Christmas Hope
So far this month, we’ve covered many different emotions of this season. Each one has been integral to the uniqueness of Christmas, this feeling and emotion that goes well beyond simply being happy. For it’s hard not to admit that this evening feels different. There’s a feeling here that isn’t found anywhere else. This feeling is what we’ve attempted to put into words these last few weeks. We talk about this season being a season of love, joy, and peace. For we learned that love isn’t just warm fuzzy feelings. Love isn’t that emotion of attachment to other individuals. Love is to take responsibility towards someone. And joy, joy is one that surprises us. We don’t make ourselves joyful. Rather, joy finds us. Joy finds us when we find out how much others care for us. And peace. Peace isn’t just a lack of fighting among family, or a lack of wars in the world. Peace is a unity and tranquility that is felt. Peace is the knowledge that no evil can ever befall us to so uproot our lives because we’re defended by one who is the mightiest of all. For all of these emotions, love, joy, and peace, are found here tonight because we come to realize that this is what God is doing now for us in Christ. God has loved us by taking responsibility for our sins. God gives us joy by showing just how much he cares for us. God establishes a peace for us because he has brought to an end every fight that rages within us. All this he does by sending Jesus to be born. This special feeling tonight comes from the little child laid in a manger.
But, there’s one last piece to this puzzle. There’s one last emotion that we haven’t covered that will finally round off the uniqueness of this night. It’s hope! For while many emotions are temporary, hope is the one that endures. Hope is what holds all these together, not just for a short while, but forever. Tonight, let us discover again this hope as we learn:
BY HIS BIRTH, JESUS UNITES THE FAMILY OF GOD!
I.
What does it mean to have hope? Hope is an expectation for better things. It’s a longing for better circumstances. Hope is always forward minded, yet grounded on past actions. For the basis of our hope is looking at the change or possibility for change around us to lead us to our desired outcome. And this is where most people struggle. When we look at human history, we don’t really see much reason for hope. Join with Adam and Eve first in the garden. “But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself,” Genesis 3:9-10. The perfect first family fell apart because of one temptation, the desire to be God. For once Adam and Eve fell, it was no longer us, but you and me. Perfect unity falls into the blame game. As if this were bad enough, the rest of history isn’t much better. As Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun,” Eccl. 1:9. If we’re looking for hope in man changing his ways, we’ll always be sorely disappointed.
The entrance of sin into the world has fractured the family of God. It has driven wedges between parents and children, brothers and sisters, and even between husbands and wives. For throughout the pages of Scripture, we see this brokenness time and time again. And we shouldn’t be surprised because it’s the same brokenness we see today in our world, even within ourselves, within our own families. Man has wandered away from God. We’ve become lost in our way. Consider Isaiah as he speaks to King Ahaz, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” Isaiah 7:13-14. If we look to the world and seek after hope, we’ll find none. Man by himself is incapable of the change we seek.
II.
For how shall we overcome this great obstacle? Where shall we find hope in a world that seems so hopeless? We seek for peace, love, and joy. We seek for one who can bring these things to us in abundance. We seek for Jesus. He is our hope. Thus, hear the angel tell of the news to Mary, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end,” Luke 1:31-33. The virgin shall conceive and we shall call his name Immanuel... God with us. Jesus is the change we seek. God has sent Jesus to be born in our flesh. He sends us Jesus to bridge the gap of our sins. He comes to call back all those who wander away and by sin have become lost to the family of God. “For nothing will be impossible with God,” Luke 1:37. By this small child, God unites again Heaven and Earth. He has come to walk among us as in the Garden. He’s come to call us his brother and sister. He’s come to heal us by his mighty power, undo the evil of our hearts with his mercy, and to forgive us our sins!
On this most holy of nights, we realize again that we have hope. Hope for broken relationships. Hope for a brighter tomorrow. Hope for a world freed from suffering, and sin, and death. We have hope because Jesus has come to change all that is broken in us. This little child will change you and me. Jesus shall bring us back into the family of God taking all division and sin and strife into himself. Jesus shall bring us back to God by allowing himself to be cut off. This baby just born shall one day go to the cross to die for you and me. By his death, shall God make us alive. By his death, shall God restore. By his death, shall God raise him and us up to dwell in holiness and righteousness forever! On this Christmas, we have hope. Hope in Christ that the love, joy, and peace of God shall overflow abundantly to us as God unites again heaven and earth in this child.
This is our hope, that God has come to dwell among us through this child born in a manger. We have hope through Jesus that God’s love, joy, and peace shall so fill our hearts and minds and overflow to all people. By Jesus’ birth, we have hope that we shall see a new heavens and a new earth and that we shall dwell with God forever! In Jesus’ name! Amen!