Just so beautiful to hear that in all those different languages. And appropriately at Advent, we celebrate the fact that Jesus, who came once, who died and was risen, will come again and will pull people from all manner of humanity together in one group of people. And we are just, man. I am excited. Heaven is not just one language.

It is very multilingual. So yeah, looking forward to that. We are in a season called Advent. It is part of the church calendar, and so if you imagine this as like a Yeah. Clock beginning with Advent over here. This is the start of the church year. It moves from this idea of God with us all the way through to Lent and Easter where we celebrate the idea that God is for us and then to Pentecost, God in us, which we get to celebrate with baptisms.

And then we move through this ordinary time that God walks, works through everyday people like you and I. What a thing to do. to celebrate. This morning I am reading the sermon for the last time. Potentially, I something I wanted to try over Advent. It means that the language is a little bit more precise.

It means that I don’t wander around as much, and it just provides a different focus. Now, some of You loved it. You’re like, this is how a sermon should be. Thank goodness, after four years of preaching, you’ve learned how to do this properly. Others of you are like, that, that feels a little strange.

If you loved it, enjoy this, because it might be the last time. If you hated it then you just got to suck up the last 35 minutes or so, and then I’ll be back next week wandering around talking about narrative theology and all those kind of things. We’ll see how this goes. Today, we continue our Advent journey by dipping first into the book of Revelation, or to give it its full name, The Revelation of Jesus Christ.

We are, this Advent, looking for Jesus in his own revelation. Today, we’ll start in Revelation, but in honor of the book that takes narratives from all over Scriptures, and then ties them together, we’ll continue to follow that link back into the witness of Scripture, and just see where it takes us. Jesus is like a multi faceted stone, like a diamond.

He has so many attributes to him, so many different ways that his personality is revealed. You can look at him for a thousand years and still just be at the beginning of his nature. My prayer is that we catch a different glimpse and re experience him together this Advent. This sermon, It was written in a week that did not cooperate.

My wife was sick for two, three days we had two kids birthdays, and then, on Friday night, all four of our kids began vomiting in unison. I didn’t know you could do that. That’s like an Olympic sport or something, like synchronized vomiting. I don’t give you that too much information to excuse, like a sermon that may be poorly put together but just in the hope that actually, sometimes in the kind of cauldron of that God works in incredible ways, and so I’m excited to see how he does that.

In Revelation chapter 1, we read a description of Jesus revealed. When you stand for the reading of this passage with me,

Revelation chapter 1 verse 12, I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me, and when I turned I saw seven gold lampstands. And among the lampstands was one like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet, with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.

His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace. His voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp double edged sword. His face was like the sun shining all of its brilliance. This is the word of God for the people of God. And we reply, thanks be to God.

You may be seated. So as I said just a few minutes ago, traditionally, Advent brings a focus on Jesus return. That can seem counter cultural if you’re new to this church thing. We usually think of this as being a time where we celebrate the birth of a child 2, 000 years ago. We often think about this as a time maybe where we’re trying to imagine what it was like to be those first people waiting for Jesus.

But again, traditionally, what we’ve done in the church over a couple of thousand years is we’ve talked about the idea that Jesus will one day return. Return this advent. We are looking for Jesus in the book of Revelation or as it is quite simply really called the revelation of Jesus Christ, we’re looking for Jesus in his own revelation.

So we’ve picked some of the names or phrases used, the epithets maybe used for Jesus within this book and tried to pull out some of those details. We looked at the idea that Jesus is described as being the lamb, that Jesus also in the same passages is described as being the lion. And now we’re moving on to this idea that in Revelation chapter one at least, Jesus is referred to as one.

Like a son of man. A phrase that would have caught the attention of each Jewish person in the first century. Not only because they would remember that Jesus described himself in that way while on earth, but because it had a long history of existence in the Jewish world. In the following two chapters, aspects of the description we just read are then used by Jesus as teaching aids or teaching points for each of the seven churches in modern day Turkey, who are struggling with all sorts of challenges, sometimes internal challenges from false teachers, external challenges from local Jewish synagogues of the day, Or from the competing pagan narratives and the dominance of this big Roman imperial cult that has really taken over the world.

