I'm about to talk about excitement, and that certainly got that spirit of excitement going within me this morning. I'm talking about this excitement that I have for advent, for the season of advent. Like a lot of people get really stoked for Christmas, like love Christmas, especially in our younger years, especially in our younger years, but I love advent. Like I love advent more than I love Christmas, potentially.
I love advent, that it's kind of embarrassing that I love it so much. Case in point, a few months ago, sometime back in October, Chad and I had sat down for a planning meeting, and we were getting ready to go our separate ways, and I was working on my computer, and he was packing up his stuff, and he was getting ready to go. But as he left, he said, hey, Allison, don't let me forget, next time we sit down to talk, we need to talk about advent. Well, simply at the mention of the word advent, my entire body posture changed.
I like, perked up, turned towards him, and this ridiculous smile across my face, like absurd. I got so excited at the mention of the word advent that I startled myself. You know, like when babies sneeze and they don't know where that comes from, that it's like a woman who's like, oh, I love them. You know, as a grown woman, I got startled by my own excitement.
My love of advent is slightly embarrassing, but that's, I love advent, because of the things we get to talk about in advent, the things we get to do in advent, in advent, we get to prepare, we get to decorate things. I think it was 12.01 AM on November 29th, which was the first day of advent that I got out my nativity scene and put it up in my living room. I like singing advent songs, and advent songs are not Christmas songs, because Christmas songs announce that Jesus has been born, but advent songs speak to the reality of our waiting, of our preparation. A lot of us love that song, O come, O come, Emmanuel.
That's an advent song. One of my favorite advent song is O come, Bal Long, Expected Jesus. And if you haven't heard that one, I know there's a version of it up on the Foundry Spotify Christmas playlist, so you should definitely check that out at some point. But I love advent, because in advent, we get to talk about God's in-breaking, the way that God breaks into our world in unexpected ways and comes among us.
I think it's cool how advent wraps up time, the past, the present, and the future all into one season. Oh, for the past couple weeks we here have been talking about advent for filament, and that has been exciting to me the way the Old Testament scripture speaks truth that is fulfilled by the truth of who Jesus Christ is. I love advent. Advent is exciting.
I get excited for advent. I get excited in advent. I'll be sad when advent is over. Oh, but my advent excitement, especially in the past couple of years, has been coupled with a sort of advent anxiety, an advent angst, if you will.
This anxiety comes somewhat simply from the fact that I'm getting older, but I'm gaining some new perspectives and have had some experiences that have allowed me to understand that things aren't often as simple as they seem on the surface, that there's layers and layers and layers of complexity in most situations we encounter in life. But my advent anxiety also comes from this realization that I've had that yes, advent comes before Christmas, but it also comes after Christmas. We as a church, we celebrate, we do advent for the four Sundays before Christmas, and in that season we wait for the coming of Jesus amongst us. We long for the fulfillment of God's promises.
And then December 25th happens, Christmas happens, our waiting is over for filament has happened. And that's the end of the story, right? Well, then again, the next year we find ourselves in advent. Again, again, we wait.
Again, we long for. Also, this begs the question, how do we wait for something that has already happened? How is it that we still long for fulfillment when we claim that fulfillment has taken place? I think the most difficult thing for me, the most challenging and angst producing thing for me is this.
Is it when I think about last advent, I think about advent 2014 or advent 2013, and how it was that when I looked out into our world what I saw was brokenness, what I encountered at times was pain, what we experienced at times was chaos and confusion. But now here we are in advent 2015 and we still look into our world and we still see brokenness, pain, chaos, and confusion. Now, my advent excitement is coupled with an advent angst. And we're here at Foundry and so we're not going to shy away from the difficult things.
We're not going to shy away from the things that bring us anxiety that cause us a sense of angst instead. We're going to jump right into those things, dive right into those things. And so this morning we're going to do something that we've been doing. We've been looking at a text out of the Old Testament prophets and then a text out of our Gospel texts.
And this morning we're going to do something a little unusual. We're going to read the New Testament passage before we read the Old Testament passage. And when we do this, I think maybe with this tension, this anxiety will rise to the surface a little bit. We all might feel it just a little more.
But I also think we'll see something else that happens in Advent, something new maybe. And we'll remember why Christmas is so important. And then I hope and I pray that we'll be pointed towards God who will point us toward our Advent task. But before we do any of that before I say anything else, we'll just pray with me real quick.
