Merry Christmas! There is something in the story of Christmas that brings us all here tonight, that draws us in. For many of us it’s a familiar story that draws us into things like wonder, joy and hope during this particular season each year. But the interesting thing about the story of Christmas from the Bible is that we end it just as the story is getting started! The Christmas story is the miraculous beginning of an even more miraculous story, a story that ends more gloriously than we could ever imagine. If all we read is the story of the angel’s visit, the shepherd’s joy, the wise men’s journey, we would never get the full Christmas story. We would miss out on the most amazing truth about us and the most amazing truth about God that only just began that first Christmas morning. So what is the whole story? What happens after the shepherds leave, the wise men go back, the angels return to heaven and, like your house, there is now plenty of room at the inn because everyone has gone home? How does the Christmas story end? Well, the angels in the story actually tell Mary, Joseph and the shepherds the whole story. Hidden in their glorious pronouncements is the whole story of what Christmas is all about: it is about Immanuel. A way, a chance for God to be with us again and we with Him. That all people can know the great joy of being close to their Heavenly Father again; tidings of great joy for all people. Tidings of great joy for those who are not perfect and are tried of pretending to be. We need a Savior because we were created to be with our Creator God in vital, purpose-giving, life-restoring relationship. And all of our ills, all of our brokenness in us and around us in our world comes from living life separated from God. What the angels announce that first Christmas is no less than God’s offer of forgiveness, that He will send us Himself. The infinite God will become an infant for us. He will be our Savior who will bring us back into abundant life with the One who made us. It is His forgiveness that will save us out of the lostness and brokenness of our sin against Him. The angel’s message on that first Christmas was filled with hope for us; the hope of our Savior, now come to us, born of God and born as one of us. In the angel’s message is the whole story of our forgiveness. And because forgiveness is always costly, our forgiveness will require both the joy of the cradle and also the pain of a cross.

A survey once asked a group of 90-year olds to define what love is. One man said of his wife of 67 years: “It’s not like the Hallmark Channel. She was beautiful of course…but she was my best friend. And that made our love take on a different sort of glow.” Another gentleman said, “I want to go downtown, but she wants to go to Westmount Square. So, we went to Westmount Square, and I'm very happy. That’s love.” Another woman said: “We all have our flaws and baggage we bring into love. Love is giving each other a generous baggage allowance.” The Apostle John was also in his 90’s when he wrote his own definition of love: “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). As we finish out the Advent season in our fourth week, we join with the church around the world in focusing on love, the love expressed in the gift of Jesus. We started our Advent series in John 1, and it’s back to John’s gospel in chapter 3 that gives us a definition of the love that the Father put on display for us at that first Christmastime.

The Christmas story is one filled with joy. Both gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus, in Matthew 2:10 and Luke 2:10, use the phrase “Mega Joy” when referring to the events surrounding the birth of the Savior. The word megàles in Greek, which we have shortened to “mega” in English means: “the maximum range of what is actually possible.” That’s a lot of joy! That phrase “Mega Joy” is only used in the gospels at the birth of Jesus and only again at the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. “Mega Joy” always centers around Jesus. This morning we are going to take a look at one of those times “Mega Joy” is used in the gospels, when the wisemen finally saw the newly born king. Their journey will tell us a lot about our journey to joy as well.

It’s ironic that many of our traditional Christmas passages talk about peace. And yet, the season in which we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace Himself is often the time of year when peace seems to escape us most. There may be peace as we sit by the glow of our Christmas tree for a quiet moment before the sun comes up, or peace as we see everything blanketed by a new covering of snow. But then the sun comes up and the day begins. The tree lights dim, the snow melts, and life begins in full force with its deadlines and crises and reminders that peace is like that hard-to-find gift on your Christmas list. The world has convinced us that peace is a feeling to be chased. But God wants to convince His children that peace is a concrete reality to be lived out of, even when we can’t or don’t feel it. Let’s look deeper into the promise of Isaiah 9 that unto us a child is born, the very Prince of Peace Himself.

This Sunday marks the first day of Advent. During the Advent season the Church enters a season of waiting. Waiting is profoundly countercultural; we don’t have to use our waiting muscles much anymore. Black Friday starts in October and Christmas starts before Thanksgiving; for $2 more our packages can arrive at 4:00am the next day. The first Advent was a time marked not by celebration and twinkling lights but by darkness and longing for Christ’s arrival and redemption. Before Jesus came in that manger, long lay the world in sin and error pining. The thrill of hope was in the air, but a weary world was not at the rejoicing part yet. It’s hard to remember what waiting was like for something you already have. We already have what Jesus came to offer; we no longer have to wait in darkness. But Advent still disciples into us the ability to wait and to long for the completion of what we have in Jesus as we wait for His return. Longing is not the same as waiting a mere 12 months; longing is waiting a lifetime, waiting until we are weary. Longing carries with it the temptation to give up hope in a way that simple waiting does not. What are you longing for? In the weeks of Advent to come, we will look at the four traditional themes celebrated by the Church around the world for over a thousand years: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. Let’s look at our first Advent text together this morning and see where the hope of Christmas lies in John 1.