There was all this infrastructure that exists still today in just some of these forms that has lasted for a couple of thousand years, even though the temple has disappeared, still some of the kind of like the details, the bit, the remains. still exist. I have this to show you today that was kindly lent to me by one of our members.

This is a piece of one of those temples right there. It was picked up by him, or according to his wife, stolen by him. Let’s say borrowed for a long time. It says on the back, Property of the state of Turkey and there’s people actually in Turkey still looking for this today, I think I I would have picked it up too, Gary, if it makes you feel any better, but my wife and I may have had that same conversation at some point, but there’s all of these little bits of remains that still exist there. As we’ll see, there’s this combatants between this pagan existence in, in like bricks and mortar. Competing with this Christian story that emerges that’s a word of mouth thing. We get trapped, maybe, by imagining that world had churches on every corner, just as there are today.

Whereas that church met in homes, that church was hidden behind the scenes. It was a word of mouth thing. The comprehensive victory of that Christian story against over other, against other narratives would have been a huge surprise. To those in the halls of power. In chapter two, a letter is sent to the church in fire, Tyra.

It states that there, that these are the words of the one whose eyes are like blazing fire. And whose feet are like burnished bronze, just as we read in that description earlier. But, there’s a change that maybe you’ve already caught onto. In this passage, Jesus is not referred to as the Son of Man, but as the Son of God.

So which is it? Perhaps our first question might look like this, is Jesus the Son of Man? Or is Jesus the Son of God? Now some of you, you’ve been doing this Jesus journey for a long time. You’ve I’ve already got an answer for this. Let me come up there. I can explain this better than you. We understand this.

But just for a moment, suspend belief. Approach this freshly, is my encouragement. Because there’s a beautiful element of how Jesus is revealed in these two titles, like the balance especially of those titles, that we might miss. The terms Son of Man and Son of God have a long history in Jewish culture.

But, at least on the surface, are not always consistent, even in the Old Testament. So let’s begin for a second. This is all groundwork. Stick with me. We’ll get through it together. This is groundwork for the idea of the Son of Man. The first reference, Son of Man, can simply just mean human being. It’s used by God of ordinary human beings like you and I, especially the prophet Ezekiel.

He’s referred to as the Son of Man nearly a hundred times. It quite simply means something like Hey, you human, or you are human, or something like that. At the same time, this title, Son of Man, takes on this deeper mystery, especially in the book of Daniel, the passage that you heard read earlier in the worship.

This is Daniel chapter 14. This is written by Daniel who is a exile in the land of Babylon. He’s educated. He’s a prisoner in some ways in Babylon. This big empire of its day but has a whole bunch of freedoms that are maybe surprising to him and to the people around him. In my vision it says, At night I looked and there before me was one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.

He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. This He was given authority, glory, and sovereign power. All the nations and peoples of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away. His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

The phrase son of man, as I said, can quite simply mean just. Son of man, it can quite simply mean a human being. But this phrase in Aramaic that Daniel speaks, which in Aramaic is Bar Nash, in Hebrew is something like Ben Adam. It takes on this whole otherworldly context. It becomes something more than it first.

was. In actual fact, if you have time in your personal study, take the book of Revelation, chapter 1, that we read just a few minutes ago. Take Daniel, chapter 7, and put the two together, and they flow point by point in a row, and you have 14 of the same points that come time after time.

This question maybe lurks is Son of man just a human or does it mean something more and come we’ll get to this idea of what about when Jesus Uses it does it mean something more in just a moment? So Son of Man has this vaguety to it. How about Son of God? Surely, if there’s an uncertainty about Son of Man, surely Son of God is pretty clear.

