Did we lose the battle to Keep Christ in Christmas?
Light Piercing the Darkness • Sermon • Submitted
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· 19 viewsChristmas sermon using John 1 about Christ as God and Human over all
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“Keep Christ in Christmas.” It made its appearances in yards across North America.
What could be behind a sign like this?
For some it meant removed nativities from city halls or Starbucks deceptive red holiday cup or Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas or a general feeling that our culture is rejecting God.
In a simple sign, Keep Christ in Christmas, we see an attempt from a culture to combat another culture around what we call Christmas.
Need: Our world is cast about in a darkness right now. Whether it is our struggles with our neighbors local, national, or global we are accurately and practically aware of that which disturbs and causes us to mistrust the world around us.
Maybe our darkness isn’t attached to cultural giants, but an awkward aunt, a loud uncle, a bank account, a missing job, a frustrating love life, a sick relative, an empty chair at the table,
An unstable year leading to an unknown Christmas holiday towards a frightening year ahead that seems much of the same.
We are aware of the darkness but, where is the light? Where is God during this thing, we call life? Did we lose the battle to keep Christ in Christmas?
Our sermon series is upon Light piercing the Darkness and we begin to see that in
Our Text: John 1:1-14. This is on page 71 of pew bibles, John 1:1-14, starting in John 1 vs 1.
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 came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
The Witness John
The Witness John
6 There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.
9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
The Word Made Flesh
The Word Made Flesh
14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Preview:
We will look upon three things from passage reading today.
First, to truly recognize Jesus, we must see Him in terms of the Word and the Light.
Second, we see the Jesus’ significance and the worlds’ reaction to Him.
Thirdly, “how do we belong that which truly matters” in a culture that is consistently changing the line of ‘what matters.
Finally, to bring it all together we will end with “what’s this have to do with Christmas?”
Main Body: Turning to John 1 “In the beginning” what a wonderful place to start, the beginning.
We are reminded of another beginning in Genesis 1:1.
We likewise should start “in the beginning” with the context of the writing of the Gospel of John.
The Gospel of John is looking at a culture not unlike ours; that makes many claims about Jesus.
Some sayings towards Jesus, the person of Jesus isn’t a person at all but rather a Meat-puppet of the divine wearing skin of a human but all God.
Or the opposite, merely a man with no divinity, a messenger.
Maybe, Jesus is one of the many gods, no more special than a Zeus or Apollo, a local god but nothing important.
An unattached God, a watchmaker who makes a watch and leaves.
Or perhaps, a culture who is indifferent and rejects Jesus. No importance spiritually because it has no significance in the real physical world.
All these the Gospel is addressing, and our world hasn’t moved far from having a similar perspective. It is with this mentality we start
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.
Our first term to understand is “the Word” but notice it doesn’t say about the Word “From the beginning” or “At the beginning.”
“In” the beginning meaning that the “Word” is Eternal.
The Word predates the beginning.
Luther put it this way “That which was before the world and before the creation of all creatures, must be God”
The first claim about the “Word” is that it always was and preceded the beginning of time. This moves against many perspectives of the Word being “merely a man” “just a good teacher” or a “prophet”
The next claim is equally challenging “the Word was with God”, the Word has a special relationship with God.
A union, something personal, relational, and inseparable.
If God could be separated, He is no longer god but like the Greek gods of many pieces and polytheism. The Bible is firmly in One God and One God alone, not gods in pieces.
One God in special relationship to Himself. Yet, a distinct separation.
The ancient audience may have struggled but then it keeps going “The Word was God” this reminds of the unity of God being One God.
If we suspected multiple gods or minor gods, it is dismissed by saying “the Word was God” and in all nature and all interior of who God is we find “The Word” is Divine.
The final phrase in v.2 repeats much of the same but suddenly, we have an identifier “He”, in a culture that seems a pronoun conscious we have a Pronoun unlike any other.
The Word, this Eternal Word, this Word that is Divine, is given a pronoun “He” the Word is identified.
But, what does He practically do?
v.3 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
“All things” all includes everything. All things, the earth, the rocks, the birds, the animals, every form of material that whether visible and invisible, everything owes its existence to Him.
