Let's pray.
Lord, as we come to your word now
in this account of the birth of your son,
Lord, will you take this familiar story
and Lord, fill it again with new meaning.
And Lord, may the wonderful news of it
resound deeply in our hearts.
As we see a story of your goodness and your love
for your world, for us.
Lord, I would pray that you would encourage us tonight
by your word in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, it is great to see you all here tonight.
I don't know about you, but I love the Christmas season.
It's always encouraging to see people be a little bit cheerier
walking down the streets.
It's always beautiful to drive through the Broadway section
and see all the Christmas lights that they have put up
and to walk through the mall if you dare to get to a mall
and to hear cheerful songs over the Muzak,
whether it's Mariah Carey saying,
all I want for Christmas is you,
or Frank Sinatra singing,
have yourself a merry little Christmas.
It's a wonderful time of the year.
And there is something even in our culture
that makes it a slightly happier time for many of us.
And I don't know about you, but I hope you enjoy it.
And you know, for those of us who are Christians,
as we gather together,
the hymns we were just singing double down on the joy of this season.
They tell us that this season is joy to the world,
peace on earth, goodwill towards men.
And it is a message of great hope
and of great optimism about the state of the world
and about what life can be like here.
And so it's true that in many ways,
Christmas truly can be the most wonderful time of the year.
But there is an empty underside.
Maybe you feel it tonight.
For some of us, we may be carrying losses
that make even the joys bittersweet,
even the happiness of gatherings hollow.
Even if you're not carrying a grief like that during this season,
it's not hard to look into the darkness
and to see how the stress of this season
can cause you to be grumpier rather than more happy.
That the happiness around you can exacerbate the darkness
that you feel in your own soul as you battle depression.
As you read the news and you think,
peace on earth seems like further and further
from our reality rather than closer and closer.
The hymn writers, of course, knew this as well.
When they sing about the coming of Jesus,
they long for a day when the gloomy clouds of night
will be dispersed
and death's dark shadows will be put to flight.
So Christmas is an interesting season, isn't it?
Because it's filled with joy and light and happiness
and yet has this dark underside,
this thing that we don't like to acknowledge
and yet is so often a part of our own experience
and our own life.
What do we do with that?
Cognitive dissonance
between the message of the Muzak
and sometimes the message of our hearts.
I think we can sometimes turn to cynicism.
Yeah?
Bah humbug on you.
Merry Christmas.
Maybe some of us,
with great hope,
just seek to block out all the darkness.
It's not really there.
We deny it and try to go on hoping,
hoping that really it will be
full of wonder and light and goodness
without any other things.
But I think that, in fact,
the narrative of Christmas
can help us navigate this cognitive dissonance,
this darkness and light
with a much greater depth.
And so I want to spend just a few minutes tonight
meditating on the story
that Kyle read in Matthew,
the account of the birth of Jesus.
And as always is true,
there's such a richness to these stories.
I want to focus in,
even particularly,
on the name of Emmanuel
and to think about what that means for us.
As we think about this passage in Matthew,
we need to start by being reminded
that Matthew begins his account
of the birth of Jesus,
not with this,
but right before,
if you look back
at the very beginning of the book,
it's a genealogy.
It's a genealogy that,
for any Jewish person,
for any one of God's people
in the first century,
they would have read this
as the history of their life and nation.
It would be like reading about Washington
and Adams and Abraham Lincoln
and FDR and so forth up to this day.
And yet it had this spiritual undertone as well
of this is the history of God's people.
And so the story is infused
with all of God's promises,
all of God's promises
about how he will call a people to himself
from every tribe and tongue and nation
to lift it up,
to be God's people in this world.
The promise is that they would be his people
and he would be their God
and that he would be among them
and be in their midst.
And yet the people in the first century
wondered where is the fulfillment
of these promises?
Rome rules our country.
The priesthood seems to be compromised.
And where is God with us right now?
And it's into that context
that the story of the baby Jesus steps in.
We've just read about it.
We've just sung about it.
This baby who came claimed,
it was claimed that he was the fulfillment
of the prophecies way back in the prophet Isaiah
looking forward to a day
when God would actually come
and dwell with his people in a new way.
That God would be with us.
And to understand the meaning of this,
I wanted to spend a few minutes
painting for you the whole picture of the Bible
to see how wonderfully good
this news is for us.
Because when you go back to the very beginning
of the story in the Bible,
you see humanity, man and woman,
living together in a place of perfect provision,
in a place of perfect goodness.
