Updated October, 2024
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, all around the world." At some point during the upcoming holiday season we will almost certainly hear those familiar lyrics on the radio, on a TV special, or at the mall. What's more, we will know intuitively what those words imply—like most people, we know what is required for the world to start looking and feeling "like Christmas." Christmas means thousands of shimmering lights gracing trees, bushes, front porches, and sometimes entire houses, transforming the familiar landscape of our neighborhood into a cozy fantasy kingdom. Christmas means switching off the stark, incandescent illumination of our table and floor lamps and replacing it with banks of scented red candles and the softer, warmer light they provide. Christmas means seeing the shining eyes and flushed faces of children as they come alive to the wonder of the season. In general Christmas means mustering an attitude of "good cheer" as we all strive to create an aura of serenity, stillness, and peace on earth.
Hence, the ideal Christmas is one that is hermetically sealed off from anything sad or unsettling. Whether we know it or not, this "Merry Christmas" ethos is something we all buy into. For instance, if in mid-July we hear of a fatal car crash, we may sadly shake our heads at the tragedy. But if we hear of such an accident the week before Christmas, we feel worse. Unsettling news and sadness obliterate what we've come to believe the season is all about, so that we may even find ourselves thinking, "Well, so much for that family's Christmas!"
Such is Christmas in the modern world. However, as we will see, very little of that has anything to do with Advent. As our lectionary readings from Luke will make clear, true Advent requires a focus on topics that are anything but calm, bright, gentle, or cheery. Advent requires that we be unsettled and perhaps even saddened as we listen to the doomsday message "The End Is Near!", as we acknowledge our sin and evil, as we hear the bracing message that God abhors this world's proud fat cats.
Of course, as preachers, teachers, and worship planners, we do not wish to deny the genuine good news of Christmas or the proper sense of spiritual cheer that Christ's birth brings. But neither do we want that gospel to be larded over by the outer trappings of the season. Because for the good news to be truly good, it needs to come to the real world—a world that does not stop being harsh, evil, and dark just because it's Christmas. In fact, it's precisely that harsh, evil darkness that properly reminds us why a Savior needed to "advent" into our time and space in the first place.
Note: The suggested sermon texts in this series are based on the gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary Year C. The Calls to Worship, Prayers, and Benedictions are based on some of the other lectionary readings for each Sunday.
Call to Worship: from Psalm 25
Lift up your souls to the Lord.
To you, O Lord, we lift them up.
Put your trust in God.
O God, in you alone do we trust.
Let us worship God.
For you, O God, are our Savior.
In you do we hope, all the day long.
Lighting the Advent Wreath: Isaiah 40:1-6 (Purple Candle)
[Each week two children lead in this portion of the service: one as a speaker/reader, the other as the candle lighter. The lines to be spoken and the passages to be read are provided for each of the four Advent services. As soon as the candle is lit each week, consider having a children's choir sing the opening anthem for the service (the same anthem each week) —something such as Michael Bedford's "Prepare the Way of the Lord."]
Today we light the candle of hope as we anticipate the coming of Jesus,
who himself is our hope for today and for the future.
We read from Isaiah 40:1-6.
Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
As the candle is being lit, the reader says,
"We light this candle as a symbol of our Hope,
who has come into the world."
Prayer of Confession: from Psalm 25
Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old.
Remember not our sins or our rebellious ways.
For the sake of your holy name, O Lord, forgive our iniquity, for it is great.
But you, O God, are good and upright as you instruct sinners in your ways.
So also guide us to do what is right.
Help us to live each moment in the light of that last moment
still to come when you return in glory.
On the day, grant that we may be found ready, waiting,
and eager to take our place in your kingdom of shalom.
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.
Song Suggestions
"Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus” Wesley
"Hark, A Thrilling Voice Is Sounding" Trans. Caswall
"Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending" Wesley(or "Jesus Comes...")
"O Lord, How Shall I Meet You" Gerhardt, Winkworth
"Psalm 25: To You, O Lord, I Lift My Soul” Pishner (Consider surrounding the call to worship with this sung refrain.)
"The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns" Brownlie
Blessing: from 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13
May the Lord make your love increase and overflow.
