The light has not only come — it has come near.

1. Introduction

On Sunday evening, we gathered in the church, lit by candles, flickering light, and the screen. The carol service has become one of the most important services any church can do for its life and local witness, as for one night a year, people of all faiths and none will gather to celebrate the Christmas experience. It’s not just about the carols that we may sing, it is about what all of it represents in both the darkness – the world we live in – and the flickering light – the light of Christ that has come and cannot be put out. Carols services across the land, midnight communion services across our nation remind us profoundly of the truth and reality that is the good news of the gospel: The light has not only come – it has come near. It has come for you.

Advent is a season of preparation; we look ahead to the second coming of Christ and all it means for us today in our discipleship. We are people waiting, but our waiting is not idle; it is active for Christ and because of Christ. Yet, Advent and its look ahead to understand our Hopeful waiting today is a season in the Church calendar that also helps us to grasp the fullness of Christmas and what it means. Advent helps us to see that Christmas Day is not simply about waiting; it is about arrival. God has come, and he has come to achieve something. In this wonderful reading from John’s Gospel that concludes every Christmas service across the world, and will be read in many churches across the land, we get to see that John is not telling us what has happened, he is telling us who has come. Advent is over; Christ has been born, and on this Christmas Day, John shows us for what he has come.

2. Before Bethlehem There Was (v1-3)

Do you know what is perhaps the most fantastic thing about this passage? The thing that hits me every time I open John’s Gospel. Every time I hear it read at a carol service at the end of that Story of what God has set out to do form the beginning of time wiht those readings about the fall until the moment of Christ’s birth was how John makes clear proper form the first word of his account of the Christ, that the Baby who was to be born was always the plan. Do you hear the weight of those words – In the beginning. This moment in the manger, that we look to, where a pregnant woman journeyed to a town that was not her home, to give birth in the most uncomfortable of settings. This moment was always to be the moment that history would bend towards and arc away from. This child in a manger that we celebrate today is not a plan B, an afterthought – the plan was always to move from the manger, to the Cross, and towards his final Advent.

Thus, before we ever feel the darkness, he was already; before we ever felt the weight of worry, Christ was already working; before we ever wondered what God was doing in a situation, or would do through something, John tells us he was already at work! What does that mean this Christmas Day? What does this tell us about who God is and why we should look to him? This Word who has come into the Manger has always been; he was right there with God in the beginning, and now he has come into the Manger to bring hope to all humankind. In the darkness of the winter months, the Christmas tree lights, the candles that flicker in Carol services, the lights that flash outside houses – all of it grows from this image of Hope: In Him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind. The life of God was in that Manger, and that light was light. What does light do? It shines, it moves, it overcomes darkness wherever it is, and although the world did not notice the coming of this light, we have no chance to ignore it. This light was the life for all who would look to it. This light reminds us that our hope is rooted in something beyond this world; that is to say, Christian hope transcends whatever circumstance because the God who can bring redemption from a manger and a Cross is a God we can trust in every moment.

3. Light and darkness (v4-5)

Christmas may be a season of Joy and a time to celebrate with family and friends. Yet, if we are real, it is also a time of year that reminds us how real the darkness and brokenness of our world is. We might feel it in our own lives, we may see it on the TV, or we might even let our eyes take in the number of people lying on our streets without food to eat or a bed to sleep in. The Darkness is real, and the weariness is cast upon each of us as we labour along the road that is life, becomes all the heavier still as we try our best to survive and put out the illusion that we are thriving when we are barely surviving! No matter how much money we have, how calm our lives are, and how happy we might think we are, there is no one in this world who, if sane, can deny the reality of this world. Yet, to the brokenness of the world, John writes simply and beautifully: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.” (John‬ ‭1‬:‭5‬ ‭NLT). For John, this is not some abstract idea or ethereal truth that means nothing. This is the truth of all truths! How do we know? Notice the tense of what John writes; there is no hint of ‬‬possibility, uncertainty, or doubt. The tense is certain! It is something that has already occurred: Shines is an ongoing reality; can never is stated in the absolute! John is not seeking to simply encourage you; he is declaring to you what has happened and the power of it!

