John 1:1-14 (Christmas Light Pastor Jeff Kliewer - Recording)

The Christmas choir, that was awesome. Hey guys, sitting along this side over here, if you're close to one of the blinds, could you just lift up on those for just a second? Just lift them up nice and high so everybody can see this light coming in.

Christmas Light and the Meaning of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas

I wrote my sermon on Monday and I entitled it Christmas Light. And when I did that, it was kind of cloudy and dreary all week. Did you notice it was really cloudy this week? My prayer was that on Sunday morning, the light would shine forth and burst into the sanctuary.

Little did I know that God would blanket the ground with snow so that it would reflect and so fill the sanctuary. The sermon doesn't need this light in order for it to be true, but it is a wonderful illustration of Jesus as the light of the world, that the light is just shining so bright this morning.

Let's go and give him thanks in prayer. You can pull those down if they're blinding at this point.

All right, let's pray.

Gracious heavenly Father, thank you so much. You are so good to answer prayer, to just show us your glory and your grace by the sun that shines into this building and that lights the world every day. Lord Jesus, you are the son of God.

Radiant beams pour forth from your holy face. Lord, you are, Jesus, the light of the world. Thank you so much for coming. I pray now, Lord, that as we listen to your word, as I preach, Lord, that you would help me, give me the words to say, and I pray for every listening ear to hear from you, not from me, the preacher, but from you through your word, that you would cast out every vain and dark thought from the minds of your people, that light would flood our souls this morning and set us free from the darkness of this world, that the enemy would be kicked out and pushed aside, vanquished by the light of your word.

Lord, your word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. So, Lord God, we ask now that your light would flood our souls in Jesus' name.

Amen.

I was listening to a radio talk show. It was one of those sports radios on TV, on the radio. And I heard a caller ask some questions, and then he signed off by saying, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and Happy Kwanzaa and Happy Hanukkah.

Goodbye.

And they all started laughing and kind of moved on. But I thought to myself, wow, that is really a picture of how little people value and understand the first one in that list, Merry Christmas. Because if you understand what Christmas means, then every other tradition of man becomes silent and small and meaningless under the light of his presence.

Merry Christmas, what does that mean? Well, we know that the term Christmas is not in the Bible. In fact, the first time it was used that we have record of is the year 1038. So it comes like 1 ,000 years later.

And it comes from this word mass, which referred to the gathering of God's people. But when the priests would sign off at the end to basically say you are dismissed, that word for dismiss became the word that people use for mass.

It sounded like mass. And they didn't really speak Latin, so the Latin mass, they didn't know what he was saying anyway. So people would just call it, oh, that thing he says, mass. Let's go to that again today.

So that word mass doesn't have great meaning. But the word Christ has the greatest meaning in the world. Christ Jesus is the one that we celebrate. And Christmas is this time that we gather to celebrate and to rejoice in Christ Jesus, the light of the world.

What about Hanukkah? You guys see some happy Hanukkah signs around town? Some people saying that from time to time. What is Hanukkah? Hanukkah refers to a festival of lights, a festival, a feast of dedication that the Jewish people celebrated.

Because about 164 years before Christ came, there was this wicked Greek ruler, a dark force in the world. His name was Antiochus Epiphanes. And Antiochus Epiphanes came to Jerusalem to conquer the people of God, to subjugate them.

This is before the time of Christ. And Antiochus Epiphanes set up a statue of Zeus in the temple of the living God. And he sacrificed a pig on the altar to desecrate the altar. He was mocking God. And finally, some of the Jewish people came together, led by Judah Maccabees, and a band of his brothers and followers got together and they fought and they fought, and finally they conquered the wicked Antiochus Epiphanes and drove the Greeks out of Jerusalem.

And so when they conquered, they needed to rededicate the temple. And to rededicate the temple, they lit the menorah, the candle. But there was only enough oil in the jar to last for one day. Miraculously, that jar, that oil, continued to fuel that flame for eight days until they were able to replenish it.

