Advent 2015
Welcome again to Grace Outpost. We are the midst of the Advent Season, last
week we looked at the four women found in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. We talked about how the genealogies are often
overlooked though they contain a great deal of purpose in them. How many of you remember a Charlie Brown
Christmas? If you do you will recall
there is a part where Charlie Brown loses it and yells “Can someone tell me
what Christmas is all about?” I don’t
know about you, but I remember many times in the past wanting to shout out that
very question.
When Charlie Brown shouts this out his friend Linus answers
him with Luke 2:9-11.
And an angel of the Lord appeared
to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with
great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good
news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this
day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a
sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a
manger.”
(Luke
2:9-11 ESV)
The first thing we often see in this is that the birth of
Jesus is considered good news, his birth was awaited and it signified
fulfillment of a promise. The word
Christ means Messiah or Anointed One, the Jewish people were promised this
Messiah even as they were being exiled from the land that God had given them,
in the midst of their breaking of the covenant they had made with God. The promise is made to David that one of his
descendants will sit on the throne and his kingdom will be forever (2 Samuel
7). At the time of Jesus’ birth the
Jewish people are under the oppression of the Roman Empire. The people are anticipating this Messiah to
come and free the Jewish people from Roman rule and establish the nation of
Israel once more. However, a closer
reading of 2 Samuel 7:12-14 shows that something greater than a nation of being
restored is happening with the coming of the Messiah. Which leads us back to our main text for
today Luke 2:9-11.
Luke uses the word Savior in verse 11 that the word savior
comes with an implication that we are in need of saving. So the natural question becomes, ‘from what
do we need saving?’ For this we will go
all the way back to Genesis 3, the moment when sin entered creation through the
first man and woman, Adam and Eve.
Genesis 3:16-19 is the curse of sin upon mankind as a result of sin, ,
God created them to live forever with him in the garden, but the requirement
for sin is death. It is this curse that
Jesus saves us from, the corruption that sin brings which enslaves us and from
our separation from God. In fact in
Genesis 3:20 there is an allusion to the plan of restoration, after telling
them (Adam and Eve) that the will die and live under the curse we are told that
Adam names his wife Eve, because she will be the mother of all the living (Eve
means to give life). This plan of
restoration is the mission of Jesus!
This is first mention of the promised Messiah and it is right after sin
enters the world.
For me this is the often-overlooked part of Advent. The mission of Jesus is to reconcile man to
God, to atone for the sin of men.
For God so loved the world, that he
gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have
eternal life. For God did not send his
Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be
saved through him.
(John
3:16-17 ESV)
For a long time even those weren’t Christian enjoyed the
nativity story, but there always seems to be a disconnect for non-Christians
and Christians alike between Advent and the Cross, even though this is the
culmination of Advent. They go hand in
hand. The reality is that the baby born
in a manager in Bethlehem would be beaten and whipped; his body would be broken
for me and for you. He would be pierced
with nails through his hands and feet, his blood would be spilled out for
us. Advent means that the Lamb of God
has come, that the ultimate sacrifice came and brought the kingdom of Heaven to
earth amongst men!
Yes, Linus was right that the meaning of Christmas is the
baby who was born, but the miracle of Christmas is that because God love us
when we were still sinners, enemies to God, he sent his Son Jesus to die on our
behalf that we may be seen as righteous.
That via the atoning death of Christ and his resurrection, mankind has
hope that our lives are more than fleeting moments alone spinning through space
on a pebble. That is the good news; that
is the Gospel, The Creator of all things loves you and desires to share eternity
with you!