Finding Christ in Our World

Introduction

Merry Christmas! Merry Advent! Happy Advent? Blessed Advent? Take your pick of the greeting. We are here! Can you believe we finally made it to the end of the year?

What a year it’s been! A year like no other we’ve ever seen or lived through. I think we were all ready for some Christmas this year!

As you know, we’ve been on a journey together over the past three weeks through Advent. 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, and joy

The Christmas story is a powerful story, filled with wonder and miracles and very real life. It is the story of Jesus coming to earth as the most wonderful gift of all eternity. As we have walked through various parts of the Christmas story these past three 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, joy, and peace into their lives in very real ways, He will 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 is come, and all we can rediscover about Christmas in Him.

Main Teaching

1. Finding Hope in Our Uncertainties

When uncertainty surrounds us, the promise of Christ fills us with hope to carry on.

Hope is the breath that keeps us alive. Hope is the fuel of faith. And dreams. And possibilities. Hope is that whisper of maybe, just maybe. It’s the spark in the cold darkness that catches flame. It’s the flicker of first light on a new morning.

In the worst sufferings and atrocities and catastrophes of human history, there has always remained a flicker of hope. Throughout enslavement, imprisonment, torture, and tragedy, there have been those who have clung to the smallest sparks of hope and fanned them within to an eventual survival or freedom or release.

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 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, just about six weeks old, 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.

Friends, how is the flame of your hope today? This has been a tough year, the kind of year that threatens to extinguish the flames of our hope. Let me encourage you, no matter what you are facing and no matter where you’re at, to rediscover hope this Christmas in the coming of the Christ child.

With the arrival of Immanuel, God With Us, God has come to restore hope—the hope of salvation, the hope of restoration and healing, the hope of His continued work that He will one day complete in our bodies and souls and world. As we come humbly to worship Jesus, we can find the renewal of His hope within us, the strength to take the next hopeful step, and the strength to carry us forward.

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 ESV

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

2. Finding Peace in Our Struggles

The struggles are real, but the peace of Christ transcends 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. And that’s true even without the roiling events of a global pandemic.

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

Luke 2:10–14 ESV

And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

The favor of God is here with humans. The peace of shalom, the Jewish concept of fullness, safety, completeness, and wholeness, is available to us. 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 me.

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 to turn your heart to Christ, bringing Him your hurt and your needs. And let me trust with you that...

Philippians 4:7 ESV

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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

Psalm 30:5 ESV

For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

Sometimes that night can feel so long. Sometimes it’s night after night after night as we try to carry on. Sometimes happiness feels so elusive and distant. Sometimes it pours out of us like the eruption of the Old Faithful geyser. 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 are 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 ESV

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Conclusion

Finding Christ in Our World

Christ has come with hope, peace, and joy. 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 ESV

And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

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.

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 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.

Jesus is in our world and in our lives.

He is Immanuel, God With Us, for eternity. And 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!

Benediction

Luke 2:10–14 ESV

And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”