4. Familiarity without faith (v9-11)

At the start of the week, I was out at a Christmas Concert and carol service. It was a fantastic evening of songs, worship and fellowship. Yet as I made my way to the seat right at the front, I kept bumping into people in the crowd who seemed to know me, and whom I did not have a clue who they were! I have always had a challenge in recognising people out of context. Then, when the concerns were over, and I was on my way out, I found myself walking beside someone I felt like I knew but could not recognise.

John tells us that Jesus faced the same challenge on a far greater cosmic-redemptive scale, as John tells us, he came to his own… but they did not recognise him. You see, we think the danger we will face as Christians is hostility, where people get angry with Jesus and the wonder of his claim. We believe they will dismiss him with anger and rage. Yet, the reality is something far worse, its recognition without reception. It is like meeting him in a crowd and holding a conversation with him, but at the same time doing our best to get away. He came to his own, but his own did not recognise him, which was a form of John’s rebuke of the Jewish people who rejected the saviour they had been waiting for, longing for, because he did not fit their expectations or wants, so they refused to receive him.

The danger for us today is that we who recieved him can, with time and apathy, and the weight of life, turn into those who begin to recognise him without welcoming him. We know him, but he does not know us, as we go through the routines of religions – Sundays, church business, committees, prayer meetings, and perhaps even the sacraments. We go through the rhythms of faith in a spirit of recognition without a heart willing to receive him. Even at this time of year, as we enjoy the carols we sing, are we willing to admit that we have not come to know the saviour they speak of as well as we should have? We have kept Jesus at arm’s length as individuals and as a church for far too long. Perhaps this Christmas, it’s time to change that because the light has come into the darkness, and he has come close enough to be received.

5. Receiving, not achieving (v12-13)

John now brings the truth of Christmas right to the point of decision, because we need to make a decision. He has told us just who this light is and what this light has done for us. Now, as he writes, he refuses to let that light remain distant or abstract to us: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” Do you see the most important word of this passage for a morning like this, the most important point in this message – One word matters here: Received. We do not achieve, nor earn, nor prove ourselves to the light – we receive it! That is Grace by faith.

The irony is that something so beautiful cuts through everything we instinctively do. We live in a world where everything must be earned, and so we get used to striving, performing, tidying ourselves before one another as we present the best version of ourselves. Then how we live in the world shapes our approach to God as we come before him. Yet, John tells us that none of that is how this light is received. It has nothing to do with our background, nor the strength of our effort; it is not by religious activity, nor by being good enough. We receive by one thing alone – faith in what Christ has done, and trust in Him. We turn towards Jesus with open hands because the light has come!

For all of us this day who are tired and wearied by life, this is the best of news. Christmas is about receiving the light, not trying to achieve it; let’s be honest: if Christmas were about achievement, many of us would quietly disqualify ourselves. We know how far we miss the mark, and the distance we have put between ourselves and God, that our faith has become routine rather than the flourishing relationship it is meant to be. John is clear: Becoming a child of God does not come from human effort or determination; it is a movement of Grace ignited by God himself. That is what the manager is all about – a movement of Grace in human flesh, a baby. It is Grace that meets us where we are, not where we wish we were, Grace that simply asks one thing: Will you receive what God has given, the light that has come near?

6. God has come near (Conclusion) (v14)

John now brings us to the heart of Christmas, the heart of his gospel account, and all that he wants his readers to grasp with words so familiar that we can miss how profound they really are: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This is not philosophy, or abstract theological ideas. It is the foundational truth of the Christian faith: God did not remain distant from the world he loves. That is what the manager reminds us! God did not seek to work from afar; He came himself and took on our flesh as he entered the reality of our brokenness, the messiness of our lives with all their limits, fears, and fragility. He stepped into the long night. To dwell among us is to move in, to make his home with us, to be present where life is actually lived. Why? Because that which he is, he can redeem.

This is why Matthew tells us of the name Immanuel, God with us. Because that is who God is: He does not consider himself above us; nor does he simply tolerate us. In Christ, God is with us in all that we go through: weariness, fear, grief, and our waiting. Near enough that he was born as a child in the worst of conditions, where he felt the cold, lived a life where he was misunderstood and then ultimately wounded for our transgressions. He came with a purpose – to walk the road from the manger to the cross for our salvation.

This Christmas Day leaves us with a gentle but searching truth: God has come near, his life is the light that has entered the darkness, and it has not been overcome. Thus, the question we are asked today is: knowing that God has come, are we willing to receive him? The light has come into the darkness – and he has come close enough to be accepted.