Unfortunately, no, again it’s not necessarily clear. In the spectrum of the Old Testament, we see the phrase Son of God used of the nation of Israel, The modern Jewish people, it’s used of individuals like Solomon who was a king, it’s used of judges, it’s used of priests, it’s used of kings, it can simply, like Son of Man, mean a human being, or something more.

By the first century, there was a common belief based on passages like Psalms. Number, Psalm two, that the Messiah when he came would be God’s son. This is Psalm two, verse eight, nine. He said to me, you are my son. Today. I’ve become your father. Ask and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth, your possession.

You will break them with a rod of iron and you will dash them to peace like pottery. Imagine yourself as a nation that’s constantly been downtrodden. by other nations. Hard to do for an American, right? You guys not had that narrative here. We’ve had that in Britain. You guys maybe less except when we did it to you guys, which is a whole different story.

There is this idea that these two narratives work back and forth. together. So does the Son of Man mean human or something more? Does the phrase Son of God mean human or something more? It’s certainly complex when you look at the Old Testament. So what we’re going to do together is this. We’re going to look at the one time these two terms are used by the Old Testament.

and of Jesus in the same place. And I hope that it brings you this rich, new view of Jesus and maybe understanding of the interactions between these two titles. So if you have the scriptures in front of you, turn to Matthew 16, put a finger in that, just hold it ready to go. We’ll get to it in just a moment.

But I want to give you an example of what I think is happening in this scene in like culture terms. How many of you are fans of superhero movies? Any superhero nerds out there? Any comic book people? Even more importantly, anyone still read comic books? Okay, there’s a few of you out there. I love superhero movies, and I especially love the moment when you’re like, The moment when someone who is undercover to some degree, who has some kind of secret identity, is revealed to one person or to many people, it’s beautiful, it’s like this seminal, like this climax moment, perhaps in a story, but it’s also fraught with some kind of narrative, some kind of struggle in that character’s emotional journey.

In the old 90s, like New Adventures of Superman with Dean Cain as Clark Kent, there’s this moment where he reveals himself to Lois Lane and he’s trying to help her understand this two natures within him. And he says to her, Lois, Clark is who I am. Superman is just what I can do. There’s this moment in the new Superman and Lois where there’s this character that is revealing himself to the whole world.

He’s literally in front of the press exposing this nature to him to everybody, for everybody to see. And in the midst of the conversation, the reporter who’s interviewing him says these words, The greatest secret in the world was right in front of me. How did I miss it? What was I missing?

Now, on one level, it’s dangerous to compare Superman to the story we’re about. to read. There’s not necessarily a direct correlation, except that the Superman story is maybe just a small, inferior copy, a tiny image of the story we’re about to read where the Son of God has been operating and living in this world.

unknown to almost anyone around him. And there’s this moment where one of his followers is about to see him as something more than simply a human being living a common existence with him. Somewhere, this statement spoken by Janet Olson in this series, Superman and Lois, could have been spoken by some of Jesus disciples.

The greatest secret in the world, God hidden in human flesh, was right in front of them for years. And up until this point, they had no capacity to understand it. The unimaginable was unimaginable to them for an awfully long time. In Matthew chapter 16, Jesus will ask a question of his disciples. Who do people say the Son of Man is?

Jesus has already used the term son of man multiple times of himself. She uses it eventually about 30 times in Matthew’s gospel. The term son of man is not because Jesus had a habit of speaking in the third person. Like people who use like the term yours truly. Anyone here use that term still? Yours truly?

Anyone, any ears, truly, people? Come on, raise a hand if you do. I’d like to see it. Good. There’s no one here because if there’s one thing Alex Walton finds annoying, it’s when Alex Walton hears people talking in the third person. Little grammar joke for you there. Here, Jesus does make a third person reference.

In question form, but he does it to intentionally load a question with all of its prehistory. He uses a phrase that has been so well known in the Jewish world that it means something automatically. The question is important in its first form. When it’s written, when it’s spoken about the people at large, what are people saying about me, is essentially how we may phrase it.