Got me the words that I say this morning, whether they come from a place of Advent excitement or Advent anxiety, may they be the words that I need to speak and may these be the words that we need to hear so that we can become the people you need us to be in this Advent season. For sons who is indeed the light of the world, we pray. So I need to tell you something for me this morning. I need you to remember where you were last Christmas.
And if you can't remember that, try and just remember where you were the last time that you heard the Christmas story in the Christmas season. Maybe you were at a church holding a candle into the silent night. Maybe you were in your living room watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special. Maybe you were at your child's Christmas pageant.
Maybe it's been a lot of Christmases ago. But remember that Christmas moment. Remember that Christmas feeling as I read for us the Christmas story and not necessarily the storybook narrative version that we find in Matthew and Luke. But this more poetic version we find in the Gospel of John.
So we're going to read this morning, John 1, verses 1 through 5 and then verse 14. So if you want to read along, or it's on the screen as well. And it says this. In the beginning the word already existed.
The word was with God and the word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him and nothing was created except through him. The word gave life to everything that was created and his life brought light to everyone.
The light that shines in the darkness and the darkness can ever extinguish it. So the word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory.
The glory of the Father's one and only Son. Now the word became human and made his home among us. This is the Christmas moment. This is the moment of fulfillment.
The Gospel of John marks this moment 2,000 years ago when God made good on God's promise to come and to be among us. On John uses this interesting language for Jesus as the word of God. And this language points us to the reality that Jesus was God's Son. The one to whom he revealed to us who God was.
From that Christmas moment forward no longer did we no longer do we have to guess who God is. All we have to do is turn towards and look at Jesus. And there we will find there we will see God's glory fully revealed. The word became human and made his home among us.
In that moment in that Christmas moment God broke into the world like a beam of light breaks into a pitch of black room. In that Christmas moment everything changed. The darkness that had a grip on humanity that had a hold on humanity no longer had that power. Y'all end the moment in that Christmas moment the light of the world was given unto us.
So do you feel it? Do you remember it? That Christmas feeling that Christmas moment. Well back to reality.
Here we are again in Advent. Here we find ourselves in a season that comes before Christmas but also after Christmas. In Advent one of our tasks as the church is this. It's to look back to the prophets of the Old Testament and this Chad reminded us so well a few weeks ago that the task of the prophets were not so much future telling but truth telling.
So we've been in the book of Isaiah for the past couple of weeks and looking at his words of truth about the promises of God and the hope we have because of those promises. And so this morning we're going to look again in Isaiah and in that passage there is words of hope. There are words of promise. But we'll also see sort of the other side of the coin of Isaiah's truth telling task.
Part of his prophetic career part of his job was to point out the reality at hand for those that he told truth to. So to point out the reality at hand for the Israelites and the reality was that most of the time those Israelites were in a really bad spot. Whether they found themselves on the brink of war in the midst of war being carried off into captivity facing death and destruction. Whether they were in captivity in exile in a foreign land longing for restoration, longing to be returned and waiting over the waiting for salvation.
And so this morning if we're going to look in Isaiah chapter 8 verses 8 21 through 9 to you'll read along with me once more. It says they being the Israelites will go from one place to another weary and hungry and because they were hungry they will rage and curse their king and their god. They will look up to heaven and down at earth but wherever they look they'll see trouble and anguish and dark despair. They'll be thrown out into the darkness.
Nevertheless Isaiah says that time of darkness and despair won't go on forever. The lands of Zebulan and Neftali will be humbled but there will be a time in the future when Galilee of the Gentiles which lies along the road that runs between Jordan and the sea will be filled with glory. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness a light will shine.
I said a moment ago that Isaiah spoke truth to those Israelites but that his words still speak truth to us. And I don't know about you but that passage rings true to me because sometimes I think that maybe the best descriptor for humanity might be a people who walk in darkness. But I don't think we have to look on the scale of humanity as a whole to feel this feeling to see the darkness, to see the shadows of darkness creeping in around us. I think we are in touch with that reality whether it's through death or depression, disunion, dysfunction or simply despair.
And many times in our lives and in the lives of our community darkness is a real thing. We become, we feel like those people who walk in darkness and we long for life lived in the light. So again I ask you do you feel it? Can you feel that tension between Advent before Christmas but also Advent after Christmas?
This anxiety caused between longing and fulfillment and longing again. And now and the not yet is the title of our Advent series goes. Now this is my Advent angst but I think in some way or another it's all of our Advent anxiety wherever it is we found ourselves. But I also said that my Advent angst, my Advent anxiety doesn't stand alone.
It stands paired with Advent excitement. And of course there's the excitement from decorating and singing good songs and all of those things. But there's also the excitement that is tied directly into this gospel truth that we read earlier. We read that the word became human and made his home among us.
