“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.”

Advent – The Arrival of Christ, The Hope of Eternity

Something I sometimes marvel at is how a secular world will benefit from adopting pieces of Christianity, yet suffer in failing to embrace it in its entirety. For example, there are people who are staunch atheists who will acknowledge that, if they pretend that God is real, if they act as though they believe what the Bible says, and try to live by its general tenants, their lives will improve. Oftentimes, they can’t quite pin down why there’s a marked improvement, but it seems that acting out adherence to a set of guiding principles, and pretending there’s a governing force over creation, instead of just an empty, unexplainable nothingness lends more hope and purpose to life. If a small child spends an afternoon in a state of absolute boredom there’s no benefit in that. But imagine that, instead of demolishing their toy room and terrorizing the cat in a fruitless attempt to find some entertainment, they notice their mother or father in the kitchen preparing a meal and decide to imitate them. They go to their room, to their play kitchen set and spend the afternoon mixing, and stirring, and baking, and frying. The general structure, the order and purpose they had while occupied was arguably better and more beneficial than an unordered afternoon of bored, directionless chaos. But at the end of all this, no food was produced, there was no fruit of their labor, only time spent around the idea of something that might bear fruit. Now I’m not disparaging play kitchens, or saying that bored kids can’t waste countless hours on fruitless pursuits – but I am saying that there’s a very clear difference between doing something and pretending to do something. We’re now over the delicious hurdle of Thanksgiving, and approaching Christmas at a breakneck speed – we are in what is generally regarded as a “magical” time of year. It’s a season where there are generally greater reports of generosity among people, more notable showings of hospitality and kindness. It’s a time when doing something for someone may need no greater motivation than, “Why not? It’s Christmas time!” It’s also a season where there’s a notable increase in anxiety and depression. People experience a greater sense of loneliness and isolation – sometimes because they were already lonely and isolated, but sometimes there’s an “alone in the crowd” effect where, even surrounded by friends and loved ones, people start to feel cut off in the hustle and grind of the year’s end. It can be remarkably easy to get sucked into this pit of melancholy if your eye is not fixed in the proper place, and the swell of mixed emotions seems to be so rampant in so many people because the world’s eye is without question not fixed in the proper place. This is a rare time when the church celebrates and the world celebrates simultaneously, and yet despite surface level appearances, we’re not celebrating the same thing. For the Christian it can often be easier to focus on the serious implications of Easter and let the gravity of Christmas get watered down in the tide of the culture. This is probably in part because it’s far easier to brush off the Easter bunny and a basket of Cadbury eggs than it is to remain unswayed by Santa, the desperate need to buy a present for everyone you know, and the 847,000 Hallmark movies that have been playing nonstop since July. It’s also because it’s probably easier to appreciate the shock and tragedy of Jesus crucified for the sins of humanity, and the miraculous relief that came from His resurrection, than it is to, at least on the surface, drink in the vast implications of the virgin birth of the Son of the Living God. This is, without question, an enormously special time of year – but from a cultural standpoint, Christmas is significant for all the wrong reasons. I personally love the lights and decorations, the nostalgic images of Christmas trees trimmed, a fire lit, and stockings hung. There’s never a bad time to gather together with family and friends, to cherish those we love most. I could do without the presents, but I know I’m fighting a steeply uphill battle there – and if the Hallmark movies are up your alley, then more power to you. Many of these things are great, but not a single one of them are the reason that we’re celebrating. The world doesn’t know this – they’re acting, just pretending their way along, like a child at their play kitchen, hard at work but not actually producing anything. We, as Christians, have to know the difference – it’s not that we can’t participate in the fun trappings of the season, but we must maintain sight of, and testimony to the reason that we celebrate. Because if the festive practices take precedence, if this is all the “holiday season” that is Christmas time means to us, then we’re celebrating an empty shell. If Christ is not the singular point of foundation at the very center of your celebration, then you’re not celebrating Christmas. So, as we step into this season and begin Advent, we’re now afforded an opportunity to center ourselves on what truly matters, to ensure that we celebrate this time of year with right hearts and minds, and have fully centered in our spirit, the enormous, profound, eternal hope that came into the world with the birth of Jesus Christ, God made flesh – the King of kings, Lord of lords, and the Life that was given to a dead and dark world.

