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Dec 03, 2023

Aayan's First Christmas

Aayan's First Christmas

Passage: Luke 2:8-20

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: 2023 Advent: Glory Days

Keywords: god, glory

The younger you are, the more likely you think your greatest days of glory are within your grasp. The older you get, there’s a corresponding proneness to thinking your best days are behind you. Advent answers both those natural inclinations with a humble but firm rebuke. Our best days, our greatest glory, lies not within our reach or in our pasts but in the days still to come and governed by the gracious hand of God. An unlikely convert to Christ will celebrate her first Christmas as a believer. Her story has a certain parallel to the first Christmas–and will teach us about what the first Christmas, and our greatest hope, begins with: the glory of God. In Christ are our glory days.

Readings & Scripture

PRE SERVICE TEXT: Luke 2:13-14
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

PREPARATION: Psalm 63:1-4
LEADER: O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

ALL: So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.

LEADER: Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.

ALL: So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH/SCRIPTURE READING/CORPORATE PRAYER: Exodus 33:7, 12-13, 17-23
LEADER: Ex. 33:7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp.

Ex. 33:12 Moses said to the LORD, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13 Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.”

Ex. 33:17 And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” 18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” 21 And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” The Word of the Lord

ALL: Thanks be to God.

CENTRAL TEXT: Luke 2:8-20
And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

Luke 2:14 “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Luke 2:15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

POST SERVICE: Psalm 63:2-3
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. 3 Because your
steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Luke 1:12, 29
  • Luke 9:30-31
  • Acts 7:55

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. A couple preliminary orienting questions:
    1. First, If you have time before you meet with each other read or watch Ali talk about her conversation to Christianity. What do you think? Say anything that comes to mind!
    2. Second, what do you think when you hear the word “glory”? What does it mean? What’s your clearest image(s) of it? Now, more personally, when you were young what dreams did you have that you thought might bring you glory? Now that you are older, what nostalgic feelings do you sometimes (often?) experience of days behind and no longer accessible to you?

ILLUSTRATIONS:  

QUOTES: 

  • …the world is much stranger than the secular imagination thinks. -Ross Douthat
  • From God’s viewpoint—and Satan’s—Christmas signals far more than the birth of a baby; it was an invasion, the decisive advance in the great struggle for the cosmos. Phillip Yancey
  • The encounter with the divine is initially startling and unsettling. Darrell Bock
  • I would not be truthful if I attributed my embrace of Christianity solely to the realisation that atheism is too weak and divisive a doctrine to fortify us against our menacing foes. I have also turned to Christianity because I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable — indeed very nearly self-destructive. Atheism failed to answer a simple question: what is the meaning and purpose of life? - Aayan Hirsi Ali
  • Our society is much more interested in information than wonder, in noise rather than silence...And I feel that we need a lot more wonder and a lot more silence in our lives - Fred Rogers

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