And the most wonderful thing about it all
is that they lived with God
and God lived with them.
He walked with them in the cool of the day
is the literary picture that is given to us
of the nearness
and of the unfettered and unhindered
relationship with God in creation.
And you know,
I think this is why we love Christmas a little bit.
Because Christmas reminds us
that this is the way it was supposed to be.
It was supposed to be all good
with no darkness at all.
It was supposed to be joy and merriment
because we would be with God.
But as we read on,
we see that this in fact is not how the story went.
Because humanity in its discontent with God
and its desire to be like God
rebelled against God and rejected Him.
And in that rejection,
which is the root of our sin,
our proud refusal of God with us,
came deadly consequences.
Death, strife, envy, conflicts, murder, war.
And the greatest consequence of all
was our separation from God.
We were no longer able to be with God
because we had rejected Him.
We had refused Him.
And yet you see through the rest of the Old Testament,
the Bible tells us God did not give up.
God did not give up on having a people
who would be His own.
And the whole Old Testament
can be pictured as God's loving pursuit
of His people
and His calling of special people to be His.
And in fact, there are ways in which God showed,
I will be with you,
I want to be with you
throughout the whole narrative.
And yet always,
there was a mix.
And what we experience today
is what they experienced then.
This mix of hopefulness
that these promises may come true
and yet the reality
that they are not fully true now.
So into this context,
in the first century,
when the people of God were saying,
God, where are you?
Are you really with us?
Are you really for us?
A baby was born.
In a manger, he was laid
to a carpenter and his wife
in an obscure town.
And yet,
everyone who saw this baby
knew that it was something special.
Mary and Joseph,
they knew.
Elizabeth and the baby in Elizabeth's womb
who became John the Baptist,
he knew before he was even out of the womb.
Persian wise men from far away
knew.
Shepherds,
watching their flocks by night
on the hillsides,
knew.
They knew that this baby
was something special.
And that in him,
God had come to earth.
And God had come
not just to sympathize with us,
but he came to identify with us.
He came to enter into
the darkness of the world
that we live in.
He came from more than that.
Not only did he enter in
to identify with us in that way,
but he came to deliver us.
This is the most wonderful news.
These are the two names
that we see Matthew giving him.
Emmanuel, God with us,
and Jesus.
For he will save his people
from their sins.
This baby grew up
and instead of rejecting God,
he lived in a perfect relationship
with God.
Instead of seeking to rival God,
he submitted himself
as an obedient servant to God.
Instead of seeking life
apart from God,
he offered himself up to death
in order to give us life.
And in doing so,
at his point of offering himself
up to death,
he took the rejection
of the Father
that we deserved
and he bestowed upon us
the perfect favor
that he had with God.
He saved us from our sin
and God and sinners
are now reconciled
because of him
to all who believe.
And so the word
that Emmanuel,
God with us,
is here tonight
is good news.
It's good news
because it means
the darkness will not win.
God has not abandoned us,
but he has come for us.
It means that your sin
and your distance from God
and your rejection of him
need not be the last word
in your life,
but that in fact
he has come for you
and calls you
to embrace him
and to respond
and to turn to him
and to receive him.
Where meek souls
will receive him still,
the dear Lord
will enter in.
God has come
to rescue us
and to bring to us
the goodness
that we so long for
and so hunger for
and so love
when we taste
this goodness,
the joy
of every longing heart,
the dear desire
of every nation.
This is Jesus.
And all the trappings
of Christmas,
all the presents
and all the lights
and all the feasts
and all the family gatherings,
their richness ultimately
is because they point us
to this ultimate goodness
that God is with us.
The Bible story looks ahead.
It says we're not there yet.
Though God has come
to be with us,
though he has lived
and died and rose again,
he is not yet finished
with this world.
And so we live
in this tension still
and yet we look ahead
with hope.
In the book of Revelation
at the end,
it says this,
I heard a loud voice
from the throne saying,
Behold,
the dwelling place of God
is with man.
He will dwell with them.
And they will be his people
and he will be there.
He and God himself
will be with them
as their God.
And he will wipe away
every tear from their eye.
And death shall be no more.
Neither shall there be mourning
nor crying
nor pain anymore.
For the former things
have passed away
and he who is seated
on the throne say,
Behold,
I am making all things new.
And friends,
this is what Christmas,
God with us,
points us to.