1. Born to Hope

As we try to comprehend the depth of the hope we have in Christ, we first have to understand our own position, to even attempt to comprehend the contrast between our wretched state and His profound glory. As He dines with sinners and tax collectors, Jesus mercifully says in Matthew 9:12,

“… Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

We have to understand that we in our sin state are very, very sick. In the passage we just covered last week, Jesus says to the church at Laodicea in Revelation 3:17,

“For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing,’ not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”

This applied very directly to the materially prosperous, spiritually lukewarm Laodiceans, but it also applies very broadly to every person who has ever been born. Under the general grace that God bestows upon the world, we are blessed to exist – we draw breath, we live our lives, and reality itself is sustained, moment to moment by His blessing. To be alive, created in the image of God is a blessing, and yet we’re also born with a curse – one that we are powerless to lift. After the fall, God says to Adam in Genesis 3:17–19,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

This curse of sin, of life that exists in toil and leads to death in the inheritance of us all – we live in a world of the deepest possible darkness. The wording in our passage today, “The people who walked in darkness,” parallels the wording of Psalm 23:4,

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

“Valley of the shadow of death,” can also translate as, “valley of deep darkness.” They ultimately mean the same thing – the point of deepest darkness, of greatest fear, the place of death where there is no hope. This is where we were born, it’s the life we have earned for ourselves through the sinful works of our flesh. And yet there is hope – one, singular hope for all of mankind. We were born fallen, but with one shining, golden hope, because our sin had no impact, imparted no blemish on the righteousness of God. Jesus says in John 8:12,

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

This is the light – He is the Light, the shining beacon, the great hope to those living in darkness. Because of our sin we are all walking and living in a pit of hopeless despair, in a fallen world whose very spirit hates holy and righteous God. But Christ is our Light, He is the hope that sustains us that we might run the race set before us, and it is through Him and Him alone that we may know victory. While not always the case, often in Scripture, what is said to the individual may be applied to many, and what is said to many applies to the individual. In Ezekiel 16:4–7 God is speaking directly to Jerusalem, and yet His words can be applied to all of us,

“And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born. And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment…”

God loves us – He loved us from before the beginning, He knew and cared for us before time, and space, and creation came to be, and so there was a plan – one that hinged, not on us, lost and hopeless, but was staked upon His own righteousness, eternal and undefilable. Paul writes of this hope, of the principles around our passing from the darkness of sin through the Light of Christ in Romans 5:12, 15-17,

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—”… “But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”

So we were born cursed, and yet not hopeless because of the sacrifice of Christ – as John so succinctly put in 1 John 4:14,

“And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”

And this is what we must first understand as we contemplate the joyous occasion of Christmas – we celebrate that Hope’s arrival, the lifeline, the ultimate hope that came to us in a place where hope did not exist, and offered us a path to redemption and righteousness through His life, and death, and life again.

• Sustained in Hope

Every human is born into the hopelessness of the world with the hope of Christ – but all do not follow the Light. It is not enough to be born into a fallen world where there is a path out made by Jesus, you have to actually follow Him, to actually walk the path through the narrow gate that leads to salvation – you must be born again. When Nicodemus comes to Jesus under the cover of night and acknowledges that His works and signs show that He has come from God, Jesus replies in John 3:3–6,

“‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

To follow Christ is to be born again, to be made new as Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 5:17,

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

To embrace and walk in the Light of Christ isn’t just to be born with hope, but is to live with this hope. Colossians 3:1–4 says,

