Now on to the thing that you've all been waiting for.
My final sermon of the year.
Merry Christmas.
My name, Andrea, that was a little too strong to laugh.
I mean, it was meant to be funny, but not that funny.
My name is Greg Hampton.
If I've never met you,
I would love to meet you.
I'm looking at a couple of you that I've never met before.
I would love to meet you and buy you coffee.
Let me know after the service.
Shake my hand or fill the connection card out
and we'll make sure to connect.
I would love to get to know you and your story.
Today is the last Sunday of Advent.
And because today is also Christmas Eve,
today is about two things.
We've gone through hope, gone through peace.
Jen brought us a message about joy last week.
And today, both subjects of love and light
come through in our message.
And so let's just jump right in to the book of John.
If you don't have your own Bible,
there's physical Bibles out on the bookshelf
that you can grab, take home with you.
They're blue, they're free.
Just take one, take one for a neighbor
if you think that they would need that.
And if you'd like to download a Bible from digital app store,
there's a lot of options like that as well.
We like to give the scriptures our full attention
when we read them at this part of the service.
And one of the ways to do that is to stand.
You're not required to stand.
It's just a little tradition that some of us do.
And so those of you that would like to join me
in standing for the reading of John 1, verses 9 through 14,
can join me now.
I'm reading the Amplified Version.
It says this, verse 9.
There it was, the true light, the genuine, perfect,
steadfast light, which coming into the world
enlightens everyone.
He was in the world.
And though the world was made through him,
the world did not recognize him.
I'm going to jump to 14.
And the word became flesh and lived among us.
And we actually saw his glory.
Glorious belongs to the one and only begotten
son of the Father, the Son who is truly unique,
the only one of his kind, who is full of grace and truth,
absolutely free of deception.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the scriptures,
the way that they have persisted throughout the millennia
that we can still read them, consider them.
I pray that today, whatever you have for us to learn,
I pray that it would stick, that it
would become a part of the framework of our faith,
that our faith would become stronger as we become
more like your son, Jesus.
Amen.
Thanks, all.
You can have a seat.
All right.
So it's Christmas.
And because it's Christmas, I've been thinking about things
being opened, right?
Gifts will get opened all over the world.
The eyes of children will be bigger
than they have been all year long.
Parents will be ripped from their slumber
like wrapping paper torn from gifts.
Do you know what that means?
Paper torn from gifts, duvets all over America, comforters,
sheets, blankets.
And then the opening will commence.
Of course, my brain is weird.
And so I started thinking about all the other kinds of openings
that there are.
Packages, yes.
Thought about that.
But now there's like UPS packages.
I thought about cookies, cracker packages, candy packages.
And then late at night, I thought about how the fridge gets
opened for that midnight snack.
Thought about how stores have openings.
Did you see there's a Starbucks that's opening on 1st Street?
In Moline, it is as close to being in Rock Island
as you can be to Rock Island without being in Rock Island.
And speaking of, maybe they have job openings.
In sports, you have a hole that can open up in your defense
defenses, structure, TV shows, plays, movies.
All your favorite songs, they have openings.
And I was thinking about how some things are open-ended.
Anyone that's ever been on the verge of a breakup or a job
ending, you know what this feels like.
That last conversation or meeting
didn't seem to clear things up.
Still open-ended.
That's not always comfortable.
This brings me back to Jesus.
I think the birth of Jesus was open-ended.
The opening of his eyes on Earth as human child
didn't answer every question, didn't end every debate.
Wars didn't suddenly cease.
Sickness didn't instantaneously disappear.
When you read the story of Simeon in Luke chapter 2,
it says that the Lord had promised him in particular
that he would see the Messiah before he died.
And so as tradition had it, this young firstborn son
of a Jewish family was brought to the temple on a certain day.
And Simeon was there.
And he saw him.
And he literally prayed, now, God, you
may let your servant die in peace.
Simeon's waiting was over, but the waiting
continued for everyone else.
As Mary waited to see how the life of her son
would play out, how exactly would he save his people
from their sins?
That's what the angel said.
He will save his people from their sins.
How exactly would he end up on David's throne?
That's what the angel said.
He will sit on David's throne.
How exactly would he end up being called
the king of Jacob's people forever?
That's what the angel said.
For three decades between birth and adulthood,
between manger and cross, I'm sure
that there were things that were left or felt open-ended.
Even when Jesus's earthly ministry began,
the disciples that followed Him, they had their own ideas.
They had their own ideas of what was supposed to be going on,
of what was supposed to happen.
And the longer that they followed Jesus,
the more what they thought had been opened wasn't happening.
What they thought would come to an end seems to still continue.
What they thought would begin still
seemed like it was open-ended.
