Christmas 1
Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 147; Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7; John 1:1-18
You can also subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
I.
I would like to examine with you this morning the twelfth verse of John chapter 1.
“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”
This is a verse that can strike panic into the hearts of people who haven’t got a firm grasp on what the Bible actually teaches.
Immediately upon hearing it, a series of uncomfortable questions begins to form in our heads.
“Receive him? How do I receive him?”
“Believe in his name? What’s that supposed to mean? Are you asking me if I believe he’s got a name? Well, of course he does. It’s Jesus. Everyone knows that.”
“He gave power…. Power you say? What kind of power is he giving? I haven’t got any power.”
“Children of God. Why have I got to become a child of God? Aren’t we all children of God to begin with? ‘All God’s creatures…’ and all that. Everyone knows we’re all God’s children already, just by being born.”
But, nevertheless, John’s words are plain: “But to all who received him….”
Well, then. That but is quite clear.
Some people haven’t received him. Some people haven’t believed in his name. Some people aren’t getting this power. Some people aren’t children of God.
Let’s go back a verse and see if we can gain any perspective.
John 1:11 says, “He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.”
Well, He might be called “Jesus of Nazareth” but they were not very kind to Him there.
Luke 4:29 tells us that after Jesus preached a sermon there:
“...they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong.”
We know that when He came to Jerusalem they were already plotting to arrest and kill Him, and they succeeded.
We can go back a verse further.
John 1:10 says, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not.”
Now, this ought to give us some pause, something to think about.
Because up until now we’ve just been reading along, reading about events that took place a long time ago, in a place we don’t live, among people who are foreign to us.
But now we’ve got to deal with this remarkable statement, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him….”
That means we’re talking about this world. Our world. It’s the same world.
“...yet the world knew him not.” If the Creator of that world can walk in it and men still be so blind as to miss Him, what does that say about us? What are we missing?
Receiving, believing, giving of power, and children of God. Can we be sure this scripture is describing us? Is this the Church today?
Does she receive the gospel as it’s been given?
Does she believe in the name of her Lord?
Is there any evidence that she’s been given power?
Finally, does she act like she’s a child of God?
II.
Now, if the answer to these questions is no, then you’ve got to regain some understanding of who you are.
You are the Church.
Isaiah says as much. He says God is going to make something of you. He’s going to make a spectacle of you.
He’s going to clothe you with the garments of salvation, with a robe of righteousness.
Like a groom He’s going to put a flower in your jacket lapel, and like a bride He’s going to give you an astonishing set of jewels to wear.
Here is the reason why.
God wants the whole world to see how beautiful His Church is.
God also knows that it’s been a long time since the world looked at us that way.
That is why Isaiah says in 62:1-2, “I will not rest, until her vindication goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory.”
This happens every year at Christmastime.
The world sees how beautiful the Church is.
For a few weeks every year she is vindicated. She is clothed in her rightful glory.
The gospel is proclaimed over the loudspeakers at the Stop & Shop, in the Verizon store, and in the mall parking lot.
“Come and adore Him,” we are told.
Never say that Christmas has become too commercial.
This is the one time of the year when even the commercials are Christian.
On Christmas Eve, we passed the light of Christ here at First Church Woodbury, as flame passed from candle to candle.
Outside, the luminaries were lit on Main Street as far as the eye could see.
This is what the brightness of vindication looks like, the torches that light the path to salvation.
Yet, much like John the Baptist, this was not the light.
We are not that light.
That light, the light that enlightens every man, the light that has come into the world, is Jesus Christ.
III.
Israel tended to reject her prophets and John the Baptist and Jesus fare no better.
John is beheaded and Jesus is crucified.
By Christmas morning, the luminaries on Main Street were all gone. By December 26th, I even started to see discarded Christmas trees.
The Christmas season has a glory that fades quickly and it’s over before we’ve barely had time to receive its message, let alone believe it.
And what of the power, our power, power given to us, power to become children of God? Where has it gone?
The return of glory to the Church and her vindication, where is it?
Let’s examine another verse in our reading today.
John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
I want you to recall what it’s like to chase something. You run until you catch up. You run until you overcome the thing you are chasing.
It seems to me that even when we are lighting candles in church on Christmas Eve or luminaries on Main Street that the darkness is still all around us.
Then, when we extinguish them and toss them away, the darkness has indeed returned.
And, of course, I am not talking about candles and luminaries used just for dramatic effect.
A church service, a liturgy, after all, knows a good deal about staging, about creating a mood, almost as if to trick us into believing something.
That’s why people are apt to become disappointed in the Church, in the minister, in the sermon, or in the people they meet there sitting next to them in the pews.
They arrive expecting to find the light. They find it only to have it extinguished.
And so, John reminds us, “He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.”
You see, that’s all we can hope to do, all we’re even asked to do, to bear witness.
When you chase something, you overcome it. You grab hold of it. You take it into your possession.
In the race between light and darkness — and let’s drop the metaphor that John is using for the moment and supply the real terms of his argument, life and death — in the race between life and death, death always seems to be catching up to life, overcoming it, grabbing hold of the living, possessing them, and taking them down into the grave.
And death need not be limited to mortality.
Anytime a hope dies, a relationship ends, or our efforts turn to frustration and disappointment, darkness is overcoming the light. It is taking possession of us.
