Advent - Love and Light

Now on to the thing that you've all been waiting for.

My final sermon of the year.

Merry Christmas.

My name, Andrea, that was a little too strong to laugh.

I mean, it was meant to be funny, but not that funny.

My name is Greg Hampton.

If I've never met you,

I would love to meet you.

I'm looking at a couple of you that I've never met before.

I would love to meet you and buy you coffee.

Let me know after the service.

Shake my hand or fill the connection card out

and we'll make sure to connect.

I would love to get to know you and your story.

Today is the last Sunday of Advent.

And because today is also Christmas Eve,

today is about two things.

We've gone through hope, gone through peace.

Jen brought us a message about joy last week.

And today, both subjects of love and light

come through in our message.

And so let's just jump right in to the book of John.

If you don't have your own Bible,

there's physical Bibles out on the bookshelf

that you can grab, take home with you.

They're blue, they're free.

Just take one, take one for a neighbor

if you think that they would need that.

And if you'd like to download a Bible from digital app store,

there's a lot of options like that as well.

We like to give the scriptures our full attention

when we read them at this part of the service.

And one of the ways to do that is to stand.

You're not required to stand.

It's just a little tradition that some of us do.

And so those of you that would like to join me

in standing for the reading of John 1, verses 9 through 14,

John 1:9–14

can join me now.

I'm reading the Amplified Version.

It says this, verse 9.

There it was, the true light, the genuine, perfect,

steadfast light, which coming into the world

enlightens everyone.

He was in the world.

And though the world was made through him,

the world did not recognize him.

I'm going to jump to 14.

And the word became flesh and lived among us.

And we actually saw his glory.

Glorious belongs to the one and only begotten

son of the Father, the Son who is truly unique,

the only one of his kind, who is full of grace and truth,

absolutely free of deception.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the scriptures,

the way that they have persisted throughout the millennia

that we can still read them, consider them.

I pray that today, whatever you have for us to learn,

I pray that it would stick, that it

would become a part of the framework of our faith,

that our faith would become stronger as we become

more like your son, Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Thanks, all.

You can have a seat.

All right.

So it's Christmas.

And because it's Christmas, I've been thinking about things

being opened, right?

Gifts will get opened all over the world.

The eyes of children will be bigger

than they have been all year long.

Parents will be ripped from their slumber

like wrapping paper torn from gifts.

Do you know what that means?

Paper torn from gifts, duvets all over America, comforters,

sheets, blankets.

And then the opening will commence.

Of course, my brain is weird.

And so I started thinking about all the other kinds of openings

that there are.

Packages, yes.

Thought about that.

But now there's like UPS packages.

I thought about cookies, cracker packages, candy packages.

And then late at night, I thought about how the fridge gets

opened for that midnight snack.

Thought about how stores have openings.

Did you see there's a Starbucks that's opening on 1st Street?

In Moline, it is as close to being in Rock Island

as you can be to Rock Island without being in Rock Island.

And speaking of, maybe they have job openings.

In sports, you have a hole that can open up in your defense

defenses, structure, TV shows, plays, movies.

All your favorite songs, they have openings.

And I was thinking about how some things are open-ended.

Anyone that's ever been on the verge of a breakup or a job

ending, you know what this feels like.

That last conversation or meeting

didn't seem to clear things up.

Still open-ended.

That's not always comfortable.

This brings me back to Jesus.

I think the birth of Jesus was open-ended.

The opening of his eyes on Earth as human child

didn't answer every question, didn't end every debate.

Wars didn't suddenly cease.

Sickness didn't instantaneously disappear.

When you read the story of Simeon in Luke chapter 2,

Luke 2 · chapter mention

it says that the Lord had promised him in particular

that he would see the Messiah before he died.

And so as tradition had it, this young firstborn son

of a Jewish family was brought to the temple on a certain day.

And Simeon was there.

And he saw him.

And he literally prayed, now, God, you

may let your servant die in peace.

Simeon's waiting was over, but the waiting

continued for everyone else.

As Mary waited to see how the life of her son

would play out, how exactly would he save his people

from their sins?

That's what the angel said.

He will save his people from their sins.

How exactly would he end up on David's throne?

That's what the angel said.

He will sit on David's throne.

How exactly would he end up being called

the king of Jacob's people forever?

That's what the angel said.

For three decades between birth and adulthood,

between manger and cross, I'm sure

that there were things that were left or felt open-ended.

Even when Jesus's earthly ministry began,

the disciples that followed Him, they had their own ideas.

They had their own ideas of what was supposed to be going on,

of what was supposed to happen.

And the longer that they followed Jesus,

the more what they thought had been opened wasn't happening.

What they thought would come to an end seems to still continue.

What they thought would begin still

seemed like it was open-ended.

So what do I mean?