May he strengthen your hearts
so that you may be blameless and holy
in the presence of our God and Father.
when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. Amen.
Sermon-Building Ideas: Luke 21:25-36
For those in the United States, it seems like Thanksgiving dinner is hardly done when preachers will be asked to wrench people's thoughts away from autumn and harvest thanksgiving toward winter and Advent. As if that is not a difficult enough transition, our text for the first Sunday in Advent actually directs us to consider not the first, long-ago advent in Bethlehem but Jesus' second, yet-to-come advent at the end of history.
Successfully training people's thoughts toward that second coming is, to put it mildly, a daunting task. This is all the more true because many people no longer understand Advent. Once considered a solemn, deep purple season of preparatory penitence, which gave equal time to Christ's first and second advents, Advent is now a four-week, extended reflection on the Christmas story and the over-sentimentalized way in which it is usually told.(Indeed, some churches have now officially shifted the focus away from preparatory penitence-symbolized by the liturgical color purple-to a more generic time of Christmas anticipation, now symbolized by a new Advent color of light blue.)
But Luke 21:25-36 gives no quarter to sentimentality. This is a bracing text, chock-full of terror and apocalypse. It is an arresting way to begin Advent, but also oddly apropos. For this text reminds us of the reason why Jesus was born in Bethlehem: to make all things new by eliminating evil, banishing the wicked, and cleansing the cosmos of sin. Hence, Advent must never point merely to Jesus' first coming but must remind us of his second coming, without which Jesus' birth makes no sense.
So on this first Sunday in Advent we need to allow the stark imagery of Luke 21 to hit people between the eyes. One way to do this would be to contrast Jesus' first and second advents. The first advent is touted—even in some of our own Christian carols— as a still, silent, midnight-clear event. This is a story adorned by beatific smiles on the faces of children listening with rapt wonder as the stars gently twinkle and the landscape glistens.
The second advent, however, does not lend itself to sugarcoating. It's difficult to imagine Hallmark producing rosy greeting cards about the stars going dark and falling from their orbits. It's hard to imagine children listening with beatific smiles on their faces to a story about boiling oceans and people everywhere fainting from terror.
Contrasting these two advents is one way to uncover the true nature of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. For if we are unwilling to celebrate and acknowledge advent number two, then the first advent means nothing. So we begin at the end, starting Advent by going "back to the future," understanding the past and present only in that holy light.
Bulletin Cover Idea: Bulletin cover design based on a banner from Calvin Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Call to Worship: from Luke 1:68-79
Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel!
For God has raised up salvation for us!
Praise be to God, who has remembered all his promises.
All of God's vows are "Yes!" in Christ,
the Babe of Bethlehem.
Let us worship God.
Praise be to God, the bright and morning star,
shining on us and guiding us toward peace.
Lighting the Advent Wreath: Luke 2:8-12 (Purple Candle)
Today we light the candle of joy,
knowing that the coming of the gospel message through Jesus
is the only way we can know true joy and happiness. We read from Luke 2:8-12.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
and they were terrified.
But the angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you;
he is the Messiah, the Lord.
This will be a sign to you:
You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.
As the candle is being lit, the reader says,
We light this candle as a symbol of the joy
that the angels spoke of, the joy of knowing the Christ.
Prayer of Confession: from Malachi 3:1-4
O Lord God,
who among us can endure the day of your coming?
Who among us can stand when you blaze before us in all your terrible holiness?
We confess, O Sovereign God, that we have sinned.
We have not loved you above all,
and thus we have found it the more difficult to love our neighbors,
who bear your image.
Purify us from all unrighteousness.
Pour upon us your refiner's fire;
wash us by your Holy Spirit.
By your grace alone make us acceptable again in your sight,
that we might stand with you in the blazing holiness of Jesus, our Lord,
in whom we pray, Amen.
Song Suggestions
"Blest Be the God of Israel" Perry (Song of Zechariah)
"Comfort, Comfort Now My People" Olearius, Winkworth
"My Soul in Stillness Waits" Haugen
"People in Darkness Are Looking for Light" Carlson
"Prepare the Way, O Zion" Nelson, Franzen
"Stay Awake, Be Ready" Walker
Blessing: from Philippians 1:3-11
May your love abound and increase day to day.