It never went out. So it's a festival of lights because it celebrates that however dark, however powerful the forces of darkness are that come against God and his people, the light always vanquishes the darkness.

And the darkness cannot snuff out the light. However close it comes, and however much it appears that darkness will win, ultimately the light of God will conquer darkness. It's a beautiful story. And it's true.

We know it's true because Jesus celebrated this festival in John chapter 10. But although Jesus affirms that festival in that way, his own people, the Jewish people, did not accept him as the light of the world.

You see, that festival, the festival of lights, was always meant to point forward to the coming of the light of the world. Jesus is greater than that festival. And in John chapter eight, verse 12, he says, "'I am the light of the world.'".

The people did not accept their own Messiah. They rejected him. So now people say, happy Hanukkah. And by that, they indicate that they do not accept the light of the world who came. They continue to reject the true light in favor of a lesser light.

I like to compare it to saying happy pregnancy test instead of happy birthday. Celebrating the sign or some foreshadowing or some pointing that's a lesser thing that was only meant to bring us to the greater thing.

Christ has been born. He's come into the world. That's what Christmas is about. It's greater than the Jewish festival. What about Kwanzaa? You guys know what Kwanzaa is? Kwanzaa was manufactured in the 1960s.

It is not a holiday that was celebrated in Africa. In fact, in Western Africa, the feast of first fruits was celebrated in the early fall as the first yams came in. But Kwanzaa was invented in the 1960s as a way to pull people away from Jesus Christ.

The African traditions that came from false pagan religion included the worship of snakes, voodoo, animal sacrifice, spirit possession, masquerading. These things were common in Haiti and in Louisiana until in the 1940s, the last traces of it were vanquished.

Now, it has crept back in from parts of Haiti, even into this country, such that you'll still see small expressions of it, but here's what happened. The light of Christmas, the light of Christ, vanquished the dark forces of false religion.

The person who founded it, Kwanzaa, was named Mulana Karenga. And when he created Kwanzaa, he said this, you must have a cultural revolution before the violent revolution. You must have a cultural revolution before the violent revolution.

Mulana Karenga sought an overthrow of Christian culture in order to overthrow the Western kind of worldview in which he was steeped. The cultural revolution gives identity, purpose, and direction to the coming revolution.

So it's a Marxist kind of scheme to overthrow. It was an invented holiday, and ultimately then, what it is is a force of darkness that comes against the tradition of Christmas. So if somebody says, Merry Christmas, happy Kwanzaa, he's saying the light has come, let there be darkness.

It's complete opposite. It's as different as light and dark, as right and wrong, as good and evil. You see, many people who say Merry Christmas do so culturally, but they don't understand the theological weight of what we are saying.

The Historical Christmas Story in Matthew

We might know the Christmas story historically. Matthew chapter one, verse 25, it says that Joseph knew her not until a son was born, and they gave him the name Jesus. This is historical truth, that a virgin gave birth to a son, and they called his name Jesus.

Turn with me to the book of John, not for the historical story, which we've been reading every week for four weeks now, but for the theological story. What does this mean that Jesus came into the world, that this baby was born and laid in a manger, that wise men came from the east to offer him gold, frankincense, and myrrh, that the shepherds, keeping watch over their flocks by night, heard the angels announce the good news, and they came, and they worshiped him?

What really does this mean? Let's begin in John chapter one, and we'll read the first five verses. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John begins not with an historical narrative to explain the baby born in Bethlehem. He assumes that because Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written decades before. Now John comes as the last gospel writer in the 90s AD to give a theological story of Christmas.

And the first thing we need to understand is that Jesus is God, God of God, light of light. Notice there is some distinction between him and the Father because the word is with God. By word here, we're not just referring to a concept, rationality, logos, thought, logic, but it says in verse two, he was in the beginning with God.

And in verse three, all things were made through him, so those personal pronouns mean that by word, we're seeing a metaphor for the person. And this is none other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is a person referred to here as the word, and we're told he's with God, the Father.

