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Dec 01, 2024

Recapturing the Glory of Christmas

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Advent 2024

Category: Advent

Keywords: christmas, advent, glory, jesus christ, idols, substitutes

Summary:

Our Christmas theme this year is "Recovering the Glory of Christmas," a title borrowed from Dr. Albert Mohler's new Christmas devotional by the same name. So often we look to everything else in Christmas to bring us the glory God actually wants to bring us at Christmas. This message looks at many of the substitutes we often look to and how we can use them to draw us to the real glory of Christmas, Jesus.

Detail:

Recapturing the Glory of Christmas—Week 1

December 1, 2024

Fellowship Question:  What’s the first word that comes to mind when you think of Christmas?

INTRO

  • Grateful to be back…& upright.  I've concluded international travel is a young person's sport!
  • Welcome to the 1st Sunday of Advent 2024. I know it doesn’t look much like Christmas here this morning.  There’s a reason for that as I trust will become evident as I get into the message.
  • Several weeks ago I ordered a new Christmas devotional by Dr. Albert Mohler, Jr., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminar in Louisville, KY and author of a very good cultural commentary daily podcast (that our son, Daniel, introduced me to several years ago). The title of the devotional is ”Recapturing the Glory of Christmas.”  It’s a title we’ve chosen to adopt for our Advent series this year.  And it is a challenge we’ll be undertaking the next four weeks, namely, to actually recapture the glory of Christmas. 

“Glory” is probably not be one of the first words most people would use to describe Christmas.  Ask 10 people on the street what is the first word that comes to mind to describe Christmas and I doubt “glorious” would be on anyone’s list.  Drive down your street this season and I doubt any of the Christmas displays will have the word “Glory” in them.  “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”, maybe.  But “Glory”?  Probably not. 

ILL:  Last night I did a Google search for images about “Christmas.” 

  • Of the first 75, TWO had anything to do with Christ. Here they are.
  • The rest were more like these.

            How many of our neighbors understand what it really is we’re celebrating at Christmas?  That might be a great Christmas conversation starter:  What do you think Christmas is all about?

For that matter, how many Christians actually comprehend the incalculable glory of this season? 

            Christmas comes year after year, even in our secularized, post-Christian culture.  Our society still cannot escape Christmas, though it is doing a pretty good job of escaping its true meaning more and more with each passing year.  Ask the checkout clerk or your local barista what makes Christmas “merry” let alone glorious and you will probably get answers like, “Well, the gift-giving makes Christmas special,” or “I really love the Christmas music,” or “The family get-togethers make Christmas special.” 

            If there is one time of year when more people, even Christians, can be coaxed away from biblical fidelity to what we are celebrating, I think it is Christmas. More than any other religious holiday in our annual calendar, we run the danger of disobeying Paul’s command and warning in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this age but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” Christmas, in so many subtle and overt ways, seems to be pressuring us to conform to our culture’s view rather than to Christ who it is all about. 

            Our modern age is seductive, and even we Christians are tempted to miss the imperishable glory of Christmas as we celebrate the birth of the Savior.  Our culture has scandalized Christmas.  Materialism has replaced the Messiah.  Santa has eclipsed the Savior.  Perfectly wrapped presents placed under beautiful evergreens rob the affections of men and women, young and old, from something far more spectacular and joyful…and glorious. 

Too often we trade trees and lights and songs and parties for the glory of God himself in Christmas.  How often do we exchange the glory of the invisible God made visible in the Christ child for the glory of these created things we’ve populated our Christmas celebrations with?

The glory of Christmas has been hijacked and exchanged for the glory of inferior gifts, inferior lights, inferior encounters and experiences.  It’s not that Christmas parties or carols or candles are wrong.  They just don’t compare with the true glory of Christmas. 

  • Jeremiah 2:11--Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their gloryfor that which does not profit.
  • The Psalmist put it this way in Psalm 106:20--They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. 21 They forgot God, their Savior….
  • Paul said it this way in Romans 1:23—"They… exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”

I wonder if Santas and reindeer and lights and gifts under a tree have replaced the glory of the immortal God we are invited to worship at Christmas?

            But the infallible Word of God will not allow us to trade the glory of the incomparable God for the glory of created things.  The Scriptures summon us to the glory of God who rent the heavens and came down to live in our darkness.  This Immanuel, “God with us” (Mt. 1:23), broke into a sinful world—lost in dark depravity—that he might shower us with the saving light of redemption. 

            It is appropriate that this season should be marked by strings of lights and light displays.  I enjoy as much as anyone going to The Coeur d’Alene Resort the day after Thanksgiving to watch the amazing fireworks show and lighting of over 1.5 million Christmas lights.  I like to find the neighborhoods in town with great light displays as much as anyone.  But if I begin to think that those beautiful displays are what Christmas is really about rather than being gripped by the light of Christ invading dark human history, I’ve lost the true glory of Christmas. 