Many like to perceive God as the watchmaker who leaves a watch showing the existence of the watchmaker.
While this image can be used in other places of Scripture, this is not an accurate or complete picture in this emphasis of the Gospel of John.
In v.3 it says, “Through Him” the His relationship to the universe is not a man working on a machine but closer to a woman giving birth.
The difference is a couple, talking about the idea of children vs a growing child in the womb. The Word isn’t working in ideas, He is working with a growing universe.
A delusion people, and some Christians, make is that Jesus the Messiah only had to do with salvation and saving us from our sins that His work only began after his human birth and was completed upon the Cross to his eventual return.
That is irredeemably wrong, Jesus’ work wasn’t limited to only saving our invisible souls and get us to heaven, He was working with the material of the universe and upholding it “through Himself”
He was active in creation, creation is not the divine, but creation is upheld by the Divine.
There is nothing apart from Him. Nothing is possible without Him. There is no part of our existence that is outside of his control.
V.4 hammers this
4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
In Him was Life. Without life you find only death.
A common accusation to Christianity, why can I not accept Jesus and still have eternal life?
This is answered here it’s life and death “In Him was Life” If we all stop breathing, we die. Because oxygen keeps us alive. Oxygen keeps us alive because it gives us life.
If we deny Jesus, we are not denying some distant deity. We are denying life spiritual and physical, “In Him was life”, without life we die.
It’s not a matter of moral right and wrong if it was, we would all be dead.
It’s a matter of the grace of God in God giving life to those who constantly demand death.
The phrase “In Him was life” rejects a god unattached from the universe, it is a God deeply involved.
In our verse we find another phrase “the light of men”
We see a subtle shift into light, this light though is related to men’s reason.
An animal exists for the sake of existence.
In nature documentaries we see amazing world of birds working to gather, reproduce, and exist.
But they lack a light.
They live but there is something different about humankind.
Birds never ask why they live, they just do.
We reason, think, invest, invent, use our intellect, and all the value goodness of things like wisdom, joy, knowledge, all of this comes with the light of reason.
The God of the Bible and by extension Christians have been accused of being anti-intellectual or anti-reason. This little phrase reverses that flow.
The Word gave us the light of men, it is the Word who gave us the gift of reason and thought.
During the biblical period there was a Greek mentality that dividing the control and dominion of gods into many parts.
For example, Zeus was king of gods and man, Poseidon over the Sea, Apollo over the Sun, and on the list goes.
Our North American culture has followed this example. We have compartmentalized and divided life into what is sacred vs secular.
Where God can have control vs where he can’t.
God can have control over our spiritual salvation, but he doesn’t get to decide my ambitions for a luxury house. He can own the universe but not over me.
He can have my Sunday but not my Monday.
He can have my pleas for better jobs or more cash or more success, but he can’t have my attitude.
He can have my problems but not my perspective on sex, gender, or marriage.
We attempt to say that the God of the universe doesn’t have control here.
We tend to divide our life into domains such as: Relational, Physical, Spiritual, Intellectual, and Work.
This is a Greek thought of dividing into domains, much like the ancient gods divided the universe into many domains.
See how the Word unites all of them in Himself even with a mistaken belief.
In v.1 “Word with God” reveals the Relational Aspect of God held in perfect union
In v.3 “through Him” reveals his authority over all the Physical, visible, and invisible of everything
In v.3 “All things” reveals the Work of Jesus is active to sustain all things through him.
In v.4 “In Him was life” reveals the Spiritual Authority He has over any life, physical and spiritual.
In v.4 “the light of men” reveals He is the ultimate on Intellect as the one who gave intellect
Jesus takes all the domains, Relationship, Physical, Vocational, Spiritual, and Intellect all finding their submission and unity in Him.
Jesus unites them in Himself, wiping away the ancient gods of the Greeks and Romans and Americans by saying it all belongs to Him
And that Light
5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
The Word is now called the Light.
The Light shines is a beautiful image here for light, not about to shine or used to shine, but currently shining as it pierces the darkness.
We can’t keep Christ out of Christmas any more than we could the stars from existing.
