge

But Jesus isn’t making that claim at all…

He is making a far greater claim. He is the light!

This is a role that is only reserved for the creator!

And see Jesus here picked up on the theme of the wondering in the wilderness that this day was all about and he gave a great invitation

An invitation that was just as relevant then as it is now

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness…but will have the light of life

Ladies and gentlemen

Christmas is about the eternal light of the universe taking on flesh and walking among us

Not condemning but forgiving

See in church we often talk about inviting Jesus to have a personal relationship with you

But see we actually get that backwards all the time

Jesus is the first one inviting you to have a personal relationship with him!

That’s what Christmas is…The eternal light of the universe steps out of heaven and into the human situation out of love for you

And I want you to catch this this matters…

God doesn't love us like we love

We love differently than God

I love my kids because they are my kids

I love my family because they are my family

I love my church because its my church

I love my wife because she is my wife

As human beings we love because of the other person and who they are to us!

But God’s not like that

God loves us, not because of who we are, He loves us because of who he is…

I don’t know about you but sometimes as a christian I fall into the mentality that I am just a messed up person, I need to somehow get on God’s good side, I need to be a better person..>I need to earn his favor

That’s just not the way that God’s love and grace work at all. he loves you because he is love…He loves you because he is the light of the world

and in order to chase after you…To find you floating in a dark ocean…

The fact that he sends his son to a broken world shows you that God is for you!

There is nothing that you can do to make God love you any more or any less because its not about you! Its about His love for you

He came to love you!

He came to lead you

He came to pour himself out for you

This is how God is! This is who God is

He comes to love you into transformation and make you new

Christmas is God’s divine rescue for when you are just stuck in a dark ocean all alone

And I get it, in church we often talk in terms of how you need to invite Jesus into your heart

You’ve probably heard that before

But Christmas reveals a God who is full of love for you

A God is is the light of the world

Inviting you to walk out of your darkness and into his life!

You think you need to invite Jesus in but the reality is that Jesus is calling

Church I dont know where you are at today

Maybe you are treading water in a dark ocean

You’ve got relationship problems

you’ve got financial problems

you’ve got depression problems

you’ve got anger issues

you’ve got loneliness issues

Maybe this christmas you just feel like Trudy Ederle drifting in a cold ocean about to give up

But christmas is is Jesus stepping out of all light right into your darkness

So I dont know where you are at today…But christmas reveals that you are deeply loved by your creator…

Maybe this is a holy moment right now?

Maybe God is doing something in your life just in hearing what you heard today…This is how God works…

Maybe you simply need to respond to God’s invitation…

And you can respond with a simple yes…

Yes Jesus I want to follow you…Yes Jesus you are the lord of my life

Yes Jesus come meet me in my darkness because I need the kind of light and love that only you can provide

Silent Night