And more than that, we understand he is God. The Father and the Son are so united that each of them is rightly called God. Now Jesus is the one in view here, and this is the point of the prologue of John.

Later, we'll learn about the Spirit in John 14 to 16, a third member of the Trinity. But the idea here is that any that is not God is only a created thing. Man, angels, planets, stars, sun and moon, all of this is just created.

Whatever exists has been made except for God, who is the only eternal one. We see in verse four that in him was life. To be alive comes from him, which means that without him, people are dead. They may be walking, but a grave awaits them, utter darkness, six feet under, complete blackness, nothing, except that the Spirit then departs away from God into that rejection where there is no life.

But here it says in him was life, and listen, this is the point and the main idea of the sermon. The life was the light of men, that as the world comes from God, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

It was formless and void, and the Spirit hovered over the face of the earth, and God said, let there be light, and there was light. All of these things come from God speaking the word. All things come into existence.

Here we're told the light is in him and it shines into the darkness. It comes into the darkness of this dark world, and the darkness has not overcome it. The Christmas message is about God himself coming into this darkness, into this world, and if he is God who made everything, he vanquishes every possible enemy.

He conquers all that is against right and good. He is purity, he is light, the light of the world. Now, picture the battle between good and evil. Sometimes evil feels strong in this world. When Antiochus Epiphanes is wrecking the temple, when you can't meet the expectations of a loved one or your own expectations, when depression begins to settle over your own heart, a darkness, a cloud comes over you, when the darkness of this world, Satan himself seemed to be overwhelming, good and evil seemed to be at loggerheads, a struggle between good and evil, but what I'm seeing here in the text is that the battle between God and Satan, light and darkness, is not like the battle between cats and dogs.

Cats and dogs have to fight it out with tooth and nail, scratching and clawing and biting to conquer one another. That is not how the battle between God and evil is presented here. It is the difference, the battle between light and darkness.

By definition, where there is light, darkness is utterly vanquished. So it's not two equal and opposite forces and you just hope that the good will overcome the evil, that light will overcome darkness.

No, as darkness tries to overtake light, all light has to do is turn to it, to shine a flashlight on that dark shadow of death. And what comes of that shadow? It is utterly vanquished by light. It is not equal and opposite forces, it is the absolute overpowering, impervious, victorious power of the light.

It says in verse five, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. This is very important because if Christ has come into the world and he has, if he is God, then every dark force that comes against him must be vanquished and will be vanquished.

It is a certainty, not just a hope. Guys, if we were in a cave right now, if we closed all these windows and let's say somehow we entered into a cave,.

Maybe you've gone before.

Have you ever been in a cave and the host who's taking you on tour says, now, brace yourself, we're gonna turn the lights out for just one minute so you can experience pitch black, dark, utter darkness.

We almost never experienced such a thing in this world, but in a cave you can. Did you know that if that cave stretched a mile long and you were in pitch black darkness, there were no bends, it was a straight shot, you could have one candle, a solitary candle a mile away and you could see it with your eye because darkness cannot vanquish light.

By very definition, light conquers darkness. This is the idea here that Jesus, when we say Christ has been born, we are saying he is the very light of the world and darkness cannot overcome him. This is a major claim, not a minor claim.

This is an absolute victory for the world. It looked for a time that darkness might win when Israel was kicked around by all of these empires, when they were the people of God and all the pagan nations were sacrificing to demons without hope and without God in the world and the prophets came, but they would be killed.

When Christ came, he showed that light ultimately conquers and utterly defeats darkness. This is such good news. Light vanquishes darkness. Somebody here needs to hear this because coming into this Christmas season, the darkness has seemed too powerful to you,.

Too strong.

The truth of the matter is, Christ is the very light of the world. The problem is not the power of the light, it is lack of faith, lack of believing in him and turning to him, walking into that light to find that deliverance, that freedom, that victory.

