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.

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.

This Christmas we may need a lot of things. We may need more money, deeper family connection, a new job, or maybe our health back. This Christmas we may need a lot of things. But what we really need is peace; a settled peace that nothing can shake. And that is the message of that first Christmas, and every Christmas, that we need so badly. That peace on earth is possible. Not the absence of war, but a deeper peace even than that. The peace on earth promised on that first Christmas means an existence without fear. A peace that brings with it light and hope and doesn’t depend on us having it all together, being in control, or knowing what the coming year will bring. Peace with God again, and peace with one another again. That’s why we need Christmas so badly. Because what we really need is peace - our Prince of Peace.

We’ve been going through the titles of Jesus in Isaiah 9 as a church this Advent season, anticipating the celebration of Christmas and the coming of our Lord. In Isaiah 9 the anticipated child to be born to save Israel is named ‘Everlasting Father’: what does it mean for this baby to be called our Everlasting Father? It can be difficult for us when we hear of God being referred to as ‘Father’ because we immediately imagine our own earthly fathers and place our own experiences, good or bad, of our own fathers onto God. So let’s look at what the text has to say for us, pointing us towards our immensely good and Everlasting Father.

The holidays often come with a storage problem. Where do we put all of the stuff we asked for or didn’t ask for? And here is what is also true: when it comes to our lives, our thoughts and our emotions around the holidays, we can also have a storage problem. We are burdened and stressed out by all sorts of things. Some things that we brought on ourselves but a lot of things we didn’t ask for. Finishing school well, holiday travel, Christmas parties, cleaning the house, endless gift lists, stuff to bake, stuff to buy. Maybe Christmas reminds us of hard relationships, or loved ones we have lost. People who are in our home that we wish would leave. A child who is far away from home. When it comes to all of the burdens, stresses and sorrows that can get amplified by the holidays, we can have a storage problem as well. Sometimes we just don’t know where to put our burdens, our struggles, our sorrows or our stress. But we have to store them somewhere. So we carry around fear as a pit in our stomach, we carry hurt in our hearts, and we carry burdens and responsibilities on our shoulders. And yet the very meaning of Christmas, the good news of what actually happened on that first Christmas, offers an invitation that all who are burdened in life need desperately to hear and to consider. We need Christmas and we need the Mighty God.

We need Christmas this year. Not more presents, or more nutmeg or peppermint, or movies about saving Christmas. We need Christmas. We have always needed Christmas, even BEFORE the very first Christmas. In fact, Christmas—God with us, as one of us, to save us—was the plan for our world all along. 700 years BEFORE the very first Christmas, in the time when the prophets wrote about the coming of that baby in a manger, people were feeling the same way as we are today. A maniacal king, King Ahaz, ruled the land. Faith, religion and spirituality had stopped providing any answers because they had become a harmful mix of idolatry and evil and just downright awful. There was war and struggle and fear of war. And in the midst of that, a prophet of God most High named Isaiah received a promise to pass on to God’s people that we now use as one of our main Christmas texts. For the next four weeks, through the time we call Advent leading up to Christmas, we will talk about each of these names for Jesus who came to offer us forgiveness of everything we have ever done, past present and future. To give us a new start and bring us back into right relationship with God. That is the good news we call the gospel. That’s what we celebrate at Christmas. And each one of these names tells us something about that good news! The first name for the coming Savior Jesus is: Wonderful Counselor. We need a Wonderful Counselor this year.

We will have a family friendly in-person candlelight service at Homestead Elementary; enjoy your favorite Christmas carols, candlelight, and a short Christmas message.

Join us for Part 3 of our series “Joy To The Troubled World” as we look at ways to have joy even in the midst of hard times.

Does life just carry you along sometimes with its ups and downs? What if there was an ever-present joy that was possible no matter what life throws at you? Join us as we continue in our Christmas series “Joy To The Troubled World” looking at the Christmas story together--a perfect story for troubled times.