Thank you guys. Good morning South. My name is Jessica Rust. I’m the director of pastoral care here at South Fellowship. And We might run into the same problem that we had the last time Dan sat up here with a microphone and a stool. So we’ll try moving it over here. All right. So anyway, I’m the director of pastoral care here at South Fellowship.

And that means I get to help respond to the needs of our congregation and our community, whatever those might look like. And this morning, it means that I get to continue our Advent series on this fourth Advent Sunday. And one of the beautiful things about the church calendar that I find every year is that it seems like with every season, there’s something new to learn.

Advent is about waiting and anticipating the Messiah, but it’s not just. about waiting and anticipating the Messiah. Advent is about stillness and slowing down, but it’s not just about stillness and slowing down. We reflect with the Advent candles on love, hope, joy, and peace over these four Sundays, but it’s not just about love, hope, joy, and peace.

We tend to think of Advent as an ending. We’re counting down to Christmas every time we open up an Advent calendar, We’re in the last month of the year, anticipating some kind of new start in January. We might be wrapping up a quarter at work and preparing for vacation. We might be finishing a semester at school.

Whatever we’re doing, we have our minds on Christmas. Trying to make it to the main event or through the main event, depending on how you’re feeling today. So it makes sense that with everything around us coming towards an ending, we would see Advent as an ending too. But actually Advent is beginning. If you look at the church calendar, when I turn on the slide clicker, Advent And Christmas isn’t how the church year ends, Advent is how it begins.

So the stillness and slowing are coming at the beginning of the story of this new year. The longing that we have for God to make all things right is coming at the beginning of the story of this year. In her book, Living the Way of Jesus, Michaela Levine tells us it’s significant that the Christian calendar begins this way.

We begin the year in an honest place, admitting that we do, in fact, need saving, and that the one who saves chooses to do it in a different way than we expect. In these weeks we do not celebrate the God who comes to us on our schedule conforming to our list of requirements. In Advent, we recognize that God comes to us not in the way or timeline we expect, but in the way we need.

And the Bible loves its stories of beginnings. Genesis, the very first book of the Bible, starts with, In the beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And in this opening statement of scripture, we’re laid out a story of creation significant not just that it happened, but that it happened.

But that the God who brought it all into being in this Old Testament account is so different and so unique in the fact that He would create it all. That He would look on this world with love and not indifference. And that here is a God worth knowing because He already knows us. And it’s with this understanding of who God is and with this understanding of what the Genesis account already laid out that the Apostle John, one of Jesus disciples, writes his own book, the Gospel of John, and starts it in the beginning.

And for those of you who are throwing up a hand and saying, wait a minute, we were promised revelation for Advent, we will get there. But for now turn to John 1, 1 through 5 in your Bibles if you’re following along, or just listen to John’s beginning.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him, all things were made. Without Him, nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Father God, thank you for your Word. Thank you that you are a God who wants us to know and understand who you are and who has made yourself known. Pray today that you would speak to each of us in the way that you know that we need to hear. Amen. What a way to start a story about Jesus. There’s the word, and there’s God, and there’s light, and John is mixing up his metaphors, and it seems like Jesus isn’t actually mentioned at all.

And when we get to passages of scriptures like this that are Big and grand and have flowing poetic language and God has spoken about in ways that feel really abstract and distant. It can be really hard for us to stick in that space and wrestle with what exactly is happening here and what we might need to know.

Sometimes our temptation is just to blow through and find the parts of scripture that seem really like solid and relevant and teaches how to live. But God, or God, yes, but John God through John, has this prologue here because he wants us to know that it’s solid and relevant. He wants us to know that we can’t really understand the fullness of who Jesus is and everything else that will happen in the story without God.

This is the lens, he says, through which we’re supposed to see everything else that happens in his gospel. I’m supposed to wear glasses, which will probably come as a shock to all of you, maybe including my husband, because I never do. I leave them in my purse and just forget that they exist on a daily basis.

And most of the time, more often than not, I can get through just fine without using them. But when I need to focus on something far away, like those slides up there that, are useless to me now, actually. I can either get it with squinting in context, like I can get what’s supposed to come up next.

Or, I just can’t really see it. And even though I’m mostly fine with a partial picture most of the time, muddling through with a partial picture, when there are perfectly good lenses that will allow me to see a whole picture, isn’t actually a good idea. a wise choice. And in the same way, if we don’t utilize the lenses the scripture provides us to see the full picture of who Jesus is, we are probably going to miss something important.