John the Baptist as a Witness to the Light

So let's help one another now by looking at the next part of the passage. John 1, six to eight, because here we have the testimony to the light. What God has done is send prophets who are lesser lights to prepare the way for the coming of the light.

And the last of those former prophets, those lesser lights that made a way, the last of them was John the Baptist. Let's take a moment to consider him. Verses six to eight. There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. Turn back with me for just a moment to Luke chapter one, verses 15 to 17.

Luke one, 15 to 17. This is the story of John the Baptist's dad, who was a priest and tasked with the duty of going into the holy place to do his work. But there he encountered an angel of the Lord who told him marvelous things.

The angel said that Zechariah's wife was going to bear a son from Zechariah. The problem was both of them were very advanced in years. Moreover, Elizabeth had been barren. They had never had a child together.

So the angel comes and brings this good news of a child to be born. And let's read what he says, Luke one, 15 to 17. He will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink. And he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.

And guys, if you know the story, John the Baptist let for joy while he was in Elizabeth's womb. When Mary came into the room carrying Jesus, John the Baptist let for joy even in the womb. Verse 16, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord, their God.

And he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.

Now I read those verses because these verses are citing former prophets. The angel is referencing Isaiah chapter 40, Malachi chapter three, and Malachi chapter four. Isaiah said, a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.

John the Baptist will be that voice in the wilderness, out in the wilderness, crying out, prepare the way of the Lord. Malachi three says he will prepare Israel. And Malachi four says he will come in the spirit of Elijah, a prophet like Elijah, to turn the hearts of the children back to the fathers.

So what the angel did here is quote scripture or cite scripture. And the priest should have recognized that and say, wow, this is the fulfillment of prophecy. My son will be the last of the Old Testament prophets.

He will introduce the Messiah. He's the forerunner. But Zechariah did not recognize the word of the Lord. When he heard it, he thought in the natural, he thought about his circumstances. I can't with my wife reproduce at this age.

She's been barren. And he began to question the angel and in a sense, disbelieve and laugh at this idea of the old man and the old woman having a son. And so it's kind of funny how it reads in Luke one.

You could read it later. The angel says, I am Gabriel. Do you know who you're talking to? I stand in the presence of almighty God. And now you will be dumb, meaning dumbstruck, unable to speak until John was born.

And he wrote on a tablet, his name is John. And then miraculously his tongue was loosed. And now rather than doubting the word of the Lord, the former prophets, Zechariah becomes a prophet because we're told he prophesies.

And look at the end of the chapter. This is just verses 76 to 80. And then we'll go back to John one. Luke one, 76 to 80. Now light has come into him. He's seen a sign, his tongue has been loosed and he speaks prophetically about John the Baptist.

You child will be called the prophet of the most high. Mark this, John the Baptist is a prophet for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways. Isaiah 40, Malachi three, prepare the way of the Lord to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.

The prophet proclaiming forgiveness of sin because of the tender mercy of God, God is going to be merciful to these people whereby and here's our message today, the sunrise shall visit us from on high.

Sunrise in a dark land to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace. This is Jesus, the light of the world will come like sunrise to light this dark world.

Verse 80, and the child grew and became strong in spirit and was in the wilderness. He's in the wilderness as a prophet, just like Elijah was. He's dressed like Elijah. He is a Nazarite, meaning he never drinks wine and he never touches an unclean thing.

There are three Nazarites in the Bible. The first was Samuel, the second was Samson, but he was kind of a bad Nazarite. He just did whatever God told him not to do, including touching unclean animals and eating honey from the lion's carcass.

But here, John the Baptist is a Nazarite. He is the final prophet like Samuel was the first of the office of prophet, now you have the final of the former prophets. In former times, God spoke through the prophets in various ways, but now he speaks to us through the son.

Here is the last of the Old Testament prophets, and here's what you need to understand. There's somebody here today that hears that Jesus is the light of the world, and they think, why should I believe that?

How can I know that this is true? The answer is God sent lesser lights, prophets, and prophets for thousands of years, from the days of Adam, and then Abraham and Moses, King David, and all of these prophets that came, Samuel through John the Baptist, foretelling what God would do.