What we would want, what we would hope to find, is an example of a time when that didn’t occur, when darkness did not overcome light, when death lost its grip.
Then we would gladly bear witness to it.
IV.
John’s Gospel tells us this is so. Moreover, he tells us that he, and John the Baptist, and the rest of Jesus’ disciples all bear witness to it.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
But for a time it certainly seemed to.
For three hours during Jesus’ crucifixion, darkness covers the whole land around Jerusalem (Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44–45).
Surely, John had this dramatic moment in mind when he wrote these verses.
For there was still one light shining, even as the sun failed, shining from the cross, the love of God piercing the gloom of all the world’s hatred.
Hatred can never overcome love, can it? I mean really possess it, grab hold of it, not let it go.
Hatred cannot rob love of its rights, can it? It might hold love captive, take it hostage, beat it down, and rob love of its glory.
But love retains its rights because God is love and God loves His Church, and that love will return again and again, to vindicate her and restore the Church’s glory.
“To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”
This is what we bear witness to.
“Who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
That is to say, we don’t bear witness to ourselves, to our own feeble attempts to chase away the darkness with little candles or even with random acts of kindness.
We bear witness to the fact that we are born of God’s love.
The Church bears witness not to her own perfection, not to her own glory, not to her own light, but to the God who perfects her, glorifies her, and makes her shine for all the world to see.
V.
To them who receive, to them who believe, to them he gave power, power to become the children of God.
We mustn’t get confused by this word power.
It might be better translated as claim, as in a legal claim, or more like the power of attorney, or the power that comes when you’re the executor of a great estate.
For that is what you are.
When you’re a child you have a claim, a rightful claim, to your father’s estate.
St. Paul confirms this when he writes in Galatians 4:7, “through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.”
The Church is the perpetual beneficiary of this claim on God’s kingdom. It is forever her right to exercise the power of this claim.
The Church is brought down by sin, personal and corporate, but she is vindicated by holiness.
You can expect God to protect the rights of the Church and, in fact, He does so each time He convicts individual members of the Church of their sins, and allows the Church to endure the hardships that come with sin so that she can be raised back up.
What does that look like? What does it look like when holiness returns to the Church, and the world around her starts to notice her glory once again?
It looks like this.
First, it is the Church’s joy to receive her Lord.
John tells us the Lord Jesus Christ and the Word of God are the same person.
Moreover, the Word of God written and the Word of God incarnate both testify to the same God.
Thus, the Church, if she wants holiness to return, will receive the Word of God in the pages of Scripture as she would if Jesus Christ were dwelling incarnate among us now.
This Bible sits here in the center of the pulpit in the center of this church as a testimony to that.
Long ago, the members of First Church built this pulpit and placed this Bible here to give a visible sign that they had received the Word.
Second, she believes in His name.
The Church that is on the path to glory isn’t afraid to have the praise of Jesus on her lips.
She isn’t afraid to say His name in public. She is visibly upset when she hears that name used in vain.
She understands that His is a name that is above every name (Philippians 2:9).
She will not stand by while other names seek to ascend above her Lord’s name, first by asking for tolerance from the Church, second by claiming equality with the Church, and third by demanding allegiance from the Church.
You say, “But there is separation of Church and State,” but, you see, that wasn’t what the separation was for.
It was for the protection of the Church and her rights, not the tearing down of the Church and the trampling upon of her rights.
The separation was to protect the Church from the aggression of the State, something we’ve seen too often in Christian history, not so that the State could have an excuse to shut its ears to the truth.
“He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not.”
Third, she understands that she has been given power.
Specifically, as Jesus tells His disciples in His Great Commission to them, in the words of Matthew 28:19-20, she has been given power to “Go… and make disciples of all nations….”
The Church has the right to go to all people, but we have been told that the Church is not welcome in our schools. We have been told she is not welcome in our legislatures.
But God’s word says otherwise. God’s word says the Church has been given the power to enter the academy, to speak to the governor, and to challenge the legislature.
Moreover, the Church has been given power to disciple them, by teaching them to obey the commandments of the Lord in these and in every time and place.
They will resist, but they will not overcome. They cannot possess the Church.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
The message of Christmas is that the lamp of Israel has been relit. Jesus Christ, the light of the world, has been born.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word: Grant that the same light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Preached on December 29, 2024 at the First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
Some people haven’t ____________ Jesus.
Some people haven’t ____________ in his name.
Some people aren’t getting the ____________ to become children of God.
God wants the whole world to see how ____________ His Church is.
The ____________ is proclaimed over the loudspeakers at the Stop & Shop, in the Verizon store, and in the mall parking lot.
Christmas is the one time of the year when even the commercials are ____________.
Israel tended to ____________ her prophets.
The Christmas season has a glory that ____________ quickly.
In the race between life and death, death always seems to be ____________ to life.
Hatred cannot rob love of its ____________.
We bear witness to the fact that we are born of God’s ____________.
The Church is brought down by sin but she is vindicated by ____________.
Parents and Grandparents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents or the minister after church. Older Children – Discuss with your parents one or both of the following: 1) Have you ever felt sad when Christmas was over? Why? 2) What is the difference between vindication and “getting even”?
(1) received; (2) believed; (3) power; (4) beautiful; (5) gospel; (6) Christian; (7) reject; (8) fades; (9) catching up; (10) rights; (11) love; (12) holiness
Share this post