So what do I mean?
Well, for one, they saw Jesus healing
and bringing spiritual renewal.
But the disciples almost surely thought
that Jesus would bring peace as a political leader.
And they almost surely believed that peace would be won
through war, a war that would be led by Jesus.
It made no sense to them that a messiah would reject military
power or let himself be handed over to death on a cross.
But they believed that Jesus would bring peace
on a cross.
I don't think they were that much different than people
today, waging wars in the name of peace,
waging wars sometimes in the name of God.
So the gift of Jesus was opened.
But the gift of Jesus was open-ended.
And I think it's still open-ended.
There it was, the true light, the genuine, perfect, steadfast
light, which enlightens everyone.
John continues, he was in the world.
And though the world was made through him,
the world did not recognize him.
In two verses, John tells us, this light is for everyone,
but not everyone recognizes it.
The gift, the love of God in bodily form, the light of life
interred the world, but to some, he was still unrecognizable.
The good news is this, God is open-ended to those still
closed to him.
Jesus remains open to those that do not recognize him,
that do not want him, that do not think they need him.
That's what Peter was talking about in 2 Peter 3, 9,
when he said, the Lord does not delay his return as though he
were unable to act.
And he is not slow about his promise,
as some count slowness, but is extraordinarily patient
towards you, not wishing for any to perish,
but for all to come to repentance,
because Jesus is open-ended.
Jesus is the gift, opened on earth one night in Bethlehem,
and is still open to enlighten all the world today.
Guys, what I'm trying to say is this.
This is especially important as many of us
will be spending more time than normal,
maybe today or tomorrow, with family,
with people that probably think very differently
about the world than us.
Some of us have very diverse families
when it comes to thought, political in nature,
social in nature, you name it.
A lot of us have families that span the spectrum of how
we think.
Maybe you have family that thinks very differently
about God than you.
So what I'm saying is that we should not imagine that Jesus,
we should not imagine Jesus only being available to someone
the first time they hear about Jesus,
or the first time they hear a Bible verse,
or the first time they're invited to something as weird
as a worship service.
The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus,
and that gift is once and for all,
but that gift is not available only once.
If you don't notice it or understand it at first glance,
it's not gone forever.
The love of Jesus is the gift that is always there
waiting to be received.
It reminds me when I was younger.
It was probably around my teen years
when my sister and I were getting to the age
where cold hard cash would be a really great present
for us.
It was a time in my childhood when I was a kid.
And I remember going to a church where cold hard cash would
be a really great present to get for Christmas.
Some of you can probably relate.
And my parents, they started hiding envelopes
of cash in the Christmas tree.
Have any of you guys ever done that?
Kids, tonight, tomorrow, look in that tree.
So the first time this happened, we had no idea, right?
It never happened before.
This was a new precedent.
We didn't know that that was even allowed.
We'd never been given just money.
But the reality is that they were there the whole time.
Envelopes of money just hiding in the Christmas tree
with our names scrawled across the front.
So when we get done opening all the gifts that we noticed,
my mom or probably my dad said, well, hey, you know,
there might be one thing left.
You might want to take a harder look at the tree.
Imagine instead that we didn't know the envelopes were there.
We get done opening the obvious gifts
and then being told, well, there was one more gift.
But not only did you not notice it, you didn't open it.
So we're going to keep that for ourselves.
I don't believe in a God that hides and takes.
I believe in a God that reveals and opens.
I said, I do not believe in a God that hides His love
and takes back His promises.
I believe in a God that always reveals and is always open.
Jesus isn't hidden and forever unavailable
if you did not at first notice.
Instead, if you didn't see it, I think the Father reaches in,
moves things out of the way, makes the gift more obvious,
moves it closer where it's available within reach
and free.
The open-ended love and light of Jesus is like that,
like a Father giving a gift to the world that
wasn't noticed at first, but is still very much there
and available.
But then I suppose that another way to say this
is that Jesus doesn't need to be opened.
We do.
Our minds, our eyes, our hearts, our homes, our lives.
Jesus isn't the gift that needs to be opened every day.
Jesus is eternally open.
We need to be opened every day.
We need to see.
The first song we sang today, but now I see the light.
We need to be open to receive the love of God
born in human flesh.
And I wonder if today, this Christmas Eve,
if it's time for you to open yourself to Jesus,
maybe for the first time or even in new ways.
I wonder if today isn't the day that you tell someone
that you have definitely already told about Jesus,
that this is a gift that doesn't go away,
that Jesus is always available.
And as we are turning 10, I wonder
if this coming year just might be more than it has ever been,
the year that we as a congregation
open ourselves to Jesus in ways that we never have,
carry his life, his love, his life to the world around us.
Amen.