So this passage, John 1 went through 5, John wants us to understand is the lens through which to read the rest of the gospel. And in the beginning he says, was the word. So what does he want us to know about the word? The word is Jesus. We’ll just clarify that right out the bat. And John connects Jesus and the word together a little more clearly later in chapter 1 verses 14 through 18.

But Jesus, the word he says, was in the beginning. And here, John is calling back really deliberately to this Genesis account, calling back to what existed and who existed before creation even happened. And he does this not to change or contradict what scripture has already taught us, but to expand upon it.

Think of it like this expanding sphere, which I learned this week is called a Holman sphere not just that one toy that has always existed in your kid’s preschool.

And at first glance, it’s just one compact object, but the more you pull it, The more it becomes something slightly new and different. It hasn’t changed in any substantial way. It’s still the same toy, still the same material, but it’s just expanded into something new. And John is doing the same thing.

Expanding our understanding of a situation that his first readers were already familiar with. By telling us that in the beginning was the Word. He wasn’t part of creation. He was before creation. The Word was with God, which we take to mean the Word Jesus was around God in the same location. With to us is proximity, right?

Technically, you are with everyone who is sitting around you in the worship center right now. But the Greek verbiage here actually is talking about relationship and relational presence and belonging. And he ends that first verse with the word was God. Scripture is telling us that Jesus, it wasn’t just some divine.

Being among many, not just a good teacher or a good guy, not just the cute little figure in the manger scene, Jesus is. And it’s this reality and this personhood that shapes the rest of our understanding of who he is, what he’s done and what that means for us. God John goes on to tell us that through Jesus, all things were made that have been made.

And he’s really doubling down here on differentiating Jesus. from everything else that exists, emphasizing Jesus’s divine nature by using two different Greek verbs here,

Amy and Genomai. Jesus gets Amy when the Jesus is God, the word was in the beginning. All of those verses, Amy, I, is, was, always will be. Everything else brought him to being Ginnomai. And Jesus himself reiterates this later in John in 8. 58 when he’s debating with the Pharisees and he tells them before Abraham was born, Ginnomai, I am, Amy.

And the Pharisees are enraged when he says this because they understand that he is making a differentiation between himself and God. And Abraham, and everyone else, and making this differentiation, he’s making a claim to have always eternally existed, which regular people just don’t do.

And Jesus is saying that, what John is already saying in chapter 1, that in him is found the fullness of God. And here in verse 5, John 1, 5 John switches his metaphors up. Jesus is the Word, He’s established, always eternally existing, present before creation, but Jesus is also the light. Jesus is the one who illumines, who brings God’s self revelation to those who will see.

He tells us himself later in John again, I am the light of the world. And the light shines in the darkness, John says, and the darkness will not overcome it. And some of our Bible translations might have a differentiation here between overcome, and the darkness has not understood the light. Which to us sound two totally separate concepts.

So which is it? Did the darkness just not get what Jesus was doing and saying or did the darkness of the world and sin and death not overcome Jesus and what he was doing on earth? The Greek, which we’ve gone back to a lot, but in this passage, it really matters. The verb here, katalambano, actually means both things.

It means overcome, and it means understood. And John was probably intending both meanings in one word. It’s true that when Jesus was on earth, the people around him didn’t understand what he was doing and saying most of the time. Even his disciples, his closest associates, didn’t get it most of the time.

And, the world still fails to grasp what Jesus has to offer. And, the darkness of sin and death tried its hardest to derail God’s rescue plan through Jesus. And yet, the darkness has not overcome Him. And there’s so much more packed into these verses than we can really go into today. But what we really need to know is that here, in the first few verses of John 1, Jesus is the eternally existing Son of God.

He is the one in whom life is found and who holds it all together. And John wants us to understand this foundational point to his gospel because, as the scholar Leslie Newbigin tells us, it’s only when the whole story has been told will the reader be able to understand what these words mean. But at the outset of the telling, they must be alerted To understand that although the story is about a man among men, occupying one place in time in the created order of time and space.

The subject of the story is the one who stands beyond all time and space, the author of creation of which he has become. And John takes this same foundation, that Jesus is the eternally existing son of God, the source of light and life, in whom all things hold together, and he brings it with him into another book of the Bible that he wrote, the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible.

And something we learned about Revelation in our fall series is that it is a book of many genres. There’s prophecy, there’s apocalypse, which remember doesn’t mean disaster, it just means unveiling, and what we especially need to remember today is that Revelation was originally a letter written to seven churches around Asia Minor, what’s now modern day Turkey.