May God himself, through Christ, make you blameless and pure
until the day of Christ.
May you be filled with the fruit of righteousness
through Jesus Christ,
to whom be the glory forever and ever, Amen.
Sermon-Building Ideas: Luke 3:1-6, Isaiah 40:1-11
All four gospels include the "make straight a highway" citation from Isaiah 40, and all four do so in connection with the work of John the Baptist. Because next week's text will deal directly with John the Baptist, it is perhaps best on this second Sunday in Advent to zero in on Isaiah's words about God's holy highway and their meaning for Advent and Christmas.
In Isaiah 40:3 the word translated "highway" is variously rendered as "road" or simply as "way" in the New Testament. That is probably because the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) flattened out the original Hebrew word, translating it into the ordinary Greek word for "road." But in the original Hebrew the word in verse 3 is very distinctive, referring to a carefully and intentionally constructed elevated road (a "high" way). Such highways were the major conduits for international trade and the only safe routes to travel between major cities and empires. They featured drainage ditches, paving stones, and good visibility so as to give no easy hiding places for robbers or wild beasts. All of this was particularly important for highways through the desert, as wilderness travel would otherwise carry with it a host of perils. In other words, the highway of Isaiah 40 is a carefully planned, intentionally built road.
But notice: this is a highway for our God. This is the road God designs, builds, and then travels upon to get to us, and in that little textual nugget is the whole gospel of grace. Most world religions acknowledge that life is a journey, a pilgrimage of some kind. We are people "on the way" from birth to death to whatever lies beyond. To help insure a good sacred journey, most religions proffer various paths by which to journey into God's favor.
Thus Hinduism offers four paths by which to attain what God desires. Buddhism teaches that to achieve the serenity of nirvana one needs to follow an eight-fold path. Taoism also teaches us how to journey along the right roads to the divine. Indeed, the very word tao means "the path" or "the way." Even Islam rests on five pillars of discipline by which to please Allah and attain paradise.
Christianity alone among the world religions tells us that the beginning and end of our salvation is not how well, carefully, and diligently we travel to God but rather that our God in Christ came to us! Through the wilderness of chaos and evil that our world has become due to sin, God has carefully built a highway for himself. In Advent we prepare our hearts again to embrace the grand truth that God the Son took this road into our world, coming to us by grace "while we were yet sinners."
In a season where the Santa Claus myth directs us to thinking about who's been "naughty or nice," the sermon for this second Sunday in Advent reminds us that God is no Santa. Instead, we fall back again on grace as God generously travels from heaven to the manger, gathering up his flock and tending it like a shepherd.
When the Lord arrives on this well-built highway, Isaiah's shout goes up: "You who bring good tidings to Zion, behold! Your God comes to you!"
Call to Worship (from Isaiah 12:2-6)
God is our salvation!
We trust in God and are not afraid.
The Lord is our song and our strength.
God alone do we worship.
Give thanks to the Lord;
call on the Lord’s name!
We sing to the Lord,
for the Lord has done marvelous things.
Let us worship God.
Let us shout aloud and sing for joy,
for great is the Holy One
who has advented into our time and space!
Lighting the Advent Wreath: 1 John 4:7-12, (Pink Candle)
Today we light the candle of love,
knowing that Jesus is the ultimate expression of the love of God.
We know what love is because Jesus shows it to us. We read from 1 John 4:7-12:
Dear friends,
let us love one another,
for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God,
because God is love.
This is how God showed his love among us:
He sent his one and only Son into the world
that we might live through him.
This is love:
not that we loved God,
but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Dear friends,
since God so loved us,
we also ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God;
but if we love one another,
God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
As the candle is being lit, the reader says,
We light this candle as a symbol of Christ's love
that has come into the world.
Prayer of Confession
O God of grace, we hear the Baptizer's cry,
and we repent.
Forgive us for words spoken
that should have remained unspoken,
and for words we kept to ourselves
that could have brought cheer to someone's heart.
Forgive us for doing deeds
that harmed and for leaving undone deeds
that could have helped someone.
Forgive us through Jesus our Lord, we pray.
By your Holy Spirit,
now produce in our lives fruit in keeping with repentance.
