Christmas Eve Service

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0:00 I was thinking about that, like almost like reading Twas the Night before Christmas and Luke 2 in parallel. They both are written so beautifully, right? And when they're read by someone that knows how to read, well, they sound lovely, right? And but there's something different, at least for me, there's something different about the Luke 2 story

0:31 than the Twas the Night before Christmas story. There's something different there. And that's what I want to think about a little bit this evening. I know it's Christmas Eve, and you guys have had maybe a busy day, and you've got maybe a few more things tonight. And then, of course, tomorrow is a big day. So it can be hard to kind of like pause the momentum of your day and think deeply about much of anything. But I want to invite us to do that together for just a few minutes as we think about why we're here

1:02 at all this evening and why we have this season every year. It comes back. It comes in the same story every year and why we do that. And the last couple of weeks, as we moved through the Advent season, we mentioned that four weeks ago, the church marked the beginning of a new church year. And that every year, for generations upon generations,

1:34 the church has started their year the same way. They stack up four weeks preparing to celebrate today the celebration of the incarnation. Those four weeks leading up to it are Advent. So we've been considering what it means that we have this incarnation. And four weeks ago, we talked about the reality that if we look objectively at our lives, we might easily come to the conclusion

2:06 that we need some kind of savior if things will ever be set to write. We talked a little bit about how that we can make amends for mistakes that we've made in the past. We can go back to people whom we have hurt or neglected and do our best to repair what was broken and absolve what was done wrong. But no matter how much healing and processing we move through,

2:42 we cannot undo what's been done. We can't walk time backwards and make different choices. We walk one way. So in one sense, if things will ever be set all the way to write, we need some kind of divine intervention into our lives. And then, of course, we said we might need a savior because even if we had moved perfectly through existence,

3:15 which our wager none of us have, we all walk this straight line towards the end. And if we hold out hope for something beyond the grave, we'll need something besides us to take us there. We said that we are people who need a savior. And then we talked about this fight, promise of God,

3:45 that this problem of humanity, this fatal flaw that requires divine intervention, is the plot that sets the whole story of scripture into motion. That at the very beginning, all the way at the very beginning of the text, we find that humanity has this fatal flaw that has bound it to a life where it experiences guilt, shame, fear, isolation, when it was not meant for such a life.

4:16 When we find that at the very beginning, the story, humanity was meant for a different kind of life. And so the question is, will divine intervention come? And when you read through the story of scripture, you see that the God is promising a deliverer. In the prophet Isaiah, we saw, he said, that there will be one who comes, who sits on the throne of David and the rules forever. We talked three weeks ago about that throne of David, that it would be a king who rules with a complete peace

4:54 with proper and dignified justice, with pervasive and persistent mercy. The God of the story of scripture says there's coming a king who will invite people to live in a world with perfect justice, peace, mercy, generosity. These things will have their way when the throne of David is restored.

5:25 And of course, Jesus is the promise we looked at when Peter said that Jesus then sits on the throne where David died, Jesus didn't. And then my favorite two weeks ago, we looked at this word that comes to describe Jesus as Emmanuel. I love the idea that there is a good God in the world,

6:13 and he goes through everything to stand next to me. In Matthew, Jesus is given the name, Emmanuel, which is an ancient name for our people. It came out of the thinking of God through the prophet Isaiah, out into Israel, written in the scripture, preserved through generations and come back to you that you might entertain the idea that there is a good God

6:49 who has gone through everything to be next to you. I had this conversation with a friend just this week who's had a very hard year. Anybody else? He had a particularly hard year and he was asking me how I wasn't mad at God

7:21 for the hardship I had been through. Just honestly, like trying to figure out a frame of reference that would keep him from being mad at God, for having to go through the hard things. It's interesting because first I told him, I think it's perfectly fine to be mad at God after the year that you had. I think it's a fair question if you felt like God wasn't there

7:51 for you to ask God, hey, where the heck are you? This is a fair question for you to ask. But if you ask me how I'm not mad at God, if I think back through the hard points of my life, it never occurred to me that God wasn't there. The God Emmanuel who was with me was the reason I persevered through the hard times.

8:21 It always felt like if things got hard, I could look over my shoulder and ask God, what the heck's going on? And what do you have next? In Matthew, Jesus is called Emmanuel. Because through some miracle of the divine will and forethought, we talked about last week, the logic and intent,

8:56 the word of God, found a way to squeeze itself down into the flesh of the person of Jesus. God is called Emmanuel because in some kind of mind-blowing reality, the God of the universe found a way to be both divine and man at the same time, to hold all power and all empathy at the same time,

9:28 to hold infinite and finite together, to hold justice and mercy in the same person. The God of the universe can be Emmanuel because like John 1 1 tells us, the word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. So when I thought back, we've been talking about that. If you haven't been with us over the last four weeks, those are the four ideas we spent advent on.

