Other Sermons / Christmas
[0:00] There's never been a story alone at Christmas, enchanting as it is. There's never been a story alone that makes people want to sing.
[0:11] These Montegro Valley Cavaliers were written by people who understood what this theory means. Understood what the birth of Jesus is really all about.
[0:22] How long is it? Now it takes us back in time again, some 450 years before the birth of Jesus, to Malachi, the very last of the Old Testament prophets.
[0:34] It's his words that Zechariah picked up in that last reading. Doesn't there how Malachi explains the implication of the coming of the Lord that he has promised?
[0:46] The one who would at last come to make Christmas real. Now, like how the prophet said to his people, You have weary the Lord with your words.
[0:59] But you say, How would we weary him? By saying, Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights him. Or by asking, Where is God of justice?
[1:11] Behold, I sent my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.
[1:24] And the messenger of the coming, whom you delight. Behold, he is coming, says the Lord of the first. But who can cure the day it is coming?
[1:37] And who shall stand when he appears? For he is like a finest fire of full of silver. For behold, the day it is coming, burning like an oven.
[1:51] For all the arrogant and all the evil doers will be stubborn. The day that is coming shall set up a blaze, says the Lord of the first.
[2:03] So there is a believer neither the root nor the branch. But, for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.
[2:19] You shall go out leaping like cards from the soul. And you shall tread on a moon, so there will be your ashes on the soul of your feet, on the day when I am, says the Lord of the first.
[2:37] Before we think for a little about this promise of Christmas, and I like that, I saw it coming. We're going to sing perhaps one of the simplest and best love of all the kind.
[2:48] Son of God, oh how bright! Love is smiling from your face. Forstеч飛 conservate us now as our greatest Saviour since our own world.
[3:02] blouse sing CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS
[4:16] CHOIR SINGS saw the light earth is pounding clear and low I am near the angels song Christ the Redeemer is here Christ the Redeemer is here in the night oh in the night God of God oh how high love is smiling for all my days
[5:31] Christ the Holy hour of praise Christ the Holy Christ the Holy Lord all my days Christ the Holy Lord Christ the Holy The Christmas story, of course, begins long before the words of Jesus Christ, though our beings can act with his playing.
[6:12] Anyway, I hope you're familiar with the temple of Messiah, and that partory opens with the words by Messiah the prophet some eight hundred years before Jesus. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.
[6:24] But of course the real story began long, long before even that, right at the very dull time itself. But all through the ages of human history, the prophets spoke of the great coming of the Lord himself to his word.
[6:42] The prophet Maricott, the very last of the prophets of the Old Testament era, ministered, they said, some four hundred and some years before Jesus. And he did so in a society that had very much jettisoned.
[6:55] Many of what they thought, well, those old-fashioned beliefs about God, they've become very cynical, very disbelieving, very skeptical about God. Where is the God of justice, they said?
[7:06] How can the mere God, of all the crooks, seem to be the ones that count on top and prosper? How can all the good people be the ones that are expected? That's pretty contemporary, don't you think?
[7:19] Lots of people are still saying exactly that same thing today. But Maricott just spoke a very clear message from God to that skeptical people. A day is coming, he said, when the Lord himself will come to confront all of these things.
[7:37] A messenger will prepare the way like another Elijah. That's exactly what John the Baptist was to do in the angel's book, the Zechariah and his father, a century later in Antondon's birth.
[7:50] And then the God of the Lord himself will come. And that day, it will change this world forever. The justice that you desire will come.
[8:06] But be very careful what you wish for. Who can stand in the face of what that day is going to bring, says the Lord, because it will be a day of fire.
[8:17] A fire that divides this world. Destroying, even much, those who have opposed God. That's a very silver image.
[8:32] But at the same time, Malachan says, for those who fear God's name, the honor and revere him will be a fairy of a different experience. It's a wonderful bejurden.
[8:44] For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out leaping blood cards from the storm.
[8:57] Now we can look at these lovely pictures of what the coming of Jesus means in our carol services this year. And this first picture tonight is of a beautiful sunrise.
[9:09] Then we just picked up in Zechariah's song, as we heard earlier, when he sings the joy about John's birth, about Jesus' coming birth. The sunrise has visited us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of the dead.
[9:27] Jesus' coming, the coming of the Lord's birth, will be like a beautiful sunrise upon our world. It will be without question the dawning light of ultimate meaning for humanity.
[9:42] Because he comes to reveal all truth. That's what Malachan, the last prophet of Christmas promises. And that's exactly how Jesus Christ himself described his coming into the world.
[9:57] What is it thinking about two aspects of it tonight? First of all, the coming of Jesus is the sunrise that lights up the purpose of life in all its fullness.
[10:10] His coming is the dawning of a new day in humanity. It is his light that is the explanation of life, that gives us the truth about life in all its fullness.
[10:25] This is what Jesus himself said. For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.
