Christmas Eve: Jesus is Hope, Love, Joy, Peace

Throughout Advent, as we have been preparing for Christmas and for Christ’s return, we have been focusing on the four words of the Advent candles: Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace. Today, as we celebrate Christmas Eve, we lit the most important candle, the Christ candle. And as we light the Christ candle, it is only fitting that we would focus on Christ and his place within this wreath.

Jesus Christ is not only the center candle for his obvious central role in the Christmas story, but his spot in the center of the wreath is because he is the fulfillment of all of the candles.

We began Advent with hope. Fitting, that Hope Church would focus on hope. For a people caught in the “in between” times, Micah’s prophecy includes these words of hope: But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. (Micah 7:7)

In the Old Testament, when you find the word “hope” it is almost always characterized not simply as “hope” but “hope in the Lord.” Here is one example, from Psalm 130:7: Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. In fact, the prophet Jeremiah (in Jeremiah 14:8; 17:13) goes so far as to call God “the Hope of Israel.”

God saw Micah watching in hope for the Lord, waiting for a Savior. God saw Israel’s hope in the Lord, hope for full redemption. As the Hope of Israel, God responded. How did God respond? By sending Jesus.

This is why, in the introduction to his first letter to Timothy, Paul calls Jesus our hope. [Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, (1 Timothy 1:1)]

Every other hope disappoints, but hope in the Lord does not. Their hope was fulfilled on that night when Jesus was born. Here was born love and full redemption. If you think about it, nothing and no one else could have fulfilled that hope. Hope was born that day in the manger.

But Jesus was not only the hope for a people long ago and far away. In his letter to Titus, the Apostle Paul reminds us that Jesus is still our hope.

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:11-14)

Only Jesus is the hope of the world, the one who can redeem us from wickedness and purify us. This is how we prepare for Christmas and for Christ’s return: Jesus himself is our hope, and it is he who prepares us.

Not only is Jesus our hope, but Jesus is also love. Love was born in that manger.

We often think of love in purely emotional terms, and that does us a complete disservice. Love is so much more than a warm, fuzzy feeling. 1 John 4 tells us (twice!) that God is love. That’s something that most of us can support. God is love. But the Bible also confirms that Jesus and God are One. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (John 1:1, 14a)

The Word, as John refers to him, is Jesus. When we sing “O Come, All Ye Faithful” the second verse is a powerful theological statement: True God of true God, Light from Light Eternal, lo he shuns not the Virgin’s womb. Our hymnal says Son of the Father, but others include the phrase “Word of the Father” begotten, not created – o come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

True God of true God. Because Jesus is God. And God is love, and Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus’ birth, so love certainly did come down at Christmas.

Listen again to 1 John 4:7-10: Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. Here is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Love isn’t just a feeling. Love is God seeing his beloved people trapped under the weight of our sin. Love is God, calling sin “sin” and not leaving us in it, but instead, confronting our sin by sending his Son to provide our atonement.

Love was born on Christmas.

God’s love, born to us on Christmas, provides joy unspeakable. Do you remember the definition of joy that I provided on the third Sunday of Advent? Joy is the delight of the mind arising from the consideration of a present or assured possession of a future good.

In the Person of Jesus Christ, not only are we in possession of something good, but we are in possession of the best possible good. Jesus Christ is the One who comes, bringing delight and joy. I love the scene in Luke 2 with the angel and the shepherds. Now, remember that biblical angels weren’t quite like the pretty, sweet angels we put on top of our Christmas trees. They were God’s messengers and God’s warriors. They were terrifying. So in Luke 2:10, the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

From a terrifying celestial creature comes the word: do not be afraid (they always say that). Why not? Because of the good news that will cause great joy. That good news is Jesus Christ. He comes, bringing greater joy than we can imagine – forgiveness of sin. Salvation. Redemption. Reconciliation. Freedom. And greater still, he comes bringing himself. For he himself is the greatest good and is the greatest joy.

Joy was born on Christmas.

And as we celebrate hope, love, and joy on Christmas, we celebrate peace. As I’ve said many times, the peace God gives is not like that which the world gives. We generally consider that if there is no fighting, we must be at peace. But Jesus gives a different kind of peace, one that Paul describes in Philippians 4:7 as “transcending all understanding.”

The peace that transcends all understanding is a peace in the face of struggles, strife, war, and difficulty. Apart from Jesus, the world will never know this peace, because Jesus himself is this peace. This is why the angels appeared, saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” Luke 2:14

The peace that God gives in Jesus Christ is best described by the Hebrew word “shalom.” This is more than just no fighting, but includes peace, prosperity, wellness, wholeness, and completeness. French Mathematician and Philosopher,  Blaise Pascal, once said, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”

Without God, there is a hole, an incompleteness in us. And Jesus comes, giving his shalom to us, not by getting rid of the problems around us, but by filling us with what we are missing, namely himself, and, as Ephesians 2:14 tells us, Jesus himself is our peace. Peace was born on Christmas.

When I was a little younger and I knew more than I do now, there were all kinds of things that annoyed me. There are still a lot of things that annoy me, like “Santa Baby” and the Christmas Shoes song, but one thing that used to annoy me was the bumper sticker slogan “Jesus is the Answer.”

I would be all smart-alecky and say something like, “I didn’t ask a question.” The reality is that Jesus is indeed the answer. Jesus is the fulfillment of all of our longing. In his book, Soul Cravings, author, speaker, and pastor Erwin McManus contends that all of our soul cravings can be boiled down to three areas of longing: intimacy, destiny, and meaning. In other words, these three areas encompass all that we are looking for and everything we long for at the deepest core of our being. Intimacy, destiny, and meaning.

And Jesus is the answer of all of our soul cravings. Jesus is the God about whom David wrote: For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:13-14a). Jesus knows us intimately because he created us.

As for our destiny, David writes: All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16b).

And our meaning: We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

Jesus is the answer! It may sound trite, but it is true. Everything we long for can be found in Jesus: intimacy, destiny, and meaning, were born on Christmas. And everything we look for, everything that this world needs: hope, love, joy, peace; it was all born on Christmas. Jesus is the answer! And so we celebrate Christmas, because it is the birthday of Jesus, the answer, the fulfillment of everything we desire and everything we need!