And it’s to these churches in Asia Minor, that Jesus says in Revelation 1, starting in verse 4, or that John says, excuse me, Grace and peace to you, from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him, Jesus, who loves us, and has freed us from our sins by his blood. It has made us to be a kingdom and priest to serve his God and Father. To him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. And all peoples on earth will mourn because of him.

So shall it be. Amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. This passage. At the beginning of Revelation, before John even starts to talk about the vision that will fill the whole rest of the book, sets a similar foundation to what John’s already said in John 1.

John reminds the audience that Jesus is the witness to the world of who God is and what he’s up to. Jesus dine, Jesus rose, Jesus will come again, Jesus is king, and Jesus is coming back, and Jesus is the eternal and existing one, in whom life is found, and who holds it all together. And in this address, as John is reminding these seven churches of who Jesus is, God himself interjects something and says to them, and to us, I am the Alpha and Omega.

And this phrase, Alpha and Omega, isn’t one that’s mentioned a lot, or that we throw around a lot, at least in our present day, but it is mentioned three times in Revelation. It’s mentioned here at the beginning, in 21. 6, after the new heavens and new earth have been established, and just a handful of verses before the absolute end of the book.

In Revelation 22. 13, when Jesus assures us that he is coming to save us. soon. When we see a title for God like Alpha and Omega mentioned in scripture, it’s worth paying attention to because there’s something there that God is revealing to us about Himself and about who He is. There’s something about His character that He wants us to know and understand.

So what is it about this Alpha and Omega title that God would want us to understand about Himself? This figure of speech, there’s the alpha and omega in Greek, if you were wondering. This figure of speech, alpha and omega, is called a mirrorism. It’s when two contrasting parts of something, like head and toe, or A to Z, or day to night, are mentioned, and by mentioning just those two parts, you’re implying everything else is thrown in with it.

If we say, this book is a guide from A to Z, we’re not saying the book just talks about the letter A and the letter Z, we’re saying that the book is a complete guide to everything that you’re trying to learn about. If we say, head to toe, we’re not talking about heads and toes, we’re talking about your whole body, right?

Alpha and omega isn’t just talking about the letter alpha and the letter omega in the Greek alphabet, it’s referencing completeness.

In this phrase, in this title, it’s communicating to us once again that in God, all things are complete. He holds together the beginning and the ending because He made them. He brought them into being. Again, not a new idea. We’ve talked about it multiple times in John 1 this morning. But it’s this phrase, this essence of Himself that He wants us to understand.

these churches to understand enough that he would repeat it multiple times throughout the book. And let’s remember a little bit about these churches that he’s saying this to. Ephesus, Myrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. All reasonably close together, all connected in a loop.

Some of them were well off, some of them weren’t. They all had different histories and different industries. But, in one way or another, all seven of them were struggling. Some of them were under threat of false teaching in their community, and really trying to hold on to what they knew to be true, but as a result, they were losing their love for those outside of their community by turning inward.

Some of them were just trying to figure out how they could survive economically and socially while still following Jesus in a culture drenched in emperor worship. Some of them were in communities that were still reeling from the effects of devastating earthquakes years and years earlier. Some of them seemed fine on the outside, but they were dying spiritually.

And Jesus knows all of this. Jesus sees all of this. He’ll address it all in chapters two and three of Revelation, but even before he gets into each of their individual problems and needs for correction and encouragement, he says to these seven churches, You need to know I, an alpha, Alpha and Omega. I hold it all together.

I was and am and will be. And there is so much more to this and to me than you can see right now. I hold you even when it looks like the darkness of the world is winning. Alpha and Omega. isn’t just a theological statement, it’s encouragement to help these churches keep going in an uncertain situation.

We know that these churches were struggling. Some were responding better to their challenges than others, and they were, they needed to be reminded that Jesus is not only the one who came to earth and died for them and rose again, but he was also the one who But that he was and is and will be the eternal reigning king, bigger than anything that they faced.

Maybe at times for them he felt distant, like everything that he had already done and accomplished was so far off that it couldn’t even matter anymore. But he’s telling them that he has not abandoned them, and he is powerful enough to handle whatever they face. And even though that’s not the typical message that we hear in a December just a couple days out from Christmas, that might need to be what we at South Fellowship Church need to hear this morning as well.

We’re not a first century church full of Christians facing the threat of emperor worship or die or ostracism, at least not literally. But like the churches in Revelation, we’ve had our bright spots and our strengths and our struggles. This year in 2024, we’ve had some really beautiful moments of celebration, both as a community and as individuals.

We got to celebrate baptisms together right here on this stage, multiple times this year. We got to learn from our ministry partners around the globe and encourage them and be encouraged by them. Babies were born, marriages and anniversaries were celebrated. We saw God show up and provide in the ways that we showed up for each other and showed up for our broader community.