            Glory in the Bible is definitely something visible. Dozens of passages from Genesis to Revelation speak about the visible brilliance of God’s glory.

  • The glory of God visible in the Exodus in the pilar of fire and night and visible cloud by day (Ex. 16:7, 10, 16).
  • Moses pleaded with God to “see” His glory (Ex. 33:18). And when he did, his own countenance was changed into something glorious. 
  • Repeatedly the Tabernacle in the desert and the Temple in Jerusalem—the places where God chose to manifest His presence among His people—were filled with the visible glory of God.
  • In the T., God’s visible glory is all about Jesus Christ.
    • From the glory of the Lord shining around the angels who appeared to the shepherds in Bethlehem (Luke 2:9) to the radiant glory of the Lord evident at the Mount of Transfiguration (Mt. 17, Mark 9, Luke 9), Jesus is the focus of glory in the N.T.
    • John tells us (1:14) that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
    • Hebrews 2:9-- But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with gloryand honor because of the suffering of death….
    • Revelation is replete with multiple images of the dazzling glory of the resurrected Jesus. Consider Revelation 21:23 when speaking of the new heaven and earth—“And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”

Christmas is about “God with us,” Immanuel (Mt. 1:23), breaking into the dark depravity of humanity that He might cast the saving light of redemption upon us.  The prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 9:2, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness.”  That is us!  Christmas is all about the greatest light in the universe, God, overcoming the deepest darkness of our souls. 

APP:   Many of us know about the power of the light of Jesus to dispel the darkness of our souls.  We can remember the day the light of Jesus dawned on our experience.  We know without a doubt that God has replaced the darkness of addiction and selfishness, of unforgiveness and bitterness, of lust and lawlessness, with the light of His holiness, His righteousness and his forgiveness. 

Challenge:  If you are here today with a darkness in your soul that you want to be free of, come to Jesus!  Come to the light of God’s amazing love and forgiveness.  Bow before the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ and allow Him to exchange your darkness for His light. 

            Christmas is all about God turning on the light in our dark world.  It’s not mere strings of Christmas lights that burn out over time and have to be replaced.  It’s not the light of some inflatable yard Santa or Grinch.  Those are our culture’s attempts to hijack the true glory of Christmas, to get the eyes of our souls off the blazing glory of Jesus and onto dim substitutes for divine glory. 

            Actually, everything in this season that seeks to substitute itself for the glory of God incarnate is but a forgery for the glory of Christmas.  Just think of what we tend to look to at Christmas to fill us with something far inferior to the glory of God in human flesh, Jesus Christ.  Again, they are not necessarily wrong or bad things.  But they are too often inferior to the glory God wants to shine on us at this season, Christmas.

FAMILY reunions/gatherings: 

  • Christmas is chock full of expectations about family, isn’t it? And we all know that Christmas dinners or trips to be with family members, great as they can be, can also be marred by misunderstandings and inflated expectations.  A much-anticipated time around the tree can quickly turn into the disappointment of a thoughtless remark or a painful memory.  If we are looking to the “glory” of family gatherings to replace the true glory of reunion with God himself and His family, we will probably be disappointed. 
  • That goes for those of you who find yourself somewhat alone at this season too. You may look at others who seem to have the companionship of family or the privilege of family gatherings and buy into the lie that Christmas for you must be an inferior experience.  It can’t possibly have the same level of glory that those with present family have.  Our expectations of family experiences at Christmas can cast a dark cloud over the glory God wants us to experience with Him apart from family.  Family expectations can be just another one of those human creations that we substitute for the glory of Christ himself. 
  • I have to wonder what even Mary and Joseph would have missed if they were looking to family to make that first Christmas what they thought it should be. After all, they had to have some relatives in Bethlehem who they thought would provide lodging for them when they arrived for the census.  Distant though they may have been, in a culture where extended family meant much more than it does today, I’m pretty sure they didn’t expect to be staying in a stable or laying their firstborn in a cow-crib.  What would they have missed of the unparalleled glory of that first Christmas if their focus had been on disappointed family expectations instead of the glory of God come to this world for the first time in human flesh? 

So our expectations about family and companionship at Christmas can eclipse the glory of Christ at Christmas. 

Or think of how the glory of GIFT-GIVING has been hijacked in this season. 

  • Just where did we get this idea from God’s word that gifts are to be such a big part of our Christmas celebrations, whether it is giving them or receiving them?
    • The Magi? (2 years later!)
    • The Innkeeper? That was a true ‘white elephant’ gift.
  • For those of us whose love language is not gifts, the pressure of having to come up with gifts for everyone on your list can rob the best Christmas of its glory.
  • For those who don’t have others who are giving them gifts, this cultural god of gift-giving can rob the most godly among us of the true glory of Christmas.