Cheap plastic could be removed from city halls. Lightbulbs burnt out. Churches can be closed. The word “God” could be removed from dollar bills. Everyone could say “Happy Holidays” or “No holidays”
The Light shines.
The Light never stops being the Light.
We are learning to see Jesus for the real Jesus as the Word Eternal and Sustainer of All things in control of all things, what do we do with all that?
Let’s move to our second place, Jesus is the Light of Ultimate Cosmic Significance and we see how the world as a whole reacts
The writer begins by moving us to see another John the Baptist, moving us from cosmic perspective to historical account.
The Witness John
6 There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.
A good witness does not attract attention to himself but to the person or facts which he represents.
John shows us here the attitude, action, meaning, and purpose of every believer who calls themselves a Christ-follower.
A proverb works well here “A finger is wonderful for pointing to the moon, but pity is the person who mistakes the finger for the moon”
Our entire lives, every aspect of who we are, no part of it is outside of that, should point to Christ in us, through us, and beyond us.
Practically, our workplaces are excellent places to be good stewards but when we wrap our ambitions, focus, goals, and ideals upon our work we find a horrible substitute for God.
Our marriage is to receive our love attention and focus but a spouse cannot be a substitute for the deep longings that only God can fulfill.
Our singleness is an opportunity to build relationships with both God and others that shows authentic love.
The True Light, the real, is coming v.9
9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.
The True Light is coming into the world. The light is a person, a real person, not a philosophical idea, not an abstract moral belief, but a Person.
A person who is coming into the world in a practical, real way.
The Light is not a messenger, the Light Is the Message.
The true Light enlightens every man.
This is not a reference to universal salvation or even general revelation or inner illumination.
It enlightens every human.
We are either enlightened by Jesus to move closer to God or we run away.
When we turn on a light in a house, we find Pets and Pests have two different reactions.
A pet is overjoyed and runs to his master, pleased at the masters return.
A pest is fearful and runs away from the owner of the home since it knows it does not belong.
When the True Light Jesus reveals it either reveals a person running towards him as their salvation or running away from him as their sin is revealed.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.
It would be simple to read this verse and move along. But in reflection there is something emotionally real happening here.
The Light has great reason to expect an affection and respectful welcome into the world, He made it.
But “The world knew him Not”
He was here and nobody noticed.
A pet knows their master, but the world did not know Him.
The Word, The True Light, left the union of the perfection with the father leaving his throne entering the suffering and pain of our world and he is met with indifference.
This is possibly one of the saddest verses in the Bible.
The God in their midst, and they missed him.
And if we think it’s sad enough, it gets worse.
11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.
The world as whole missed him out of indifference. But surely, His own, the promised people, Israel, the ones who prophesize about the coming Messiah through Isaiah, the ones who have the Temple where God’s presence could be felt, who have anointed kings, surely, they do not miss Him.
No, they do what is worse. They reject him. They did not receive him.
God came home, to his people, and they cast him away like trash.
We can easily move into judgment of Israel. But we can easily follow Israel, we can reject Jesus for the sake of ease.
To align with those who do not worship God but give our ideas power in the world.
To forsake the Word of God for the culture’s acceptance.
To forsake the grace of God for a cruel master of accomplishment and affirmation.
To let our ambitions of reaching and witness to a world replaced for ambitions of comfort, ease, and security.
To take the God of the universe and cast him away like trash, because we started by trashing our neighbor.
But.
But there is more to the story. Thanks be to the Word and True Light.
While the world and Israel rejected the Messiah there were some who did not. The remnant remains, even when the majority loses sight.
This moves us to our final third point, how do we belong to what truly matters and what do we do in a shifting culture of standards?
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,
But as many as received Him. To the ones who don’t want to miss Jesus, the ones who aren’t interested in following the false gods of dividing our life like the ancient gods of Greece and Rome did, the ones who want to see the Light overcome the darkness instead of being overcome by the darkness. To the ones who have decided this isn’t some idea or casual belief that we forget in an hour but a deep purpose driven life.