Cultivate in the garden of our hearts a generous spirit,
an honest life, and a deep desire to glorify you.
Through Christ, Amen.
Song Suggestions
"On Jordan's Bank the Baptist's Cry" Coffin, Chandler
"Prepare the Way of the Lord" Berthier
"Surely It Is God Who Saves Me" Daw (Isaiah 12)
"Wait for the Lord" Taizé
Blessing: from Zephaniah 3:14-20
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord take delight in you and quiet you with his love.
May you rejoice in the Lord even as God rejoices over you,
filling you now and always with his peace, Amen.
Sermon-Building Ideas: Luke 3:7-18
No Advent figure has less of a "Christmas feel" than John the Baptist. But for that reason, no single biblical character can better reveal to us the hue, highly disruptive meaning of Advent than John—which is perhaps why he is so roundly ignored in most of our Christmas reflections. No one puts a John the Baptist figurine or statue into their front-yard creche (though Santa has been known to make an appearance!), no one hangs a John the Baptist keepsake ornament on their tree, and no one sends or receives any Christmas cards featuring John the Baptist.
Yet, according to all four gospels, John the Baptist is the necessary forerunner to Jesus. If you do not meet John the Baptist and heed his message, then you are unprepared to meet the Baby of Bethlehem. So the sermon for this third Advent Sunday must present John honestly, replete with his screwball oddities and his in-your-face message, "Repent or else!"
One way to do this would be to remind everyone what an immense impression John made in his own day. As the well-known writer Fred Craddock points out in his marvelous sermon "Have You Ever Heard John Preach," a great many people were certain that John was the Christ. Indeed, as late as the days after Pentecost, the apostles kept bumping into John the Baptist churches on three continents. Even the great preacher Apollos needed to be pulled aside by Priscilla and Aquila after they heard Apollos proclaiming John to be the Messiah.
To put it mildly, John's preaching struck a chord, catching and holding people's attention. It should do the same for us today. For John knew that the Messiah was coming to die for sin, to banish evil, and to inaugurate shalom. So if you are to meet and greet this Messiah correctly, you must admit that you need him in the first place. If you don't, then you'll have no use for Jesus once he's born. John did everything he could to attract attention, shake people up, and so make them see things in a new light. John deliberately shocked and titillated, purposely pulled the rug out from underneath folks, was intentionally iconoclastic. He did everything he could to insure that people would be eager to welcome the Savior when he arrived.
Only those willing to turn their lives over to God are ready for the Christ. The rest, John says, are fuel for the fire. None of that is very Christmaslike. Or is it? A more poignant question we preachers could not pose.
Banner Idea: Dwight Baker, a member of Calvin Church at this time designed this Advent banner, which is 53" wide by 9' long, painted on linen, moving from very light blue/white at the top to a very deep blue at the bottom.
Call to Worship: from Luke 1:45-55
Our souls magnify the Lord!
Our spirits rejoice in God our Savior!
The Mighty One has done great things for us.
Holy is his name!
Let us worship God.
For God is our Maker and our Redeemer,
from generation to generation God is merciful.
Lighting the Advent Wreath: John 14:25-27 (Purple Candle)
Today we light the candle of peace,
knowing that Jesus alone can bring peace to our hearts
and also to our world.
We read from John 14: 25-27:
All this I have spoken while still with you.
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you all things
and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you;
my peace I give you.
I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled
and do not be afraid.
As the candle is being lit, the reader says,
We light this candle as a symbol of the peace
that Jesus has given to us—
a peace that passes all understanding.
Prayer of Confession: from Hebrews 10:5-10
O God, you do not desire outward sacrifices and offerings.
What you desire is a changed heart,
an inward turn to you in every way.
We confess, dear Lord,
that though our lives often look good from the outside,
although we often do the right things and say the right words,
our hearts are often far from you.
Sometimes we do even our most pious deeds grudgingly.
Forgive us, we pray.
Through your Son, the perfect sacrifice for all our sins,
restore us by your grace.
Purify us inside and out,
making us holy
through the offering of Jesus' body once for all, Amen.
