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.

When was the last time you got some good news? We are inundated with news these days, most of it not good, and in fact, most of it downright terrible. “Good” news is an interesting phrase because news is just the retelling of something that happened. And then only after we evaluate it in relation to ourselves do we determine if it’s good or bad. In Luke 2 when we meet the lowly shepherds keeping watch over their flock at night, an angel tears open heaven and makes a bold announcement. It is the same news that an angel just told Joseph in Matthew 1. For us it may be an old and familiar story, but for those shepherds and for Joseph and for Mary and the wise men who showed up from the East, it was breaking news of the best kind.

In our modern age of streaming movies and binge watching shows, .it isn’t often that we get to feel the anxiety of a cliffhanger ending to our favorite dramas. Rather than wait a year for the sequel to hit theaters, or even just a week for the next episode…, we can just hit “Play Next” and relieve our anxiety. To be fair, books are that way too though, and I confess on many an occasion flipping to the last page of a book when I just couldn’t take the suspense. But when we do that we miss out. The joy of the last page is not as deep when you have missed the suffering, the waiting, and the highs and lows of the story. And so it is with Ruth; today we come to the final page. We have covered over 10 years of loss, bitterness, joy, suffering, poverty, hopes raised and hopes dashed. And from day one we have seen God just below the surface of everything that has been happening; always present but never seen, except in the kindness and love shown by Ruth and Boaz. God only shows His face in this drama, as He even does today, through the actions of His people. So this morning we get to see the end of the story, which, like all good stories, is just the beginning of another, greater story that we get to remember every Christmas Eve.

Christmas comes with a lot of waiting. Waiting in line at the post office, waiting in traffic, waiting for packages to arrive in time, waiting for cookies to be done. No one likes to wait, particularly at Christmas. If there is something I really want and there is a chance that no one will get it for me, I have been known to just take matters into my own hands and buy myself the gift rather than wait on someone to give it to me. What about you, what do you do when you are tired of waiting? In the suburbs we often just power over waiting with our own means. When stuck in traffic, we pay to get in the express lane. When waiting at the airport we pay for PreCheck. When waiting for a package we pay to have it come overnight. But what about when we are waiting on God? When there are things we can’t just power over? It seems like to wait is to admit in some way that you are human. Advent is a time when we are reminded of what it was like to be waiting for our Redeemer. For about 400 years the world lay in sin and error pining with seemingly no word from God about what His plan was. When we are tired of waiting on God, the temptation is always to just take matters into our own hands. The temptation when waiting on God is to either sin or to get cynical. We are in Ruth 3 this morning; Naomi, Ruth and Boaz have all been waiting on God to get something they want. What will they do when it doesn’t seem to happen?

One of our family traditions around Christmas time is a Secret Santa. The idea of Secret Santa is that you draw names out of a hat and then you give a gift to that person on Christmas morning and it’s a surprise who gave it to them. One year, our kids were having a rough season of not getting along with each other, so we added a new element to the Secret Santa. In addition to just a present on Christmas morning, you had to secretly do kind things for that family member all through the month of December without them knowing it. It didn’t always work, but it did happen plenty of times. It was so fun to see someone come down and say, “My bed was made! Who did that?” or “My chore was done this morning!” Through the whole month of December there was this hidden undercurrent of kindness running through your life, and you had no idea who was doing it so you couldn’t give any credit to the one behind the scenes showing you kindness until the last day. The story of Ruth is a story of God at work behind the scenes, under the surface. Behind the scenes of love, behind the scenes of kindness, and behind the scenes of suffering and struggle. And that is where we pick up in Ruth 2.

