Among Us (Advent 2024) 5: The Word has Come
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Intro
Intro
Pray
Again, thank you so much for being here tonight to celebrate Christmas Eve together! Thanks to everyone who has shared their talents tonight to help us bring our focus to the coming of the Lord Jesus and what His Advent means.
This Christmas season, we’ve taken a little different approach than we have in years past, and we’ve looked at John chapter 1 during our series, which we have called Among Us. We’ve considered several things that John writes about the Word in this first chapter: that the Word is God and the Word was God:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
We’ve seen that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us in the Person of Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah:
14 The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
18 No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.
Then we saw that the Word saves us—giving those who believe in Him the right to become children of God, members of God’s family:
12 But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, 13 who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.
And on Sunday, Joe shared about the fact that the Word is central to our lives: that He is central to our proclamation, our invitation, and our salvation—He is the bridge, or ladder, between holy God and sinful humanity:
51 Then he said, “Truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
And tonight, we wrap up this series by considering the fact that the Word has come.
Think for a minute with me about the “big” moments that many of us look forward to in life, the things that we wait for, wishing those moments would finally arrive (some of which you might even currently be waiting for): getting your driver’s license; going on your first date; graduating from high school and maybe college; getting engaged and then married; having a child or two (or more); starting a career or buying a house; seeing your children graduate, and perhaps move away and get married themselves; seeing them have children of their own; retirement. These are kind of all “big ticket” items in life, generally (there are, of course, exceptions… I’m just painting a general picture).
And there’s something really intense about when those moments finally come—there’s a joy, a celebration, a delight in them. The fact that we have arrived at that moment, and that the thing we’ve worked or waited for for so long is now available and accessible—the fact that it’s real—fills us with a sense of awe and gratitude.
This is what Christmas is every year: it’s us celebrating the fact that the most important event in history has occurred: The eternal Word, the Son of God, took on flesh and became the holy Infant in the manger, and grew into the Son of Man who would die on the cross, and who is in fact, the King of kings and Lord of lords. The Word has come!
For the Hebrew people, they had been waiting to arrive at this moment for hundreds of years. God had predicted the coming of the Messiah over and over in Scripture, but I expect one of the passages that they went to time and again when thinking about the Messiah was from Isaiah chapter 9:
6 For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7 The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.
The arrival of the Messiah was THE big moment the Israelites were waiting for. And we saw in our third study in this series that John wrote that He—the Word—came to His own people, but they did not receive Him, according to verse 11. They should have delighted in the fact that God had fulfilled His promises to them in that moment, but they were so wrapped up in what they thought the moment should be, and who the Messiah should be, that they missed Him completely.
How tragic would it be for you to wait your whole life for a moment to arrive, only to miss it when it finally came? That’s what happened to Israel. These moments are the times that we prepare for. And this is what the Advent season leading up to Christmas Day is all about: preparation.
In verse 23 of John 1, John the Baptist was quoted as reciting Isaiah 40:3 when he was asked who he was. Consider Isaiah 40:3-5 tonight:
3 A voice of one crying out: Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert. 4 Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be leveled; the uneven ground will become smooth and the rough places, a plain. 5 And the glory of the Lord will appear, and all humanity together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
With the coming of Jesus, God cleared away the obstacle that stood between us and Him—the sin that causes us to wander in the wilderness away from His presence; that makes our lives a trackless desert without clear direction—dry, desolate, and without water as David wrote in Psalm 63. In Christ, God levels the dark valleys so that we may walk in the light. He turns the rocky ground of life’s difficulties into a level plain on which to travel with Him. And when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, we beheld His glory, which was good news of great joy for all the people, as the angels declared in Luke 2.
So the question that we have to answer tonight is simple: “Are we prepared?”
I’m not talking about the gifts around the tree, the food defrosting in the fridge, or whether or not the bathroom is clean enough for houseguests. Are we prepared to adore the Word who is God, who came in the flesh so that we might be saved? Are we ready to worship the Christ child as we rejoice in His miraculous birth: declared by the heavenly host and marked by the Christmas star? Are our hearts set on the remembrance of His arrival, which brings hope, and light, and freedom, and joy, and peace, and love—the biggest moment in the history of the world?
And more particularly tonight: Maybe you’re not ready, and tonight is YOUR big moment. Maybe you’ve never believed the Gospel, never trusted in Jesus, and you’re here tonight “by accident,” you think. Maybe this is YOUR moment to hear and believe.
Or maybe you are a believer, but you haven’t been walking with Jesus, and tonight, through the focus on Advent, you’re being called back to that relationship. Maybe tonight is YOUR moment to return to Him.
Jesus came not so we could have a holiday. He came so we could be saved. He took our sins on Himself on the cross so we could be forgiven, and live in family relationship with God again. He defeated death so we can have the same victory through His eternal life, and He ascended into heaven, promising to return to set the world right again. Are you ready?
If not, please don’t leave tonight without getting this right with God. Surrender your life to Him in faith, believing in what Jesus has done to save you, trusting Him for your salvation. Like the shepherds, bow before the infant King in humility and worship of the Word who has become flesh and come to live among us, as one of us, to bring us to God.
Merry Christmas.
PRAY
Deacons and other pastors: Come and get your light.
Silent Night.