Song Suggestions
"Hark! the Glad Sound" Doddridge
"Magnify the Lord" Polman
"O Christ, Come Back" Seerveld
"Song of Mary" Winter
"Tell Out, My Soul" Dudley-Smith
Blessing: from Psalm 80
May God’s face shine upon you,
assuring you of salvation.
May God's face shine down upon you,
filling your homes, friendships, marriages,
and places of work with God’s holy light,
and so give you and all around you peace, Amen.
Sermon-Building Ideas: Luke 1:46-55
As we cap off this Advent series in which we've been seeing how un-Christmaslike the Bible is, we turn to one of the few Christmas songs that has a solid biblical base: the Magnificat of Mary. But, not surprisingly, this song is as unlike a Christmas carol as you can imagine! Here you will find no midnight clear, no little town of Bethlehem sleeping tenderly in the night, no gentle bleating of sheep or silent suckling of the Christ Child. No, instead we find violent images of political overthrow and the banishing of the rich. Small wonder that C. S. Lewis once called this "a terrible song." By "terrible" he did not mean to imply that the quality of this song is poor. Rather Lewis meant "terrible" in that word's original sense of something that evokes dread or terror. In this last Advent sermon we preachers need to uncover what it is about Mary's song that is so terrifying and what this very unsettling message reveals about the true nature of Christmas.
It will come as no surprise to discover that this song has become a favorite of many. For contained here is a fine vignette of a legitimate biblical motif: God's concern for the poor, downtrodden, oppressed, exploited, and neglected of the earth. Mary begins her reflection on this world's disenfranchised by looking in the mirror. As she regards her own humble status—keep in mind the exceedingly low position that women occupied in her day—she realizes anew that this is how God has worked throughout salvation history. God is forever reversing expectations, using the weak, the foolish, the runt of the family to accomplish God’s purposes. Mary is just the latest example of a very old, very biblical pattern. The sermon could perhaps point out other biblical examples of God's choosing the most unlikely of candidates for the job.
But the message can also point out that in Luke's gospel, this theme of the poor comes up again and again. Indeed, Mary's Magnificat contains a capsule summary of the gospel according to Jesus, her Son (as Jesus himself made clear in places like Luke 4 and 6).
The Magnificat poignantly reminds us that in Advent, and at all times, we are to examine our own hearts and lives. How faithfully do we incarnate the patterns of kingdom living as traced out by Jesus? At a time of the year when so many of our lives drip with fatness, when we spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on gifts and food, this may not be a popular— and it certainly will not be a comfortable—message to preach. But perhaps the sermon can point out contemporary examples of economic and social injustice. Perhaps, by way of redress, local agencies that work to meet the needs of members of your community, could be held up as worthy of our volunteer time and money. (Better yet, organize times for your church members to serve and develop a relationship with such ministries that stretches through the year.) Mary's song, like the figure of John the Baptist, doesn't fit into what Christmas has become for most people. Strong-armed lyrics of violent overthrow and reversal of fortunes discomfit us at a time when we want to be filled with good cheer. But if the lyrics of our favorite carols keep us from embracing the truths of Mary's Magnificat, then it is not Mary's song that is "terrible" but our own songs, devoid as they sometimes are of the fullness of shalom that Jesus was born to bring.
Call to Worship: from Isaiah 9
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light!
Here in the valley of the shadow of death,
a light has dawned.
For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given.
On this glad Christmas morning we hail him,
Christ our Lord!
Praise be to you, our Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
and Prince of Peace.
Let us worship God.
For he shall reign forever and ever!
Lighting the Advent Wreath: John 1:1-9 (White Candle)
Today we light the Christ candle as a reminder of Jesus,
the Light of our world and the light shining in our hearts. We read from John 1:1-9:
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made;
without him nothing was made that has been made.
In him was life,
and that life was the light of all mankind.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
He came as a witness to testify concerning that light,
so that through him all might believe.
He himself was not the light;
he came only as a witness to the light.
The true light that gives light to everyone
was coming into the world.
As the candle is being lit, the reader says,
We light this candle because the Light of Jesus
was born on Christmas and now makes all things bright.
Prayer of Christmas Adoration: from Psalm 96
Father God,
we sing to you a new song!
Today we declare your marvelous deeds to the world.