But it’s even more important in its second form, when he asks it of them, it becomes a central question in the Jesus narrative. Linguistically, Jesus has a nuance to the phrase son of man in comparison to its use in other places. He uses the definite article or the. He coins the phrase the son of man that has not existed anywhere up until that point in history.

However, there are definite suggestions that Jesus has an understanding of the term son of man. That isn’t apparent in texts like Daniel where the son of man is a glorified character invited to come and have Conversation to have relationship with the ancient of days who is a figure who represents God That doesn’t mean that Daniel 7 is not in play It simply means that Jesus sees that term son of man as complicated.

In Matthew 8 verse 20, for example, he says these words, Foxes have dens, birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. Does that sound like the glorified image of the superhuman in Daniel chapter 7? No, it’s different, right? There’s something there that’s distinct that’s different. We see the two ideas in play, a son of man who is high and lifted up, who represents true humanity, and one who is a friend of the downtrodden, who lives close to the margins.

The duality of that title has been a challenge to scholarship. In fact, across scholars from the last hundred and fifty, two hundred years, there have been those that argue that the son of man is Jesus language for simply human being. And others that argue that it means someone who is superhuman on some level.

Jimmy Dunn, who is a local Birmingham boy, grew up in my hometown, said this, After 150 years of debate, no consensus on its meaning has emerged. It means if you feel like you have certainty on what that title absolutely means there’s a whole bunch of really smart people, way smarter than us, that say it’s definitely complicated.

Reginald Fuller observes that the problem of the Son of Man is a can of worms. No one can write anything about it that will command general assent or provide a definite, definitive solution. So who is the Son of Man? We might phrase the question that Jesus asks this way. What do people say about your teacher?

Who has, in your experience, twice walked on water? who was taught with an authority different than any religious ruler of his day, who heals the sick and blind and welcomes in the marginalized, the one who has a connection with God beyond your comprehension or wildest imagination. That guy. What do people say about him?

Who is he? Jesus asks the disciples how people are solving the conundrum that Jesus causes. The disciples answer that question very specifically by giving like this smorgasbord of different things that Jesus has had said about him in public. Let me say this, he’s def they are definitely covering some of the bad stuff.

Every answer they give is somewhat positive and yet we know the reaction to Jesus is at times like people disapprove of him and they don’t mention any of that, that they’re keeping it under cover. In the following verse, Jesus, let me check, I’m not tracking with my screen in the way that I usually am, let me check that I’m keeping up.

In the following verse, Jesus will tweak the question. Jesus, After asking what general society has said about him, he says this, but what about you? What do you say about me? How will the disciples take their experience of Jesus and harmonize the duality inherent in that experience? How will they take all the incredible things that Jesus has done, the walking on water twice in Matthew’s gospel, the healing of the sick?

And how will they merge those with the fact that they’ve seen Jesus get tired? They’ve seen him get frustrated. They’ve seen him come to seemingly the end of what his physical body can do. They’ve seen him seemingly carry the weight of the world upon his shoulders. How do you, in a pithy sentence, describe your best friend who also walks on water?

One of our favorite family movies is The Sandlot. I should say, one of the movies that my wife and I like to force on our kids is The Sandlot. They don’t necessarily care for it. In fairness, it doesn’t capture anything that their generation It is a movie that if you were born in the 60s, you probably get it.

It reflects, like, all the things that you experience. If you were born in the 90s, you probably still get some of it. This is a bunch of kids that disappears all day and just plays baseball by themselves. So if you were part of the generation, where your parents specifically had to be reminded that you exist with a message on TV at 10 o’clock.

Remember do you know where your children are? It’s 10 o’clock in the evening, go find them. If you’re one of those generations, you get the sandlot. If you’re not, you definitely don’t. Life was different then. I could definitely have hung with these kids and their constant baseball conversations.

In one moment they’re talking about Babe Ruth. One of the great baseball legends in history. And there’s this moment where one of the characters has not heard of Babe Ruth, and they try their best to explain him, and they begin with this statement. He was he was more than a man. But he was less than a guard, or he was less than a guard, he was more than a man.

