First Sunday of Advent Readings:

SLIDE: Incarnation. First Sunday of Advent:  Hope – (Promise, Patriarchs)

Football yesterday!! We won!!   What as the score? 3-0 St. Johns

UNDERSTANDING is HUGE!  Incarnation

THE OT ends – we have met amazing people!

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

There is wickedness in the land and God’s judgement is pending but there is HOPE… God promises to send a messenger, a prophet in His name who will make a way for the Lord.

SLIDE: Malachi 3:1   “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

SLIDE: Malachi 4:5  “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.

SLIDE:  Isaiah 9:2, 6-7   CHRISTMAS!

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. […] For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.”

SLIDE: Isaiah 53:4-6   (EASTER)

⁴ Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. ⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. ⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

SLIDE: Isaiah 7:14  Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and^[ will call him Immanuel.

SLIDE: Matthew 1:23  “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”  (which means “God with us”)

Richard Hays  Duke university  – Reading Backwards)

The OT ends with Malachi reminding us again what the other prophets have told us…

There is HOPE … God will send someone…

We need a new someone who will come and get it right!

EMANUEL = “God w/ us” Isaiah and Matthew

SLIDE: John 1:1-4, :14

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

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.

incarnation means “the act of being made flesh.” It comes from the Latin version of John 1:14   which in English reads, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”

Latin The prefix in- means “in” and caro means “flesh,” so incarnate means “in the flesh.”

WHAT WE MEAN!!

Fully God, Fully Human, Two Natures in One Person

WHAT WE DO NOT MEAN…

Reincarnation… return  – Lacks a definitive hope!

Our hope is in … the blessed hope!

Resurrection of these mortal bodies into incorruptible ones!

1 Corinthians 15:53-55

⁵³ For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.⁵⁴ When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

⁵⁵ “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”  Isaiah 25 Hosea 13

Incarnation – WHY?

1983 TRADING PLACES: Upper-crust executive Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) and down-and-out hustler Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) are the subjects of a bet by successful brokers Mortimer (Don Ameche) and Randolph Duke (Ralph Bellamy). An employee of the Dukes, Winthorpe is framed by the brothers for a crime he didn’t commit, with the brothers then installing the street-smart Valentine in his position. When Winthorpe and Valentine uncover the scheme, they set out to turn the tables on the Dukes.

What?  God became one of us! Audacious Claim!

SLIDE:  Feet to your faith

SLIDE: Hebrews 2:14-18

¹⁴ Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—¹⁵ and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. ¹⁶ For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. ¹⁷ For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.¹⁸ Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Isaiah 53:4-6  (EASTER) Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,

My conversion – Farm field – didn’t suffer

SLIDE: Philippians 2:5-8

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6-8 (A HYMN) Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; ⁷ rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

God knows all – that is omniscience  – getting all the facts right

Incarnation = God in Jesus can assure is that HE experientially  knows all at every level – that is incarnation – having lived it.  FULLY

He knows my suffering/ tempation