For you, O Lord, are great and are most worthy to be praised.
You, O God, dwell in splendor and majesty, strength and glory.
But by your tender grace,
you have brought all of this majestic glory down to our world
through your most precious Son.
Today we worship you in the splendor of your holiness
and in the shining radiance of your grace.
We join the cosmic chorus of earth and heaven,
of angels who sing and trees that clap their limbs in joy.
Great are you, O God,
and most worthy to be praised.
Through the Child, Amen.
Blessing: from Titus 2:13-14
Now from the One who is our blessed hope,
who gave himself to redeem us and purify us,
from our only wise God through Jesus Christ
and the Holy Spirit to you, God’s people:
may the grace, mercy, and peace of the Child
be and abide with you all, Amen!
Sermon-Building Ideas: Luke 2:1-7
Luke shows us a cruel world where babies sometimes had to be delivered in barns amid steaming piles of manure and the acrid stench of cow urine.
In his brilliant novel Mr. Ives's Christmas, Oscar Hijuelos shows us the lifelong spiritual odyssey of Edward Ives. A deeply religious man, Ives had always found Advent and Christmas to be the most moving, spiritually significant time of the year.
But then one year, just before Christmas, Ives's son, Robert, is shot and killed by a mindless street thug. This senseless murder shatters Ives's ability to enjoy Christmas. How could he ever enter this time of the year again without remembering this awful event? Ives's journey through the years is chronicled in the novel, climaxing in his return to a Christmas service in which he is finally able to see Jesus again. But now it is no longer the innocent, baby Jesus he sees but the pierced, resurrected Jesus who knows and heals our pains.
As preachers we need to remember that there may be a lot of "Mr. Ives" types sitting before us on any given Christmas Day. Some may have a perennially difficult time with the holidays. But there may be others who have never had a bad Christmas in their lives— until this year. Perhaps a divorce is pending. Perhaps a job will be ending as of January 1, and the specter of unemployment clouds holiday cheer. Perhaps a dear spouse or parent or child died in the last year, and now there is an achingly empty chair at the Christmas Day dinner table.
Luke tells us that Jesus was born into the real world—a world ruled by a powerful Caesar and crawling with his lackeys; a world of poverty and of disenfranchised people. Luke shows us a cruel world where babies sometimes had to be delivered in barns amid steaming piles of manure and the acrid stench of cow urine. Luke very deliberately sets the world stage for Jesus' birth as a reminder that this event was not hermetically sealed from reality.
Indeed, all of the evangelists are skilled at showing this. Matthew follows up his Christmas story with the horror of Herod's slaughter of the innocents. Luke shows us Caesar in his faraway Roman splendor but then, by contrast, presents God's Son in a manger. Even before John can get to his wonderful "The Word was made flesh" line, he includes the unhappy verse, "He came to his own, but they received him not." The gospels want us to know that Jesus came to the real world in order to suffer for that world. This is the Jesus whom the apostles sketch out for us.
One day a man was sitting in church with his little granddaughter. During the sermon the child was scribbling furiously with her crayon on the back of the children's bulletin. "What are you drawing?" the grandfather whispered. "I'm drawing a picture of God," she replied. "Hmm," the man mused, "but no one knows what God looks like." "They will when I finish this picture!" the bright-eyed girl shot back.
"No one has ever seen God," John wrote, "but Jesus the Son has made him known." Well, take a look at the Son the gospels present. He is born in poverty, misunderstood by family and friends, derided by the religious authorities, killed off by the occupying Roman authorities. He truly is a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. "No one knows what God looks like." But the New Testament evangelists, all scribbling furiously with their Spirit-inspired quills, assure us: "You will when we finish this picture!"
The birth of Jesus truly is good news—it deserves the rejoicing of heaven and earth and all the joy we can muster on a day like Christmas. But as we've seen all through this Advent series, the best part of the Good News gets eclipsed from view if we over-sentimentalize "Christmastime" as a season that can give no quarter to hurt and sadness. As Christian preachers we dare not trivialize Jesus' advent by glossing over the suffering and sadness and sorrow for which he came. Jesus deserves our honest treatment of his advent. So do the hurting people in front of us.