For every good story out there, there is a prequel waiting to be told. We know this about our favorite stories, right? It’s not just about milking obscure plot lines for more cash, we simply need to know: How did the rebels get access to those Death Star plans? Where did Gollum come from? How did Wolverine get those claws? How did the witch become Wicked? Behind every good story is a prequel waiting to be known. When we think of the Christmas story we begin with the opening line of Matthew 1:18, but before verse 18 there are 17 other verses, over 40 other names. Before he gets to the birth of our Redeemer, Matthew starts the story like this. Each one of those names leading up to the birth of the Savior has a story. But only one of them gets her own book. Ruth is the only book in the Old Testament named for a non-Israelite. Jewish Rabbis consider Ruth to be the crown jewel of the Law, the Prophets and the Writings. Ruth was so important to them that they didn’t know where to put it in the order of Old Testament books because it embodies the heart and the Spirit of every single book in the Old Testament. All of Old Testament Scripture points to the coming of our Savior and redeemer. But in Ruth all of those hopes, fears and promises come to us in a story. A story about how the plan of salvation hung precariously in the balance of human sin and divine faithfulness. How Christmas was saved by an immigrant girl who was willing to give up everything to show the little town of Bethlehem what God is really like. For the next four weeks of Advent we will be in this amazing prequel to the Christmas story that I hope will quickly become one of your favorite stories.

The best gifts are those that totally take us by surprise, but with a surprise gift comes the risk of disappointment. Have you ever been disappointed with a Christmas gift? Maybe you didn’t get the thing on your list but got something else instead? A surprise gift makes a great Christmas; a disappointing gift can ruin a Christmas. That’s the great thing about Santa Claus, right? He gets you exactly what was on your list. He doesn’t deviate, he doesn’t try to get creative or sentimental or go out on a limb and improvise; Santa never disappoints you. But he never really surprises you either. But when it comes to gifts, I think that the sweetest and best gift is actually the gift that you never knew you needed, a gift you didn’t even know to put on your list. But someone who knows you best gives it to you, knowing deep down that it is exactly what you need and want. And that is exactly the kind of gift we celebrate at Christmas. The record of the events of the very first Christmas tell us that those who came to the cradle and the manger were seeking something, but they found something they never expected. And ultimately, that is our question on this Christmas. Do we want a Heavenly Father who doesn’t always give us everything on our list, who risks disappointing us in the short term in order to surprise us with a gift we didn’t know that we desperately need?

If you are not a follower of Christ, the idea of resurrection may sound completely unbelievable; indeed, even Jesus’ closest followers struggled with His claims that He would die and be raised. But Christians also have two challenges when it comes to resurrection: some Christians will over-emphasize the cross at the expense of the resurrection. And other Christians still will declare the importance of the resurrection, but can only imagine its significance as having future value for believers awaiting the new creation. It can be easy to miss, but the miracle of resurrection is clear and evident from the very beginning of the Christmas story. Join us this morning as we look at Simeon’s prophecy in Luke 2 and are brought to understand and appreciate the true gravity of the miracle of resurrection.

The phrase “deafening silence” could adequately describe the 400 years of history between the last book in the Old Testament and the angel announcing the birth of the promised Savior on that first Christmas morning. Imagine your experience of God as a burning bush, an audible voice, a pillar of cloud and fire traveling before you. He parted the sea and provided bread from heaven; He consumed your enemies and went before you in battle in miraculous ways; He spoke clearly and often through His prophets. And then silence. Do you feel that way sometimes in your walk with God? The gospel writer Luke, in recounting the Christmas story, wants God’s people to once again know that the Spirit of God has awakened; that the early rays of dawn are showing themselves in our darkness. Luke opens his gospel with the Holy Spirit at work, filling His people. Elizabeth is filled with the Spirit; the baby in her womb is filled with the Spirit and leaps for joy; Zechariah is filled with the Spirit and once again begins to praise and prophesy. But the biggest miracle of Christmas is what the Holy Spirit does in Mary, the mother of Jesus. I know this can seem like a familiar text, but let’s listen with fresh and expectant ears.