We are shown three things, we as the ones who receive
He Gave – the grace of acceptance, we are accepted, a gift given, not out of merit or power but a gift. A true Christmas gift without attachments or return policies.
The Right – not power, but status. A full authority to claim a new exalted title.
The Title of “Children of God” the new title as a people, a new people, who belong to God. Jesus didn’t want a new religion, he wanted new people.
How?
To believe in His name.
There is a misbelief that we are all ‘children of God’ while it is true: we are all created by God and hold our worth of value not in external but in him creating us. We are not all children of God.
Children know their parents. Children who don’t know their parents are called orphans.
We all were once orphans, children without parents. Sin kept us from knowing Him.
To believe in His name means to accept that name,
To believe in that name is not merely a verbal proclamation, a sporadic or consistent attendance to church, but acknowledge Him in all ways.
To be born anew.
As v.13 continues
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
How to be a Child of God? To be born, more on that in a second
But first the writer shows a series of what it is not
Not by blood- you are not born a child of God, you are not born a Christian, baptized as a child does not make you a child of God.
Not by will of flesh – belonging to a family of Christians does not make a child of God. Salvation doesn’t pass genetically it passes Supernaturally.
Not by will of man – no religion will get us there, no effort, no ability, no nation, no community, no leader, no skill, no moral compliance, no self-discovery, nothing by will of man are we made Children of God.
Only by God through Jesus.
We are not born Christians; we are made Christians by the will of God.
The birth of a Christian, a true child of God, is not a natural thing but supernatural work of God in regeneration. A miraculous birth.
This moves us to our final verse in John
The Word Made Flesh
14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Word became Flesh.
The writer brings the Divine God and Humanity of Christ utterly together in this phrase.
The youth learned this last year as called “The Hypostatic Union”, He is Fully God and Fully Man as he took upon himself Human Nature.
And dwelt among us, The Word Jesus makes his place among humanity.
We expect Him to dwell in power and authority but instead
He is full of grace and truth.
The worlds standards of grace and truth are constantly shifting, to keep up is maddening, to keep in it is crushing, and to keep our hope in the culture is killing.
The Word invites us to trust in Him, not the culture or culture fighting culture but in Him.
What does this all have to do with Christmas?
Let’s answer a small but important question, how is one born again?
Our passage reveals:
Believing in His Name, The Word: The Eternal God the Divine One in perfect Union with God the Father, Creator and Sustainer of All things, All things are under his control visible or invisible, the giver of life, the True Light , the one who makes us Children of God, the Messiah the Savior of the world who forgives all sin, believing in Him and acknowledging Him.
A statement may form though “That sounds like a lot for us to believe in, can we really do that?”
No, it’s impossible.
Even today, we can intellectually agree with all those phrases but to bring our practical life, emotions, mental, relational, attitude, and worship it’s impossible.
Not will of man or blood or family or power on earth can complete that.
Only God.
God alone creates the change in us, and he invites us to make, make a new life with Him.
We find our will, in accepting His will. Even if it one step at a time in his direction.
To be born again is to have a miraculous virgin birth that is supernaturally made.
To become a child of God every single time involves a Supernatural Birth.
How is one born again? Trusting in the One who was born to a virgin.
The Word became Flesh and one of our Advent Reading says in Luke 2:11
“For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
The Word is made Flesh and born to us a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Today, believe in the Word, in Jesus’ name, confess the places that don’t belong. Whether you see yourself as seasoned believer or a first time bring your life as an offering to Him.
Jesus already owns and sustains all life through Him its foolish to separate him from any place of us.
No matter the place, if it’s relational bring it, if it’s financial bring it, if it’s mental, emotional, job, intellectual, social, marriage, pride, ambition, sexual, bring it to the one who dwelt among us.
Did we lose the fight to keep Christ in Christmas?
It was never our battle to lose, the culture may not know him, the plastic consumerism make swallow what we see in Christmas, the Christ from the name Christmas may disappear, nativity scenes fill dumpsters instead of yards, our neighbor may not know him, but we do.
And let us be a witness of Him in any season, not just Christmas.
We never lost Christmas, because Christ the Word who became Flesh was born to a virgin and the darkness could not overcome.