Be the Light

  Pastor Fred took this week of Advent and preached out of John 1 and I think it’s the first time I heard this passage preached apart of the Christmas story. It probably doesn’t get preached as a Christmas story because it doesn’t have animals, angels, shepherds, or Mary and Joseph. I had this realization that this passage is like the rug that ties the room together. It wraps up the birth narrative by stating that Jesus wasn’t some plan B or that He randomly showed up one day in Bethlehem as a baby. Jesus is not only the Son of God, but He is eternal and the second member of the Trinity who participated in the creation of the world. Here are some thoughts that I took away from this weekend. 

   The first one is that our sin has deeper consequences than we realize. In John 1:5, we are told that Jesus (or the light) came into the world but the world did not recognize Him. We didn’t recognize Him because of our sin and open rebellion. Throughout this series, there has been the theme of missing Jesus. Are we missing Jesus because we have different expectations of what He should do or look like, or is it because we are so centered on doing our own thing that we miss Him. In essence we are consumed by are sin or darkness and that’s is the only thing we see or do. So what are those areas in our lives that we need to find Jesus in and let His light take out our sin and darkness?

   My second thought is that the Gospel of John tells is that we are needing to be born again. We can not get into heaven unless we are. This is found in John 3 with the story of Nicodemus. I find it interesting that Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. Whether it is a representative of his own sin or that he didn’t want to be seen with Jesus because of his position, I find interesting. Being born again means we don’t have to believe the lie that our culture tells us that we are born a particular way and we might as well lean into it and embrace it. Jesus tells us that we are to put away those things and to be born of the Spirit and to cloth ourselves with righteousness and not selfish desires or sin. When we do this we become a witness like Johnny the Baptist preaching the message of repentance to a world that is in the dark, rebellious and clueless. So what does it mean to be a witness and what does it mean to be born again?

  My third and final thought is that the Son of God became man and dwelt among His creation. I don’t know of ant other deity that would become like their creation to show them how to live. Jesus not only came to pay the price for our sin, but to show us who God the Father really is and who we are meant to be. He also displayed humility and submission to the will of the Father by doing this. In Philippians 2, the Apostle Paul shares the famous early church hymn of how Jesus humbled Himself and came to earth so He could be a witness to the Fathers love and was even obedient to go and die a brutal death on the cross only to be raised three days later. So how are we supposed to be humble and obedient to Gods calling, even when it is difficult?

   I love me a good sermon series and this series on Advent has been a home run in my book. I loved how all three pastors got to preach a different part of the Advent story and how they all connected. So if you are willing, leave a thought or what impacted you the most in the comment section whether here on the blog or on the churches facebook page, I encourage you to do so. Let’s go be the light in a very dark world