The glory of Christmas that we need to recapture is that THE most glorious Being in the universe, God, gave and continues to give us, not some little material trinkets that wear out, but THE most glorious Gift imaginable—HIMSELF! 

            Isn’t that what is usually disappointing about this gift-giving frenzy that happens at Christmas?  Gift-giving becomes a substitute for what our souls really need—life-giving connections.  I would far rather receive the gift of deep relationship and conversation than something someone bought at Walmart for $19.95!  Give me a Christmas with heartfelt connection to people and that’s the best gift my soul will ever get. 

            But what about the glory of heartfelt, personal, individual, intimate relationship with my heavenly Father, God himself who made me?  Isn’t that really what my soul was made for most, whether at Christmas or any other time of the year?  And isn’t that the glory of Christmas:  God come to me and you, in a form we can understand and identify with, in the person of Jesus the babe who grew into a child and then a teenager and then a grown man, who knows the pain of suffering, the disappointments of people, the beauty of a sunset and the warm embrace of a friend?

            The glory of Christmas is that the most glorious God offers to us the most glorious gift in His Son Jesus.  The glory of Christmas is that this God offers us himself, not some plastic, manufactured substitute. Whether we spend Christmas alone in a barn or with others in a mansion, every one of us has the privilege of receiving and unwrapping THE best present possible in this life—God himself.  Let’s not let the false gods of temporal gifts rob us of the glory of God’s best gift to us in Jesus Christ. 

            Here’s my call to all of us this Christmas.  Let’s use the trappings of this season to draw us to the real glory of this season, Jesus. 

  • Lights: rather than looking to some twinkling LEDs to light up our lives, let’s ask God to bathe our lives in the brilliant glory of Jesus.  Let’s use the reminder of Christmas lights that brighten our neighborhoods and living rooms to invite God to penetrate our neighborhoods and homes with the light of Jesus. When we feel the darkness of disappointment or discouragement this season, may it drive us to cry out for the light of Christ in that darkness.  Wherever we encounter darkness, may we hold up the light of Jesus, calling ourselves and others out of darkness and into the glorious light of Jesus.
  • Presents: while we’re hustling and bustling around getting presents for others, let’s use that experience to remind ourselves that the best thing we can give anyone is the Christ of Christmas himself.  Let’s give others the gift of the love of Christ.  Let’s focus on being Jesus to them rather than giving them something that will pass away. 
  • Trees: Every time you pass a Christmas tree, recapture the real glory of Christmas by using it to remind you of that tree upon which our Savior came to die on that you and I might experience life forever with God.  May the temporary beauty of a Christmas tree move us deeper into the beauty of the eternal cross of Christ.  May we recapture the true glory of Christmas by drawing near to the cross. 
  • Music: it’s interesting how often in the Bible the only adequate response to the glory of God is worship.  And it is also interesting how important music is to worship.  So, is it any wonder that some of the greatest music every written revolves around the birth of Jesus?  I would venture to say that no singular event in human history has been the inspiration for more great music than the birth of Jesus.  So, when you hear some inane Christmas song playing on the radio or in the department store, use it as an opportunity to recapture the true glory of Christmas.  Use it to draw you into worship of the real glory of Christmas—Jesus himself.  Every true Christmas Carol should have Christ at the center.  Anything less is merely a cheap imitation/substitute. 
  • Indulge me by listening for 4 minutes to just one of the thousands of great works composed because of the birth of Christ. Handel’s Messiah is certainly one of those masterworks.  I’ve selected the piece For Unto Us a Child Is Born.  I’ll save the Hallelujah Chorus for the 4th message in this series. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UGKEWJoFCc

Over the next three Sundays of advent we will be pursuing this theme of the glory of Christmas from several different angles. 

  • 8--The Beginning of the Glory of Christmas:  When did the Christmas story really begin? Bethlehem?  Nazareth?  The Garden of Eden?  Or much earlier?  The glory of Christmas spans beyond time into eternity past.  Without that vantage point, we will miss much of the glory of Christmas.
  • 15--The Center of the Glory of Christmas—The Incarnation.  This would focus on how the incarnational birth of Jesus displays the glory of God in a child/baby.  Effectively, what's so glorious about the incarnation, virgin conception and birth, God coming to and through the lowliest and most helpless among us—a babe. 
  • 22--The Completion of the Glory of Christmas. This will focus on numerous O.T. and N.T. passages that predict the ultimate reign of Jesus.  The incarnational work of Jesus isn't complete until His second coming and reign.  In many ways, this will be the most glory-visible part of the Christmas story and glory.  

So, let’s decide this Christmas to recapture the glory of Christmas, its true glory.  Let’s lay aside the false gods of our culture’s Christmas celebrations and discover afresh the glory of God in this amazing, history-making event.

Benediction:

Jude 1:24-25-- Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

 

John 1 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.