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

Being made new in Christ means that Jesus is not just our hope for a moment, or a day, but rather the guiding Light that is with us through every second of our lives, the Good Shepherd who is by our side through all trials and suffering, rod and staff in hand. Jesus tells the disciples in John 14:23,

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

We are sustained, provided for, carried and ministered to throughout all of life’s seasons, and as this happens, this Light – this joyous, hopeful Light that has come to us and freed us from the bondage of darkness, comes to live within us, to shine from us. This is the glorious hope that Jesus teaches of in Matthew 5:14–16 saying,

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

It is the obedient path of sanctification that is walked by the children of God, which Paul writes of in Philippians 2:12–16,

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.”

I’ve heard it pointed out that God, if He wanted, could simply pull the believer out of the world as soon as they come to faith – we pray to accept Christ and *pop* out of the world we go, into heaven. The fact that God does not do this tells us that there is a reason for it – and the reason is simple, as it revolves around the same principle as all of God’s actions. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:26–31,

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”

We who were dead, who were lost in a wicked and dying world, who were raised to Life through a hope beyond imagining, and sustained and cared for in this world that we might glorify God – that the Light of the world that has shined on us might shine through us, and that in this as in all things, God would be glorified. And so we persevere, we are sustained, redeemed in hostile territory. Returning to Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, we can see how God is glorified through His work through us, as well as the penalty of those who reject Him and the immeasurable hope He brings in favor of darkness with John 3:19–21 saying,

“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

We are born cursed, but with a hope, for Christ, the Light has come into the world, and we are not abandoned in darkness. In Him we are reborn, made new, and the Light carries us on, preserving and sanctifying us with a hope that defies understanding as we live out our days in a world that hates God. John 1:4–5 says of Jesus,

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

This life sustains us as we live out our days under the sun, in a world stained by sin, but this is not all that is offered, rather it is only a fraction of what we’ve been blessed with through the hope of Christ – because the life that we’re raised to is not temporal or finite, but rather endures to eternity.

• Hope for Eternity

Life is hard, and becoming a Christian doesn’t make all your earthly problems go away. But not only does God bless His saints to persevere through the trials and persecution of this life, even to the point of death, we thrive in His Spirit, now and forever. Jesus is with us, the hand of God upon us throughout every step of our new life in Him, and when our mortal flesh comes to an end, rather than diminishing, or even remaining the same, the hope we have in Christ, that Light that He is only grows brighter. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:12,

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

In 2 Corinthians 4:16–18,

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

And in 2 Corinthians 5:6–8,

“So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

We are kept while we are here, but we are not home – home is what awaits us in eternity, home is to stand face to face, worshiping our God, home is His eternal Light that surpasses all earthly imagining. Revelation 22:3–5 describes our eternal hope saying,

“No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”

This is what has to be at the center of who we are, at the forefront of our minds as we enter a holiday season with a million different things vying for your attention, trying to sap your focus from the miraculous hope that Christmas stands to commemorate. Humanity was lost, dead and buried, at war with holy God, and without a shred of hope – and then Hope came to us. Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3:13,

“No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.”

There was no one on the face of the earth who could offer humanity hope, no one who could resist the sway of sin, and so God did what we could not. Taking on flesh, coming into the world as an infant – breaking the perceived laws of nature and reality, born of a virgin, fully God, and fully Man, He came to rescue the lost, to grant Life to the dead – He came to give hope where there was none to be found, as water in the desert, or light in the midst of darkness. David writes in Psalm 103:1–5,

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”

This is the promise we know in Christ, from new birth, through life, into eternity. It is the hope that we cry out and celebrate as we acknowledge with joy and reverence the gift beyond reckoning that God has poured out upon the world. It is this that makes this season bright, which makes it the most wonderful time of the year – the arrival of the glorious Light to those perishing in the darkness, the birth of a King, a Savior, the coming of the Hope for today, tomorrow, and forever and ever, amen.

Pastor Chris’ sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmoAfUbxHfM