Advent Series: The Best News You’ll Ever Hear
“The world wants spectacle. And so it is the greatest irony that Christmas is the one Christian holiday the world seems to embrace yet its message is the most incomprehensible to that world.” — Tim Keller
As much of the world prepares to sing beautiful carols, bake cookies for Santa, and stuff those stockings, I wanted to leave you with one last Advent read for 2023. I don’t know about you, but often during Christmas my mind is solely fixed on the nativity scene / the birth of Jesus. Which makes sense because the season of Advent is symbolic of His arrival — but I want to look at a particular passage (disclaimer it’s not your typical Advent reading), and reflect.
May we be reminded of why His arrival is truly the greatest, most life-changing news we could ever grasp.
I read this over and over again and as I was meditating, I thought, wow this is literally why Christmas matters.
“We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.”
1 John 1:1–4
What we’re reading is a straight up proclamation. Notice all the sense verbs (seeing, hearing, touching) — it reminds me of a deposition of an eyewitness on the stand providing testimony. The apostle John and his followers were proclaiming what we call the Gospel; the good news about Jesus. I’d like to posit 3 simple and life-changing truths of what this news means of us, based on what we just read:
1. Jesus is eternal life.
“We are not being told merely that Jesus has eternal life, or even that he gives it. He IS eternal life and salvation itself.” (Keller)
Think about this: every other religion in history has someone or something promising to point us to God and life beyond this life. Most often that requires something of us (good deeds, right standing with God, etc). Christianity is the only religion that says you don’t need to do anything to get up to God — God has come down to you.
And this God is the source of eternal life as well as the source of a flourishing life in the here and now.
2. Jesus wants deep relationship with you.
One of the names of Jesus is Emmanuel — God with us. We especially hear this during Christmas time. Why? Jesus Christ is God incarnate. He wrote himself into history and arrived to us so that we would forever be able to dwell with God.
That word fellowship in that verse sounds a little funny. Another word for it is communion. The Greek word in this text is koinonia.
It means a deep, multi-dimensional, intimate bond.
Behold this truth: The creator of the universe — of every star, every leaf, every gene, every grain of sand — also created you and I and desires a personal relationship with us. That is the character of Yahweh.
“Because of the incarnation, it is possible to have fellowship with God. In Jesus Christ, His glory becomes near to us. He becomes graspable and palatable. He becomes above all personal, someone with whom to have a relationship. Christmas means that we can have fellowship with God.” (Keller)
3. Jesus promises us great joy… both a taste of it now and complete joy to come.
Notice how John finishes this grand proclamation with his reason for writing: so that we may have joy.
Don’t believe him? How about Jesus…
“I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. (John 15:11)
The Good News of Jesus should cause us to ooze over with giddy joy. We have been given the gift of access to the nearness of God. Despite the lament, darkness, grief, and melancholy of this roller coaster called life — we are challenged to keep walking, step by step with endurance. How? We have been given the promise of joy that keeps us going thanks to the Holy Spirit who empowers us as we walk through the tensions of this life.
Wholeness; true shalom is coming.
“The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less… It’s what we trust in but don’t yet see that keeps us going.” (2 Cor. 5:5 MSG)
Keller finishes his gem of a book, Hidden Christmas, with this call to action:
“ The incarnation, Christmas, means that God is not content to be a concept or just someone you know from a distance. Do what it takes to get close to Him. Christmas is a challenge as well as a promise about fellowship with God.”
What do you need from Jesus this Christmas? A glimmer of joy that this is not the end?
Do you need to believe the promise more fully? Or perhaps step up to the challenge of letting Him in and communing in a deeper way? May your hope be refreshed this Christmas, dear reader.