It’s this kind of overstating the place that Babe Ruth had in the baseball world. But I wonder whether that statement in itself doesn’t help us understand the meaning of just what the disciples were trying to wrestle with in terms of what they’d seen as they walked with Jesus day after day.

There was clearly something more to him than they had encountered in any other human being, and yet he looked just like everybody else around them. It’s at this point that Peter, acting as a spokesman, makes a statement of faith. He says this. He doesn’t say this, that’s a picture of the sandlot. He says this, You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

First time anyone has said that in the scriptures so far. He makes a statement. He sees somewhere in Jesus a divinity that is veiled, thinly at times. And those moments when he operates supernaturally, but veiled nonetheless. This statement of Jesus lives across church history. Eventually we get to this statement by Augustine of Hippo that ends up in the the statement of faith in the Nicene Creed.

Christ Jesus, the Son of God, is God and man. God before all worlds. Man in our world, but since he’s the only son of God by nature and not by grace, he became also the son of man, that he might be full of grace as well. It’s complicated language. What Augustine is getting at is this, that Jesus in time eternity was the son of God.

But in this present age, He lived amongst us as a human being to experience the things that we experience. That Jesus is Son of God and Son of Man is so important, as we’ll see, to your understanding of Him. According to Jesus, it is a moment of revelation when Peter doesn’t understand something as much as he is shown it.

Jesus says this, It was not flesh and blood or just, it wasn’t common understanding, Peter, that you grasped this by, but it was revelation directly from my Father in Heaven. That’s all important, good information, but there’s something more hidden behind the scenes that I’d love to unpack for just a few moments.

In verse 13 we’re told that this encounter takes place in a place called Caesarea Philippi. It’s a town that has a whole bunch of back history. Up until just a few years before this it was known by a different name. It was given its new name by a ruler called Herod Philippi. Philip. He gave the town this new name that was half Caesar’s name and half his name, which, if you’re worried about jealous rulers, is a super smart decision to make.

You want to make sure that guy’s really prominent, then you just sneak your name in the background. It’s makes you some friends before you actually need them. Some years earlier, he father had built a temple in that town to Augustus Caesar. So track with me for a second. There’s this whole development of this place where they start building infrastructure named after Roman rulers.

Within that Roman system, there’d been a tradition where each Roman emperor would make their father a god. with the joy that they would reap the benefits of in this life being a son of God. A beautiful thing to be able to say about yourself in that world. So as we read this story, remember that in the midst of it a city dedicated to a son of God whose father is dead.

And with a temple to a son of God whose father is also dead. Jesus is revealed as the son of the living God. He’s not the son of a god that’s dead, or perhaps never was a god at all. He’s revealed in this distinct way that doesn’t exist anywhere else in that timeline. If that wasn’t enough cultural history for you, there’s a little more.

At Philippi, there was a second temple to a guard called Pan. Pan was a guard in the Roman and Greek pantheon of of guards. He was shaped somewhat like a thorn. So if you kind of sinani, I think Mr. TNAs, but if he’d kinda taken a turn for the worse, he’s definitely not living in the way of Jesus. If you imagine him in this way.

Worship of Pan was central to the region. In fact, before it was called Cesar Philippi, it was called Pane or eu. Pan was amongst other things known for his. promiscuity, especially sexually. The term pan means or, so pansexual means or sexual, pandemic, or people. Panic means it’s like it’s come from pan.

It’s his work in the world. All derivations of his name. In the world of pan, anything goes. It was an embrace of all the freedoms you might imagine. The writer Oscar Wilde, who was like part of the underground scene in London in the late 19th century, said, My life is feasting with panthers.

It’s that term, pan, again, same connection. Now, a whole bunch of history here that’s just a little bit fascinating if you like to nerd out with me. Around 84 AD, there was a fascinating writing by a guy called Plutarch who said that Pan died sometime around the rule of Tiberius, i. e. this time. And this is the point of Jesus reference to the living God.

