Sermon Tone Analysis

The Star: A Journey of Hope

[Show Hope Bumper video.]

[Optional: Show the Kids’ Advent Series promotional video.

If the children in your church will be doing the lessons based on the major motion picture The Star, you may also want to show the weekly movie clip for the whole congregation to enjoy together.]

Today marks the first Sunday of Advent.

We are stepping into an amazing season for us as Christians.

Where we celebrate the birth of our Savior!

The word advent is a version of a Latin term which means “coming.”

So we use these weeks leading up to Christmas as a chance to look forward to our celebration of the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, the light of the world, our Savior.

Advent is a season of great expectation, and I’m glad you’re here with us today as we embark on a journey—actually join in an epic journey that began more than two thousand years ago—and follow the star and discover the light of the world.

It’s a journey of the heart and soul, but it’s also a journey that will realign our expectations and experience of the Christmas season.

And it’s a journey that will explore the gifts of Christmas delivered by and through Christ: hope, love, joy, and peace.

We all need hope in the storms of life and love that never gives up.

We need fresh joy on our journey and peace no matter what we’re facing or dealing with.

In the next four weeks we are going to focus on the birth of Jesus the Light of the World.

Now, the Star of Bethlehem has taken a central place in the Christmas story, but its mention in the Bible is really very brief.

The record of wise men from the East who followed a star is only mentioned in Matthew’s Gospel account of Christ’s coming ().

And there is much discussion by scholars and scientists about what the star actually was, who the wise men were, and when the cosmic event of its appearance took place.

But apart from the debates, their remains the truth that the light of a star led people to Jesus, even if they were still on their journey the night Jesus was born.

(Most scholars place the wise men showing up a few months to a year after Jesus’s birth.)

You see, the star then and now is a guide that ultimately leads to Jesus, the light of the world.

As we focus on this journey this Advent season, I want to encourage all of us to look for the light.

The Advent season is about the journey as much as the destination.

As we’ll explore, it is a time to prepare, maybe to pause and to ponder, to breathe deeply and turn our eyes to the true meaning of this time of year—a season that can seem so hectic and stressful in our culture.

Think about that star.

Think about the people who were part of the journey toward the first Christmas—Mary, Joseph, an innkeeper, a jealous king, some wise men, common shepherds, angels, and so many more.

While the pace of our lives would probably make their heads spin, each of these people were facing daily difficulties that we would want no part of.

They didn’t have all the answers.

They hadn’t spent hours getting ready and making sure they were prepared for the supernatural events awaiting them.

They didn’t even understand what was happening all the time—even when angels appeared or a star guided their path.

But all of the Christmas story cast answered God’s invitation to come and see the arrival of His Son, the light of the world and the Savior of all.

Now here we go!

Will you say yes to the journey?

Will you peer through the darkness of your life, no matter what that may be, and look for the glimmer of hope?

Will you step toward the light of the star even if your vision seems cloudy or muddled?

Will you journey toward Bethlehem, drawn by hope for the love, joy, and peace that await?

Is that a difficult vision for you?

Does your night seem cloudy?

Is your Christmas season overwhelmed already by any number of struggles: financial stresses, relational dysfunctions, memories of loss, commercialized expectations?

We’ve all been there at some time or another.

We may be there now in some form or another.

But let me encourage you—that’s exactly where hope shines brightest.

How do we follow the star on a journey of hope?

How can we purposefully live this season of anticipation in light of hope?

I’d like to suggest it starts with acknowledging the darkness around us, embracing the wait, and committing to the journey.

1. Acknowledge the Darkness

I have here with me a flashlight.

[Turn on a flashlight and shine it around.]

Right now it doesn’t seem too exciting.

It’s actually kind of hard to even see the light it puts out.

However, if we found ourselves in complete darkness, we might feel very differently about this little gadget.

[Have all the lights turned off so the room is completely dark.

Give everyone a minute for the darkness to sink in.]

Wow! It’s dark in here.

If we all had to find our way to the front or to an exit, it would be tough!

[Turn on the flashlight.]

Now, surrounded by darkness, see how much light this flashlight gives?

It suddenly looks much brighter when it shines in the darkness.

It could actually make the difference in being able to find our way or not.

[Turn the lights back on.]

It’s kind of amazing that God chose a star to guide the wise men to Bethlehem.

Throughout the Bible, we see how God uses His own creation to reveal Himself to us.

The psalmist put it beautifully in

which says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

God’s glory is seen in the stars.

But the thing about stars is they can’t be seen in the light.

It’s the same as that flashlight—on a much more celestial scale.

They are there, but we can’t see them.

In fact, they are seen best on the darkest of nights, when there is no moonlight, away from the lights of the city.

The darker the setting, the brighter the starlight.

And says, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” ().

God’s glory is seen in the stars.

But the thing about stars is they can’t be seen in the light.

It’s the same as that flashlight—on a much more celestial scale.

They are there, but we can’t see them.

In fact, they are seen best on the darkest of nights, when there is no moonlight, away from the lights of the city.

The darker the setting, the brighter the starlight.

This time of year, holiday glitz can artificially light our lives.

Or we may seek out our own flashing distractions to try to distract us from the gnawing darkness within.

But facing the darkness and calling it what it is allows us to see true light.

It’s when we acknowledge the darkness that we can see the star that leads us on the journey.

As we journey together toward Christmas this Advent season, let’s be honest about the darkness we find ourselves in—both darkness in the world around us and darkness within our own hearts.

We live in a world full of darkness and fear, but it is into that great darkness that an even greater star appears to light the way.

The Bible tells us that it was also a pretty dark time for the people of Israel when Jesus showed up.

The Old Testament prophets had prophesied of a Messiah, but it had been a long wait—hundreds of years of waiting.

I

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” ().

Isaiah talked about the coming light and the present darkness, and that darkness continued to grow through the centuries.

Both of these verses were spoken long before Jesus was born.

The people of Israel lived in that space between promise and fulfillment.

Looking back, it’s easy for us to see how the first Passover, when God spared the firstborns of the Israelites in Egypt and set them free from slavery, foreshadowed the coming of Jesus, the Passover lamb.

But the people of Israel didn’t have the benefit of hindsight.

They were desperate for a deliverer.

Honestly, many of them thought God had forgotten them, especially as they lived under Roman oppression in the time of Herod.

Today we share that common experience of darkness and desperation.

Nothing can rescue us except God.

And the beauty of the journey of hope is that we see, in what seems to be the darkest hour, God shows up.