He said in Isaiah chapter nine, verse six, to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be on his shoulders, and he will be called Almighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Did you know in that very chapter of Isaiah nine, we are told that a light will shine, particularly in Galilee. When Jesus came back out of Egypt, they didn't settle in Bethlehem where he was born, because Joseph heard that Archelaus was now reigning where his father used to be.

And so they went up to Nazareth and settled in Galilee, and Jesus then ministered for three years in Galilee, and that itself was a fulfillment of prophecy. Isaiah chapter nine, verse one and two, the light shining in Galilee.

And the point is all these lesser lights were forerunners to introduce the light. They foretold everything about his birth and his life and his death, his resurrection. And so now we finish here in John chapter one.

We left off in this section about John the Baptist, verses six to eight, he was a witness about the light. He stood out in the wilderness and proclaimed, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

He baptized Jesus, and the light shined from heaven on him, and a dove descended on his shoulder, and the voice from heaven said, this is my son. John the Baptist introduced Jesus. He was light. Did you know that the stars of the heavens, the sun and the moon, the lights that light up this world, without them the world would just grow cold, dark, and dead.

Wouldn't it just be a dead, lifeless planet without sun? Of course it would. All of these things were made by God to display his glory, and they speak to the glory of God. The stars in the heavens. NASA just tweeted out this last week, a quote that I found so amazing.

They said the moon is 1 ,400th the size of the sun, but is also 1 ,400th the distance from earth. So the moon and the sun appear the same size in the sky. NASA says a coincidence not found in any other known planet moon combination.

A coincidence, say the naturalists. But we know it is no coincidence. It is the work of God in his perfect design of the world in which we live. The only known planet moon combination in the world where the sun and the moon appear the same size because the vastly greater distance exactly equals the smaller size.

So what does that say metaphorically to us? One, it speaks to the glory of God, how perfectly he creates and lights up our world. But here's what it says symbolically, I think. Jesus is very much like the sun.

The S-O-N is like the S-U-N. He's the light of the world. And we, church, are to be like the moon. When in Matthew 5 he says, you are the light of the world, he doesn't mean you're inherently light.

The source is him, but you're like the moon. You reflect that light. And he makes the sun and the moon exactly the same size to our sight that we would try to be exactly like the sun, reflecting his glory, his light in our lives looking like him.

We're in a dark age until Christ returns. And in this night, when Judas betrayed Jesus, John tells us, and it was night. We are like the moon at this time, reflecting the light of the sun, making known Christ.

The lesser lights are the prophets that went before. And now we have become like stars, like light in the universe, to hold up and make known the son of God. Philippians 2 .15 says we shine like lights in the universe as we hold forth the word of life.

What's happening right now as you listen, is the preaching of God's word. This is witnessing to the light. And you are all witnesses to the light. Next in verses nine to 11. The true light is Jesus, which gives light to everyone.

That means in natural revelation, just flooding the earth with light, but also in the preaching through prophets and now witnesses, was coming into the world.

That's Christmas.

This is the theological meaning of Christmas. The light has come. He was in the world and listen, the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him.

Here is the very author of the universe of the galaxy, made a baby, grows up among them in Nazareth. He's a carpenter's son, probably doing carpentry like his dad. They don't recognize him, he looks so ordinary.

And then at age 30 or so, he begins to minister. And what does Nazareth, his hometown do? They take him up to a cliff and they desire to throw him off, to kill him. But he walks right through their midst, his power restraining their evil.

Listen, the light came into the world, but was rejected by his own people. As the prophet Zechariah said, he would go to Jerusalem riding on a donkey, presented as their king, having salvation. But the people did not receive their king.

They rejected him. They brought him on a mock trial and mocked him with a crown of thorns and a purple robe. Hail, king of the Jews. And they put a heavy cross on his back that he was to carry to Golgotha.