That that day is coming
because he has come.
It is not a wishful hope.
It is a certain future reality
for us.
That just as God has come to us
in the fallenness
to redeem us out of this world,
yet in fact what he will do
is he will come again
to renew this world.
And all the things
that we long for
and all the things
that we hope for
and all the things
that Christmas celebrates
are but an echo
of what we will taste
that day
when the dwelling place
of God will be with man
and woman
and child
for eternity.
and so
sing your,
have yourself a merry
little Christmas.
Enjoy your who hash
and who beast
and roast beast.
Gather around the tree
and think of the presents
given and received.
but remember
that all of this
is meant to remind us
of God
who came to be with us
so that we could be
with him.
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you
for your word.
We thank you for
Jesus who has come,
Emmanuel,
who has come with us,
come to us,
to ransom us
and redeem us
and rescue us.
Lord, thank you
for the good news
of this.
Lord, we do pray
that as we celebrate
this Christmas season,
Lord,
that the joy
and the wonder
and the awe
of it
would be ours
in all richness.
Lord, thank you
for this celebration.
we pray
in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, friends,
if you've been here
for the last couple
of years,
we don't typically
do this,
but we're going to try
lighting some candles
tonight.
So,
as we continue
to celebrate
the worship
of Christ,
maybe the ushers
can come up
at this point,
we're going to do
a little bit
of candle lighting.
And the reason
is because
Scripture talks
about Jesus coming
as a light
coming into the darkness
of this world.
And as He did so,
He brought
all that we've just
been talking about
for a few minutes.
So,
this is what we're
going to do.
I'm going to
read the Scriptures.
I'm going to light
the candle.
Tyler and Melissa
are going to come
up the rose
and they're going
to pass the light
out from here
to all of you.
Okay?
So,
here are a few tips
so we don't light
each other on fire.
So,
if your candle
is lit,
it should always
stay upright.
If your candle
is unlit,
you take your
unlit candle
and you light it
from the lit candle.
Once it is lit,
you hold it upright
be careful
of clothing
and hair
in front of you.
And as we do this,
we will be able
to enjoy
the symbolism
of what John 1
tells us
about the coming
of Jesus.
So,
is that clear
how we're going
to do this?
All right.
Well,
let me read.
Our last reading
for the evening
is from the Gospel
of John,
chapter 1.
In the beginning
was the Word,
and the Word
was with God
and the Word
was God.
He was in the beginning
with God.
All things were made
through Him
and without Him
was not anything
made that was made.
In Him
was life
and the life
was the light
of men.
The light shines
in the darkness
and the darkness
has not overcome it.
There was a man
sent from God
whose name was John.
He came as a witness
to bear witness
about the light
that all might believe
through Him.
He was not the light
but came to bear witness
about the light.
The true light
which enlightens everyone
was coming into the world.
He was in the world
and the world
was made through Him
yet the world
did not know Him.
He came to His own
and His own people
did not receive Him
but to all who did.
but to all
who did receive Him
who believed
in His name
He gave the right
to become
children of God
who were born
not of blood
nor of the will
of the flesh
nor of the will
of man
but of God.
And the Word
became flesh
and dwelt among us
and we have seen
His glory
glory as of
the only Son
from the Father
full of grace
and truth.
we light this candle
to remember
as a symbol
of Jesus
the light of the world.
I'll do this with you.
Silent night
Holy night
All is calm
All is bright
Round yon
Virgin
Mother and child
Holy infant
So tender and mild
sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace
Silent night
Holy night
Shepherds quake
At the sun
Glories stream
From heaven afar
Heavenly hosts
Alleluia
Christ the Savior
Is born
Christ the Savior
Is born
Christ the Savior
Is born
Silent night
Holy night
Wondrous star
Let my light
With the angels
Let us sing
Alleluia
To our King
Christ the Savior
Is born
Christ the Savior
Is born
Christ the Savior
Is born
Silent night
Holy night
Son of God
Love's pure light
Radiant beams
From thy holy face
With the dawn
Of redeeming grace
Jesus Lord
At thy birth
Jesus Lord
At thy birth
Well friends
thank you for joining us
this evening
please join us
tomorrow morning
if you'd like
10 o'clock
for our Christmas
morning service
and now
may the joy
of Emmanuel
God with us
bring light
and life
to you
as you celebrate
with remembrance
his birth
this night
go in peace
church
hoer
had
King
the
love
Thank you.