[10:38] There is meaning in a world of confusion, ignorance, and skepticism, cynicism. And Jesus Christ came to open our eyes to that ultimate meaning.
[10:52] Jesus says it was what it was to Pontius Pilate. and Pilate came as though of life. What is truth? Something extraordinary postmodern, don't you think?
[11:04] Just goes to show that there is really nothing to you, a new son. What we call postmodernism, it's just one more version of avoiding truth and its implications.
[11:16] And human beings, as we did that, right from the very beginning of time, that means that is the Bible to me. It was a Paul claim in Romans chapter 1 that God's truth has been abundantly evident in the very fabric of our creation since the very beginning of the world.
[11:32] That man has suppressed that truth, ignored it. And it's our ignorance, our agnosticism, it's not primarily an intellectual problem, it's an unborn problem.
[11:48] If we want to believe something or disbelieve something strongly, we can always manage from that side of the dating that our prejudice is trying to. And certainly our narrative today tends to reject ideas of absolute truth, especially, especially absolute moral truth.
[12:06] Because it seems so much to curtail our freedom, and above all, what we want in the world is freedom. We want autonomy. We want self-determination to try and understand. But then just for a few minutes, would you consider the Bible's view on that?
[12:24] The view of Christian faith that Jesus Christ? Because the Bible contends that this rejection of the ultimate truth of Jesus Christ does not bring Jesus like slavery, does not bring fulfillment and joy in our lives, but brings emptiness and confusion and often despair.
[12:43] You see, if you reject the Creator, if you reject His purpose for creation, then the result must be utter confusion.
[12:55] It means we don't really know why we're here on this earth. We won't really know who we really are or what we're really doing in our everyday lives. I was reading in the paper last week about Joseph Mourinho's latest side first.
[13:12] And I discovered in the article that the premier league this year has had to change the rules of people to crack down on the abuse of referees by players and managers during the game. So many referees have been subject to verbal insult and even worse that it now means that you get an automatic booking if you showed a sense to the referee.
[13:33] I can't imagine anyone who had a football right away to you. But it seems that many players and many managers would rather let the winners know our referees at all because they resent it so much when they blow the whistle to a certain rule of the game.
[13:50] But just imagine how football has 22 players on it. But not one of them has a clue what they're there for. Not one of them has a clue or the rules that she's been.
[14:02] And not one of them knows what the world has a clue. Now I know probably the most girls speaking that probably sounds like the Edna Rok that I've been used to do with the boxing thing. So think about that.
[14:14] 22 players on a bench have no idea of the rules or the ideas of the languages that play out. No idea what they're to do. It'll be a total conclusion.
[14:24] It'll be no at all agreed reason. Not much of it anything. But let me ask you does our world of humanity people living on this planet playing the game of life does it resemble the perfect Lord well-drilled the sitter just his teamwork of a craft team like Real Madrid or Barcelona a team who know the game who love the game and are working together like clockwork towards that common goal of the beautiful game.
[14:52] or is our world more reminiscent of the chaos of everyone just trying to do what he thinks best for himself in the game of life the game of life there's no room no boundaries just mediums and purposes certainly talking to the beautiful of the whole world what about newspapers what our RSS teams tell us all the time do you think as we witness the unprecedented backlash that we are witnessing against governments the huge cascade on the anger across Europe across the United States as we see the terrible confidence raging in the Middle East intractively and so are so many other things in this world well friends the message of Jesus Christ is that if you reject God's truth about the meaning and the purpose of life and of the universe and of everything including our own lives then we will find ourselves living a life full of contradictions full of confusion full of uncertainty that's never more of an evident than when the world of human beings want to work together that whatever it is that's perceived to be the latest great global cause think of a Paris agreement about climate change which finally went into effect its last one notwithstanding the skepticism among many especially across the economy that perhaps a lot of it is just very handy for scientists wanting all sorts of research for us very handy for governments wanting all sorts of excuses for new taxes lay aside that it seems that it's all true and that the global climate change is all man-made they need to ask the question why?
[16:44] why bother to try and save this planet? if we only exist at a chance collocation of atoms that banged together way back in time and happened to go and fall into DNA why bother preserving ourselves?
[17:01] and Professor Dawkins is right we only exist to preserve our DNA so why not just bury ten pots of DNA miles long as they are to make and preserve it forever and just let the human brains die off?
[17:15] after all we know that we need to be able to steal our chains we need to preserve this planet for our grandchildren of future generations because we say oh why bother having children or grandchildren what's a thing?