Well, for one, they saw Jesus healing

and bringing spiritual renewal.

But the disciples almost surely thought

that Jesus would bring peace as a political leader.

And they almost surely believed that peace would be won

through war, a war that would be led by Jesus.

It made no sense to them that a messiah would reject military

power or let himself be handed over to death on a cross.

But they believed that Jesus would bring peace

on a cross.

I don't think they were that much different than people

today, waging wars in the name of peace,

waging wars sometimes in the name of God.

So the gift of Jesus was opened.

But the gift of Jesus was open-ended.

And I think it's still open-ended.

There it was, the true light, the genuine, perfect, steadfast

light, which enlightens everyone.

John continues, he was in the world.

And though the world was made through him,

the world did not recognize him.

In two verses, John tells us, this light is for everyone,

but not everyone recognizes it.

The gift, the love of God in bodily form, the light of life

interred the world, but to some, he was still unrecognizable.

The good news is this, God is open-ended to those still

closed to him.

Jesus remains open to those that do not recognize him,

that do not want him, that do not think they need him.

That's what Peter was talking about in 2 Peter 3, 9,

when he said, the Lord does not delay his return as though he

were unable to act.

And he is not slow about his promise,

as some count slowness, but is extraordinarily patient

towards you, not wishing for any to perish,

but for all to come to repentance,

because Jesus is open-ended.

Jesus is the gift, opened on earth one night in Bethlehem,

and is still open to enlighten all the world today.

Guys, what I'm trying to say is this.

This is especially important as many of us

will be spending more time than normal,

maybe today or tomorrow, with family,

with people that probably think very differently

about the world than us.

Some of us have very diverse families

when it comes to thought, political in nature,

social in nature, you name it.

A lot of us have families that span the spectrum of how

we think.

Maybe you have family that thinks very differently

about God than you.

So what I'm saying is that we should not imagine that Jesus,

we should not imagine Jesus only being available to someone

the first time they hear about Jesus,

or the first time they hear a Bible verse,

or the first time they're invited to something as weird

as a worship service.

The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus,

and that gift is once and for all,

but that gift is not available only once.

If you don't notice it or understand it at first glance,

it's not gone forever.

The love of Jesus is the gift that is always there

waiting to be received.

It reminds me when I was younger.

It was probably around my teen years

when my sister and I were getting to the age

where cold hard cash would be a really great present

for us.

It was a time in my childhood when I was a kid.

And I remember going to a church where cold hard cash would

be a really great present to get for Christmas.

Some of you can probably relate.

And my parents, they started hiding envelopes

of cash in the Christmas tree.

Have any of you guys ever done that?

Kids, tonight, tomorrow, look in that tree.

So the first time this happened, we had no idea, right?

It never happened before.

This was a new precedent.

We didn't know that that was even allowed.

We'd never been given just money.

But the reality is that they were there the whole time.

Envelopes of money just hiding in the Christmas tree

with our names scrawled across the front.

So when we get done opening all the gifts that we noticed,

my mom or probably my dad said, well, hey, you know,

there might be one thing left.

You might want to take a harder look at the tree.

Imagine instead that we didn't know the envelopes were there.

We get done opening the obvious gifts

and then being told, well, there was one more gift.

But not only did you not notice it, you didn't open it.

So we're going to keep that for ourselves.

I don't believe in a God that hides and takes.

I believe in a God that reveals and opens.

I said, I do not believe in a God that hides His love

and takes back His promises.

I believe in a God that always reveals and is always open.

Jesus isn't hidden and forever unavailable

if you did not at first notice.

Instead, if you didn't see it, I think the Father reaches in,

moves things out of the way, makes the gift more obvious,

moves it closer where it's available within reach

and free.

The open-ended love and light of Jesus is like that,

like a Father giving a gift to the world that

wasn't noticed at first, but is still very much there

and available.

But then I suppose that another way to say this

is that Jesus doesn't need to be opened.

We do.

Our minds, our eyes, our hearts, our homes, our lives.

Jesus isn't the gift that needs to be opened every day.

Jesus is eternally open.

We need to be opened every day.

We need to see.

We need to see.

We need to see.

We need to see.

We need to see.

We need to see.

The first song we sang today, but now I see the light.

We need to be open to receive the love of God

born in human flesh.

And I wonder if today, this Christmas Eve,

if it's time for you to open yourself to Jesus,

maybe for the first time or even in new ways.

I wonder if today isn't the day that you tell someone

that you have definitely already told about Jesus,

that this is a gift that doesn't go away,

that Jesus is always available.

And as we are turning 10, I wonder

if this coming year just might be more than it has ever been,

the year that we as a congregation

open ourselves to Jesus in ways that we never have,

carry his life, his love, his life to the world around us.

Amen.