He crumpled underneath of it. He fell under it and someone helped him to the top of the mountain. But there he voluntarily laid down on the cross, took the nails through his hands, rejected by his people, lifted up.

He hung and he died. Cut off from the land of the living, laid in a grave. All of this was foretold of him, rejected by his own people. Isaiah foretold, however, in the 53rd chapter, that after the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life.

Resurrection from the dead. Picture him put in that cold, dark cave with a giant stone rolled over it. Nothing but pitch black, dark. It seemed that the light of the world is extinguished, but no, by the power of God, resurrection power, the stone is rolled away.

He emerges the king, the light of the world, conquered death itself, conquered the enemy. He visited with his people, he ascended to the right hand of the father, and then he sent the third member of the trinity like fire, a ball of light, resting over each of their heads and entered into them.

And now they became witnesses, his light still in the world. And that brings us to the last point in verses 12 to 14. Now it is that those who believe in him and receive him.

Are given life.

Receiving Christ by Faith and Becoming Children of God

It says here, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name. Now that's not two separate realities. It's not two steps to becoming saved. Receiving here is the picture of believing. Believing is a prepositional phrase that modifies that term, meaning it's the same thing, it's explaining it.

In other words, all through the book of John, you have the same design. These things are written that you may believe and by believing have life in his name. So all through the book of John, you have these metaphors for believing.

Here it's called receiving, just like in John six, if you eat my flesh and drink my blood, then you have life in you. It's not a picture of communion there. Eating and drinking is a symbol of believing.

The blind man in John chapter nine, he can't see, but being given sight is for him to believe. That's a picture of believing. Same way with deafness. To be deaf, you cannot hear. To be given hearing, to have the ears opened is to believe, to be able to believe.

The dead man Lazarus, he can't do anything in the grave, but the resurrection of Lazarus is the dead coming to life to believe. That's always the picture in John. And that leaves us with this question.

Do you believe? Do you believe that this baby is God in flesh? It makes all the difference in the world. To all who believed, who receive, he gave the right to become children of God. If so, you are adopted into his family.

Your life is flooded with this light. You belong to him. What kind of birth is this? They were born not of blood. Sin is inherited by blood. It is passed down from Adam and Eve to every child of Adam and Eve.

It's inherited by that bloodline. This birth is not a natural inheritance. It's separate from that. It's supernatural. It comes from the outside. God, like wind blowing, you don't know where it comes from or where it goes, so it is those born of the spirit.

It's not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh by reproduction, nor of the will of man or a husband. It's not that kind of birth. What kind of birth is it then?

Of God.

It's a birth of God, a supernatural work of God to give life into the unbelieving heart. It's a work of God. And the Christmas story is summarized then in verse 14. The word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Notice the parallel here between 1 1 and 1 14. In 1 1, in the beginning was the word. There he is in heaven in the beginning. In 1 14, the word became flesh. He comes here. In 1 1, he was with God. In 1 14, he's dwelling among us.

It says the word was God. He's divine. In verse 14, we have seen it. We've seen his glory. Those who saw Jesus Christ, as John says in 1 John, what we have seen with our eyes, what our hands have touched, this we proclaim to you concerning the word of life.

And then he goes on to speak about the light. You see, the glory is the light in his face, his deity. And so if you look at 1 1 and 1 14 as kind of parallel tracks there, it's a bridge. And Jesus is that bridge.

The glory of God, the light of God in heaven has now bridged the gap to this dark, sinful world. Here we are on earth. He is the son of man, human, dwelling among us. And yet God, he's brought the two together.

I like how Matthew Henry said it. The son of God became a son of man that the sons and daughters of men might become the sons and daughters of God Almighty. We're adopted. We become children of God. Now he's the unique son, the monogamous, the only begotten, different from us in that way.

But we're adopted in to be called his brothers because he became one of us. Our two great needs. This Christmas, some might feel the darkness of this world pulling on them. And there may be other challenges like cancer or broken relationships, physical pain of aging and this kind of thing.