I’m not super convinced that this is why Jesus says that he’s the son of a living God, because Pana died. It seems more plausible that it’s about Roman emperors and their kind of desire to be worshipped. But it would be true to say that it’s, that in the hundred years that follow, there’s a surprising shift from paganism to Christianity.

G. K. Chesterton wrote this. It is said truly in a sense that Pan died because Christ was born. It is almost as true in another sense to say that men knew that Christ was born because Pan had already died. A void was made in the vanishing world of the whole mythology of mankind, which would have asphyxiated like a vacuum if it had not been filled with the story of Jesus.

There’s this shift where the old pagan stories at this moment seem like they’re dead and suddenly this new Jesus story emerges. In other words, God is alive in this point and loose in the world. What is true is that next to the temple of Pan was a shrine known as the birth and rebirth of Pan, which was no joke.

It was seriously called this. It was called the Gates of Hades. The shrine to a god called Pan was called the Gates of Hades. So when you get to the bottom of this passage in Matthew 16 and 17 and you read these words I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church The gates of Hades will not overcome it Now maybe you have a version, it’s 50 50 across different versions Some versions say hell, some versions say Hades It simply means the place of the dead or death Itself as you read this story in a city named after a guard called Pan, who was worshiped at a place called the Gates of Hades.

Jesus is declared to be the son of the living God, and simply stated that the gates of hell, all of this pagan structure around him will not overcome it, will not overcome. This is some of the pictures of some of the area. There is a shift that we might remember as we sing carols like this that kind of the theology behind this carol is just, it’s just way better than the tune makes out.

God rest you merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay, for Jesus Christ our Savior was born upon this day to save poor souls from Satan’s power which long time had gone astray, which brings tidings of comfort and joy. There is a transformation going on in the world in this moment. And so a question, is that how you see the world?

Jesus victorious over death and Hades? Or at times do we fear that the story is actually reversed? Philosophers proclaim God is dead. Meanwhile, if you look in the world around us, you might suggest that the world of Pan seems alive and well. I don’t desire or have any desire for South to be a church that rails against the awfulness.

of society. I’ve learned that when people come to me occasionally, which they do, and say, could you talk about sin more often? What they actually mean is, can you talk a little bit more about how broken society is? And I’ve learned to tongue in cheek reply, which of your sins do you want me to talk about a little more?

I think our call as followers of Jesus is to obedience. Never be surprised when people who don’t claim to follow Jesus don’t live in the way of Jesus. But be joyfully surprised when you see signposts of the image of God inherent in every part of humanity, even in those that seem uninterested in God.

However, if you were to look at the world around, You might the world around us, you might see a world seemingly embracing what could be called panism, the pursuit of every pleasure at any cost, maybe believing that they’re returning to something the very opposite of Christian calls to purity, and charity, and chastity, and some of those old fashioned words.

But as the story of Panism is really relived in the modern world, you get to see it’s broken and warped in nature. It was equally warped and oppressive and broken all those years ago, but long years of history hide some of the awfulness of a culture that has no sense of holiness. In England last week, and I say this carefully because there’s all sorts of audience, a young woman recorded a documentary of how she had slept with a hundred men in a single day.

Separately, she was interviewed by a video journalist. As she talked about her experience, she broke down in tears under the psychological weight of life as it was never intended. One viewer commented, This documentary is devastating to watch as a human. Another said, The end The ending just shows the reality of this.

Her mental health is shattered. So sad to see, just horrible. Russell Brand, the comedian and actor, sent her a message that just was simply beautiful. And if you’re on social media and you don’t follow Russell Brand, I highly recommend him as one of the best follows today. He made this journey towards Jesus maybe like probably three or four months ago.

And this is a guy who now just compellingly and beautifully articulates the Christian gospel better than I can almost all the time. He just has caught this beautiful sense of what Jesus grace means in surprising ways. He says this, I would pray that all of us have the That have looked for love in the wrong places are able to find what it is We are truly looking for dignity sanctity rather than making everything profane.