And, this year, like every year, we’ve seen disasters happen natural and man made. We live through one more election cycle, one more contentious election cycle, that some of us have celebrate and some of us grieve. Our elder board finished their long process of discernment as to whether or not to allow women on the elder board with the affirmative, which was the decision that some people celebrated and some people grieved.

We dealt with health crises and family crises. We grieved losses, lots and lots of losses. We ask questions like how am I going to make everything stretch to keep affording groceries and rent? How are my kids going to make it in this season? How are my parents going to make it in this season? How is my marriage going to make it?

How will I make it without a marriage? Will I ever heal? Will I make it through depression and anxiety? And into all of this, all of the questions All of the doubts. Jesus says to us too, I am Alpha and Omega. The one who holds the universe and who brought all things into being knows and sees us in all that we have been through this year and all the rest of our stories beyond as well.

The one who has eternally existed and who was in the beginning knows that the hopes that we hold and the fears that we try to hold back. The one who’s offered us a reconciled relationship with God through his death and resurrection, and who will come again to set all things right, holds you in his hands.

Jesus, the eternally existing Word of God, the Alpha and Omega, wants us to know that because he is who he says he is, we can take heart in an uncertain world. It’s not just a promise. to brothers and sisters long ago in the pages of the Bible. It’s a promise for us, too. And it is hard for us, as Alex taught us last week, to hold together this idea that Jesus is Word of God and God in the flesh.

And yet, that is who He is. Back to John 1, verse 14, the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is in close relationship with the Father, has made Him known.

Jesus, God in the flesh, Word of life, Alpha and Omega, has dwelt with us. And in Advent, even in these last few days of the season, as we turn our thoughts towards Christmas and everything that might entail, good and bad, joyful and hard, we get to celebrate that both the eminence and the transcendence are true.

God is near, and God is the eternal holy one who holds all things together. Jesus is our present friend. And He is Alpha and Omega. Jesus is the Word of God who is with God and is God, and He still sees. He still knows. He still will come to make all things right, even if that promise feels far off sometimes.

And it is this complete, eternal aspect of His nature that allows us to say with the hymn, This is my Father’s world. Oh, let me never forget that though the wrong seems off so strong, God is the ruler yet. And sometimes we can say that boldly and confidently. Sometimes we say it at the end of our strength, holding onto hope that it is true, even if it seems like that’s the most foolish thing we can possibly keep believing.

And yet it is. As the quote from earlier this morning reminded us, we need saving. It might not look how we think it will. It might not show up when we think it’s going to show up or when we want it to show up. But it’s coming. And in this season with the press of everything that we have to do, all the to do lists, all the presents that I haven’t wrapped yet, I don’t know about you guys, it’s easier to grasp what needs to happen today or what didn’t happen today.

It’s easier to think about just what I want God to provide in this specific moment. It’s easy to think about the Advent season and Christmas with all the events and activities smashed together into one haze of our calendar, and what measured up and what didn’t, and who measured up and who didn’t. It’s easier to try to contain Jesus into who we want him to be and who we think he should be.

And yet, we have an invitation to see that the reality that we walk in is so much bigger. Jesus has always been the Word of God, the Alpha and Omega, and he always will be. And in his grandeur and glory, he became flesh and dwelt among us. Advent isn’t just meant to be a respite from the weight we carry.

It’s a response. You have never been left to walk alone on this earth by a distant God. God is near and He is powerful. And He has already done something about the darkness. We have an invitation in the next few days as we finish the season of Advent and move into Christmas to lift our eyes above what demands our attention so loudly.

And remember that what is promised to us is so much more than it might appear. And we might have to fight hard sometimes in the next couple of days to hold on to that promise and to remind ourselves of what’s true. You might need to turn up the Christmas carols a little bit more loudly so you can actually hear what it’s saying and the words of hope instead of letting it fade into the background.

You might need to slow down for a minute, as counterintuitive as that might feel with everything else that might still need to happen, so that you can actually see what’s around you. You might need to take a minute to reread John 1 or say out loud to yourself that Jesus is Alpha and Omega and He can see me through this moment too.

But whatever it takes and whatever that looks like for you, let us go into the rest of Advent, resting in the knowledge and the hope that God shines as a light in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. Let’s pray.

Jesus, light of the world, word of God. You have done so much more for us than we can ever ask or imagine. Help us to remember now all that you are and all that you have promised. Help us to remember how you have already shown up for us and how you will continue to. Help us to hold on to the hope that you promise, whatever that takes.

In your name we pray, amen.