What Child Is This? (Part 2) Series

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People like to go home for Christmas. We long for familiar sights and sounds and smells. We sing songs about going home to celebrate Christmas.

I’ll be home for Christmas

You can plan on me

Please have snow and mistletoe

And presents on the tree

Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays

‘Cause no matter how far away you roam

If you want to be happy in a million ways

For the holidays, you can’t beat home, sweet home!

There is no Christmas

Like a home Christmas

With your Dad and Mother

Sis an’ Brother there

But Christmas isn’t about going home. It’s about leaving home. That’s what Jesus did. He left His heavenly home to come down to this dark world.

Review

How the Gospels begin:

• Mark begins his Gospel with the ministry of Jesus.

• Matthew and Luke begin their Gospels with the birth of Jesus.

• John begins his Gospel with the preexistence of Jesus (His life before His birth in Bethlehem).

“The Word” (Greek: logos) = Jesus

As our words reveal who we are, so “the Word” (Jesus) reveals who God is.

1. WHAT JESUS ALWAYS WAS

a. He was always existing (1:1a). “In the beginning was the Word.” When the beginning began, Jesus was already there. He is eternal. He did not have a beginning.

b. He was always with God (1:1b). “And the Word was with God.” Before there was anyone, Jesus enjoyed a personal relationship with God.

c. He was always God (1:1c). “And the Word was God.”

2. WHAT JESUS BECAME

a. He became a man (1:14a). “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Jesus is God in the flesh. He is the God-man. He is fully God and fully man.

b. He became our Savior. The name “Jesus” means “the LORD saves.” “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

The real message of Christmas: God became a man so that He could die for us! John 1:1-18 is not about a message that offers hope; it is about the message that is the only hope.

1. He is the CREATOR.

“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (v. 3).

Jesus was the agent of creation: “Through him all things were made.”

Some people say that Jesus was the first creation of God and through Him God created everything else. But this verse is clear: “Without him nothing was made that has been made.” Everything that has been made was made by Jesus. If Jesus was created, He would have to have been created by Himself, which would require Him to both exist and not exist at the same time (impossible!).

He created both light and life:

• “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,” and there was light” (Genesis 1:1-3).

• “The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).

2. He came to earth to bring us LIGHT and LIFE (vv. 4-5).

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (Isaiah 9:2).

If Christ had not come to earth, we would forever live in darkness. What does darkness symbolize?

• CONFUSION

“Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night…” (John 3:1-2). In the darkness of confusion, Nicodemus misunderstood the new birth.

• HOPELESSNESS

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark…” (John 20:1). In the darkness of hopelessness, the followers of Jesus thought this was the end.

Illustration: The Westroads Mall massacre – This past Wednesday, Robert Hawkins opened fire in a mall in Omaha, Nebraska, killing eight people and injuring several others. He had recently broken up with a girlfriend and lost his job at a McDonald’s. In a suicide note, he wrote, “I’ve just snapped. I can’t take this meaningless existence anymore. I’ve been a constant disappointment and that trend would have only continued.”

• SIN

“…[Judas] went out. And it was night” (John 13:2). In the darkness of sin, Judas betrayed Jesus.

Sin = commitment to self (righteousness = commitment to God). Judas followed Jesus because he wanted a revolution. When he realized that Jesus wasn’t going to do what he wanted Him to do, he betrayed Jesus.