We’ve got to love one another forgive one another There’s a way home for all of us and by individually changing we can change our culture to something beautiful He simply began his message with these words. Jesus loves Lily Phillips the girl in the video G. K. Chesterton said years ago, every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is really looking for God.

The world of pans seems to offer people something that they can do whatever, some place where they can do whatever they want, and yet, it leaves them surprisingly broken. The way of Jesus is constantly bringing people into a new place of forgiveness. In this pericope in Matthew 16, with its interaction between Jesus two natures, God unveils to his follower Peter not only Jesus nature, but also his imminent and comprehensive victory over death and its stronghold, and over gods that bring death.

2, 000 years later, the Greek pantheon is the subject of fictional retelling and nothing more, but the world of panism shipwrecked souls that are promised unbridled sensuality, leaving them increasingly bereft of life. The Church of Jesus continues the work of its founder, who cared for those most broken and marginalized by seeing people redeemed, pulled from underneath the indomitable gates of death.

Two thousand years later, the words of Jesus are as true as ever. The gates of hell, of Hades, of death, shall not prevail. A victory has been won by Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of God. In the moments where you wander, lift up your eyes and interact with the stories God is bringing about here, at South, or in the U.

S., but all across the world, as people encounter Jesus. I remind you of these words in Philippians chapter 2. Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking on the very nature of a servant, been made in human likeness, and being found in the appearance as a man, he humbered himself.

By becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross, Jesus, the Son of God, lowered himself to the place of humanity, lived our life with us and for us. Over the years of pastoring in churches, I’ve noticed the temptation has become much more comfortable with one or another of the two natures of Christ.

Perhaps you find it hard to see more than a good teacher behind the story. You come faithfully. Perhaps you, like many religions over the years, can find it hard to disclude Jesus or to not acknowledge him at all. You can pick out his good qualities, an excellent moral compass, but it’s hard for you to get beyond that.

He’s too human, and perhaps you find yourself too grounded to take anything more mystical seriously. Could you hold space this advent for Jesus? to be something more. Alternatively, perhaps, you now no longer have space for Jesus, the Son of Man, who lowered himself to live the life we live. Perhaps you only have space for the Son of God.

Some years ago, I received a letter from a person leaving South because of a season where we placed a focus on Jesus humanity. The concern was expressed thus. He was Superman. Problematically, this belief removes from Jesus the humanity of his story. He is the Son of God, but as also Son of Man, he reflects both our frailty and the masked dignity and glory, the imago Dei that’s hidden in every single face that you encounter.

When we remove his humanity, We are given a delightful out to living in the way of Jesus, because how can we possibly live how the Son of God lived? And yet his serious invite is to live like him in the world. The first followers of Jesus unpacked exactly what this story meant. They came to a startling conclusion.

Not only was his divinity veiled, it was laid. Jesus was born as a child, grew into the years of manhood slowly with the same pains and struggles that you and I do. In Hebrews chapter 4, we read these words, that we do not have a high priest that cannot sympathize with us. but one who has been tempted in every single way as we have.

Whatever season of life you live in, this Advent, this year, Jesus knows it and has walked that journey with you and for you. This season, perhaps, you’ve not acknowledged Jesus as Son of God. You’ve not acknowledged Jesus as Son of Man. The invite is to both. I finish with these words of Kosuke Kiyama, who said, God walks slowly because He is love.

If He is not love, He would have gone much faster. Love has its speed. It’s an inner speed. It’s a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we have become accustomed. It is slow, yet it is lord over all other speeds, since it is the speed of love. This Advent season, will you slow your journey?

To walk step by step with the God of the universe, who walks with you whatever the season of life you are in. Know that the gates of hell will not prevail. against Jesus, the Son of Man, Son of God, who defeated death.

May you know him in new ways this year. Jesus, thank you that you lived the full spectrum of this world. You experienced every stage of life. As we find ourselves in seasons of joy, seasons of hardship, would you continue to work in us, to grow us, to transform us? into your image. Amen.