God has acted, Christmas has happened, incarnation has happened. Incarnation is just the fancy way to say that God put on flesh and blood and moved into our neighborhood. The story of Christmas is the story of the incarnation. When we think about that story you know the one that involves Mary and Joseph and the stable and the animals and the stars.
You know that one. When you think about that one for just a second you realize the way that God came into our world was not a way that most people expected. It was a pretty unusual way. Now God came into the world like we all come into the world as a baby born of a mother.
When you think about this amazing act of love this thing that God did for us to change everything you realize that not only was it amazing but that it was kind of risky. If you haven't noticed by now being a human it's pretty risky business. Being a baby human is even more risky business if you will. Now this week I had a really wonderful opportunity to spend some time with two little ones too in fence and in both of those occasions as I held them and as I played with them as I looked in their precious little eyes as I touched their little fingers and toes I realized something that probably most of you realize more than I do that these little ones they are vulnerable.
They are susceptible to the realities to the environment around them. They are dependent deeply dependent on those who care for them. Now God came into the world in the way that we all come into the world and to me that is amazing that the light of the world the light that no darkness can overcome the light that gives life came into the world in this way. God's glory is revealed to us and one who looks like us and one who is like us.
Now I say all of that to say something that one of our church fathers and when I say church fathers these were one of these guys who helped organize the life of the early Jesus movement. He preached and he taught and he had ministered and this guy's name was Irenaeus and he said this about the Christmas moment. He said because of his boundless love Jesus became what we are that he might make us what he is. Let me say that again.
Because of his boundless love Jesus became what we are that he might make us what he is. Now Jesus became human so that we might become more like him. Ones who reveal the glory of God. Now don't hear me saying that somehow we are God because that tried statement that God is God and we are not still remains true.
But what also remains true is that we are the children of God and because we are the children of God we have indeed received the light. We have received the light which no darkness can extinguish. We have received the light which brings light which brings life to everything that there is. And the somewhere between Advent excitement and Advent anxiety I think that we find our Advent task.
And our Advent task is this. It's to remember that Christmas happened. It's to remember that God's glory was revealed that God's glory is being revealed. That even as we wait that even as we still long for that even especially when we find ourselves walking in the darkness our Advent task is to remember that God has shown up.
Now Paul said it like this in Ephesians 5 he said, once you were people of the darkness once you were the darkness. But now you have received the light so go. So go live as people of the light. Go be the children of the light.
Also inside of Advent, outside of Advent an Advent that comes before Christmas an Advent that comes after Christmas in every Advent. Our task is to be the children of the light. You understand that sounds kind of like a tall order like an overwhelming task. And I won't deny that for us.
It's certainly not a small task. But what I also realize is that we as the children of God have the power to move in that direction especially as we do what Chad reminded us about last week is we listen for God and as we turn ourselves towards Jesus. He will make the path straight. He will make the way clear.
So as we journey towards Christmas and maybe even beyond as we ponder how it is we are to become the people of the light that children of the light. I just have a few questions for us. I wonder what it would look like for us, for each of us, for all of us to throw wide open the windows of our lives to let the light of God that has been given to us shine into the darkest places of our lives. I wonder that that light that gives life.
If what would happen when and if we do let that life give life, give breath to those places in our lives that seem lifeless. I wonder if we the children of the light knowing we have received the light, what it would look like if we started lighting the way, if we continued lighting the way for other people. When we encounter those stumbling around in the dark, our friends, our family, those we don't even know in our community. What it would look like for us to shine the flashlight before them, to make the next few steps of their path more clear or simply just to light a candle and walk next to them in the darkness.
I wonder what it would look like for us to continue joining all of our lights together to create this bigger light. That's something we're doing here and we're doing now to like this bigger light that will illuminate our entire community and in doing so eventually our entire world. How can we point to the places in the world in our world that so much is characterized by darkness? We point to the places where the flame of life and of Jesus' love is burning bright.
I don't know exactly what the answers are to all of those questions or how you'll answer them. But I do hope that you'll continue asking them, start asking them as we move towards Christmas and beyond. But what I do know is this, what as we sang earlier I can be confident in, is that Christmas has happened. God has acted in carnation, has happened.
God has shown up. We pray with me. Now you have shown up, you are showing up and again you will show up. So make our hearts, make our minds, make our spirits, make our homes, make our communities ready for your coming now and in the coming days.
You are big enough, you are a light that shines in the darkness that nothing, nothing can ever extinguish. We love you. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.