This week starts the season of Advent, the season of waiting for and anticipating the coming of Jesus which we will celebrate at Christmas. And for the kid in all of us, it begins the season to think about giving and getting gifts. It can sound unspiritual and worldly to talk about presents at Christmas. But isn’t that what we are celebrating? The joy in receiving the greatest gift ever, Jesus Himself. We are getting ready to celebrate this miracle of Christmas, but when we look at the whole of Scripture, that first miracle of that baby born on Christmas night was just the beginning of other miracles that would come. Because in that manger was not only the greatest gift the world has ever known, but also the greatest gift giver the world has ever known. Sometimes we don’t see it, because we stop at the manger; we stop at the cross. But Jesus is present with us every day in even more miraculous ways than those. So this season we are going to look ahead to all the miraculous ways that Jesus comes to us starting with the fact that He is Immanuel, God with us.

The truth about Christmas is that we can so easily miss it as it passes us by because our eyes are fixed on so many other things. It’s not that we easily miss the day. No matter what you believe about Christmas or how much you pay attention to it, it really does completely invade our calendars and our lives once a year. There is no missing the actual day. But often things like presents, family, parties, lights, decorations, baking, preparations, credit card bills and traditions, sometimes all of those things begin to become the only lens through which we view Christmas. And Christmas comes and goes and we miss what we need most about Christmas. And the amazing thing is that the Bible tells us that those who were right next to the events of that first Christmas over 2000 years ago almost missed it too. They really barely noticed it. But when they finally did notice it, it brought them so much joy it could barely be contained. What they almost missed is the same thing that you and I are in danger of missing each Christmas. With our fast paced lives that baby king, that fragile savior in that manger, is still just as ignorable as He was on that first Christmas if we let it. So let’s take a look back at that first Christmas night and see what it has to say about our own Christmas two thousand and twenty some years later.

The Christmas story is one filled with joy and wonder. Over and over in the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke, Scripture says: “And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at His birth.” Angels tell shepherds, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” Mary exclaims, “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” When the wise men saw the star they “rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.” And it truly is a time of joy and wonder when we allow ourselves to stop and consider all that God has done. But embedded in the Christmas narrative is a dark and troubling moment that is easy to overlook amid all the joy: Herod murdering all the male children of Bethlehem. It’s hard to imagine among all the rejoicing something so tragic, and so evil as this. Joy seems to take a backseat to tears and weeping. So let’s look at this part of the story this morning and what it might be saying to us in our final week before Christmas. Because the troubling parts of the story have just as much to say to us as the encouraging parts.

We are in the third week of our advent series, “Missing Home” because many of us miss home during the holidays. But also because with all the frantic busyness of the holidays, it’s easy to miss what Christmas is trying to tell us. One of those things that we can miss is just how unbelievable some of the elements in the Christmas story are. Wise men being led by a heavenly object toward where the Savior lay. Angels and prophecies. But perhaps especially, the virgin birth of Christ. According to a 2017 study, a narrow majority of Americans still believe in the virgin birth but that number has been rapidly declining every year for decades. And some Christians will get mad about that saying, “Christmas is ruined!” or “We need to take back Christmas!” But we need to realize that Mary and Joseph didn’t believe it either! They needed a dream and an angel to tell them what was happening. Because a virgin birth IS unbelievable. Many of the elements of that very first Christmas ARE unbelievable. Even for those who hoped in its coming.

If you are accustomed to hearing the Christmas story you are used to it starting out something like this: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” But what we often forget is that there are 17 verses that come before that familiar start to the the account of Christ’s birth. Granted they aren’t very exciting for us. But Jewish readers and rabbis at the time regarded the first 17 verses of the Christmas account as a miracle on the same level as the parting of the Red Sea. We are in our Advent series leading up to Christmas called “Missing Home,” because many of us miss home during the holidays if we are away. But also because with the rush and busyness of the holidays, it’s easy to miss what Christmas says about our true home; it’s easy to miss what Christmas tries to slow us down to hear in the month to come. And it’s easy to miss all of the hope and fulfillment that are hidden in the first 17 verses of Matthew’s account of the Christmas narrative. So, let’s read it together and see how the Christmas story really begins.