[17:32] of course we need someone to look after when we're old though we need somebody to work and to pay for our pensions but perhaps that's rather selfish of today so of course why not be selfish? selfish genes are really the driving force of life anyway in fact if we propose something why don't we teach selfishness as a key subject in our schools part of the national curriculum to make sure that our children get better and better at it it's the driving force of life you see how absurd this is really and highly ironic because we're so desperate aren't we to preserve the time for generations yet unborn for the unborn of the future we're definitely concerned about those unborn children way, way, way in the distance and yet there's never been a time in history as a race to have so systematically destroyed the unborn babies of this generation and that's a question how absurd and a few that is yet of course then when he speaks side of him it's a kind of devaluation of human life that they get rather than a delirium bigger or fetches quite extraordinary just like the absurdity of spending billions and billions of dollars instead of spaceship into space and crash landed on Mars to find out there's water there because it might be crucial to the future of our species an accidental chance species remember but meanwhile we don't spend affection about man on earth for real people who desperately need clean water today and already dying today because of black isn't that absurd or worse the world that we live in the world that we recognize and no no order no purpose no clear rules and a great lack of beauty but into that fog and confusion and absurdity and darkness
[20:09] Jesus Christ came to bring the light to bring the light ultimately to our world listen to the opening words of the Gospel of John Jesus was in the beginning with God all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made Jesus Christ God the Son who made the cosmos and therefore he controls it all and explains it all he gives new to him and about all he gives meaning to our humanity in him was life says John the life was a light of men the light shines in the dark the prophet foretold him as Malachi said the sun is where they come and now in Jesus it has come there is light to go on and a new day in history and I think it is indisputable that the life of Jesus Christ did change human history in a way that no other life in this planet has ever done
[21:23] Jesus coming is a sunrise that lights up the purpose of life in all its good news but not only the coming of Jesus is the sunrise that lights up the path to life in all its good news his coming is the morning of a new day in our human lives in his life we can experience life in all its good news I know the life of the world says Jesus whoever follows me will not fall in darkness that you will have the light of life I came that we might have life and have it abundantly he said Jesus came to tell us as God in our life to tell us what life is about to confirm the words of the Lord and the prophets all the only agents to God's English but also to shine his light to all the nations of Israel and into the lives of all peoples in this world to give light to those whose lives are overshadowed by the darkness of sin and death and to give certain hope that every shadow will at last be destroyed that death itself will at last be vanished from this world that day is still to come but it will come the day of everlasting life there will be no more nights no more sorrow or pain or suffering or death forever that's what
[23:02] Jesus himself promised when he returns in glory and that will be the full zenith of the sun the glorious noonday of light long last light everlasting but Jesus came into the world at that first christmas and that was the day it was the dawn the light of ultimate meaning for our world it was the day that life everlasting and the wonderful message of the christian gospel of christmas good news is that the light light in all its fullness light eternal that it can be entered into now Jesus coming at the sunrise that lights up the path the path to life in all its fullness that none none need fail to find it whoever follows Jesus will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life isn't the need for other words encapsulating the significance of this great sunrise for the world of christ's coming the dawn of the new day this is the realism of God that seeks to break through the beauty of the sentiment of the wistfulness of the festive season for the hearts of human beings to a message of a glorious possibility for every kind of need to the lonely and solitary that speaks of an inevitable companionship
[24:33] Emmanuel God with us what a wonderful sustained that can be for the old encourage for each gentle hand and kind and the strength of the everlasting arms to the sorrow and the heart broken that pledges the oil of joy for mourning the garment of praise for the spirit of heaven and to those who have failed we mean a disappointment in ourselves and to those who love them and it is beauty for the ashes of their very dark life and even here now especially here the premise of a new day friends there is the wonderful reality of the message of Christmas in the person of Jesus Christ the son of God their dawn of sunrise that lights up not only the purpose of life in all its fullness life is all about him and his birth but it loves a path to life in all its ruins it's all through him and with him and from him in him the son of righteousness has arisen healing in its wings and yet listen to Jesus in the verdict on how the world has explained it to his glorious man the light has come into a world he says but men men love darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light or fear that his deeds were exposed a friend of mine works in the financial market and he told me a phrase they use about corrupt firms in the city in the world of finance and he says nothing disinfects like someone of course that disinvention comes first through exposure to exposure the dirt and the grime and that prevents people from coming into the light and finding them to receive the eternal light that is in
[27:04] Jesus it's the exposure to his light that makes them shy away from the head and the darkness the light but in doing so their lives are but truncated pale pale shadows of what they were meant to be of what they could be if only they were here is what only they come into his light friends don't let that be you don't hide from the light of Jesus Christ this Christmas Jesus coming is the dawning light of ultimate meaning for our world he came to reveal all truth to all of us so let me leave you with some of Jesus last words some of his most urgent words the one who walks in darkness he says doesn't know where it's good while you have the light believe in the light that you may become sons of light
[28:12] I have come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness while you have the light that you can light in our prayers the light of the rising sun of our Lord Jesus Christ will lighten upon you all of you this Christmas time and throughout all the days of your lives Amen Lord you have the life believe in your life will come all you faithful joy faithful triumph come ye to Bethlehem come behold him born the king of ages come let us adore him Christ the Lord gracious
[29:13] God grant this to be the true response all our love this Christmas through Jesus Christ our Lord God God to God won for birth to his end again