10:02 And when I thought back through that thought, man, what have we been preparing for, well, Christmas is crazy. Like this story is bonkers. And it can be easy because you've been through it every year, and you put on my Christmas Eve clothes today, my Christmas Eve's Jews,

10:35 you put on your Christmas clothes, you know, you've been through it every year. And so it's very easy to move through the traditions and forget the immense, like preposterous nature of the story of Christmas, its preposterous. I need you to see how absurd the story of the incarnation is if ever you'll reap the benefits of it.

11:13 The story of Christmas will never check all your logical boxes. You can't make it rational or reasonable. God becoming human born to a virgin woman in a manger outside of a town because there is no room for them in the inn. Right? I mean, it's crazy.

11:47 Which is why the message where the big people in the room is the same as the message for the little ones. You have a beautiful invitation this evening to believe a preposter's story.

12:19 Look, all the when you allow yourself to believe that there is a good God in the world who has created you with forethought and intent, not by accident but on purpose, has intended a future for you that is good. And in order for you to get there must reunite you with that divine.

12:49 And he does the reunification with the divine through the person of Jesus at Christmas. And when you allow yourself to believe it, it animates your life and takes you off into something forever. You can't talk yourself into it. You can't logic your way through it. You read the story and invite yourself to believe it. That's all. I was looking at in this Advent season, we've been bouncing back and forth between the Gospels and genius Paul, the first missionary of the church.

13:24 And I was looking at his prayer for the Colossians. Paul, you know, he walks around Asia Minor and he announces on street corners and in synagogues that the king of all kings has arrived. Good news, he's established a reign. The reign will endure forever. You and I can live under the reign of the God now. And when he returns, we go with him forever. Paul stands on street corners and in synagogues. He walks around Asia Minor for years, right?

13:59 Siprech, stone, run out of towns, continue to preach. And each place he does, a group of people are captured by the story of Christmas and the life of Jesus in the first century. And those people gather together. And when Paul leaves town, they continue to gather together. You know, these are the ancestors of little churches like this. People gathering in quiet out of the way places to be reminded of the story which informs their identity, which tells them who they are, the place they take up in the world, and the story they're a part of that goes on forever.

14:35 That the thing that we're doing here, little bands of people have been doing quietly in every country, on every continent, right under every ruler since the time of Jesus, because the preposterous story of Christmas has a supernatural power to sustain and enliven and embolden people. It moves hard hearts to soft. It moves anger to generosity. It changes pessimism and despair to hope.

15:11 And so Paul walks throughout Asia Minor, starting kicking this off, right? And as he leaves, he goes on and they have questions. They gather together like this. And somebody asks a question and nobody knows the answer. So they write a letter, send it out to Paul wherever he is. He writes a letter back. And that's how we have our New Testament. And I was looking at one of the little letters that Paul writes back to the church that he started in Colossae.

15:41 And he said, he's so enamored and excited that these little band of people in this little town somehow have the capacity to believe the preposterous story of Jesus and Nazareth. He can't believe it, that they accepted it's true. It's crazy. He's so excited that they believe. And he says, and so from the day we heard that you believe, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his, God's will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

16:18 So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, he's saying, it is possible for you to live lives in a common way. In accordance with the satisfying will of the divine force of the universe, that you wherever you are in your life, trying to figure out what you do for jobs, where you live, who you will be with, where you will spend your time, has the capacity to be in line with the God of the universe.

16:55 This is the outgrowth of the story of Christmas. And Paul is saying, when you believe you can do this, and I pray that you might, and I want to get just down to the end of what Paul says. So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, he says, may you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience and joy. Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in his inheritance of the saints in light.

17:31 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. You all, I don't know what this next year will bring for you. I don't know like the particular challenges and blessings that you are all stewarding. But I do know that the story of Christmas holds in it the preposterous truth that can direct you in life and fill you with the joy and the perseverance to continue forward.

18:15 In a life that you will enjoy and will please the divine and launch you into forever. I'm praying this evening for you all, like Paul did for the church in Colossic, that you might just believe, all the way. The key that you might just go all in with the story of Jesus, let it be your animator and experience the benefits of it this season.

18:49 Let me pray. Hey Lord, thank you for the gift of Christmas and your son Jesus the Christ. Thank you for that light of life that you brought into the world. Let it take hold of us. Good Lord, give us faith this evening. Allow us to believe your story all the way and reap the benefits thereof.

19:22 In Jesus' name we pray.