The return of the King (Dec 2025)

As we approach Christmas this year in 2025, there are children around the world waiting in eager anticipation for Christmas day thinking about gifts they may receive as well as many adults that have been looking forward to slowing down from work and spending time with those they love. It is a season filled with anticipation. My church celebrates advent and we always have four sermon topics leading up to Christmas and light a candle as we hit each topic (Hope, Peace, Joy, Love) and after all those candles have been lit, the final candle is the Christ candle as it is only through Jesus we have true Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.

I love the anticipation we all have as we near Christmas and celebrate the birth of Jesus, when God humbled himself to come down to take on Human flesh and live among us.

Imagine the anticipation for the people prior to Jesus’ birth. This was a much longer wait. The wait starts all the way back in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve listened to the same lies Satan tells us today, I.E. God does not really love you, God is holding out the good stuff from you, you do not need God to decide good vs evil, you can be your own God and you can be as wise as God.

The painful results of that decision to listen to those lies of Satan caused a sinful rebellious self-centered nature to be passed on from Adam to all of his children, and from every father since to their children (Romans 5:12). Adam and Eve saw this play out shortly after they sinned to reject God’s authority when their firstborn son Cain became jealous of his brother Abel. Despite Gods plea with Cain to repent, Cain ends up murdering his brother Abel, the first human to die. We can see this same sinful selfish nature in ourselves, and in our children. With the possible exception of two people (Enoch in Genesis 5:24 and Elijah in 2 Kings 2:11), all other humans since have died because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

We are all sinners and compared to a Holy and perfect God, our good deeds are like filthy rags before a Holy God (Isaiah 64:6). That means the answer to our sin can’t simply be we will be good enough people and so we can go to Heaven. Even people we consider incredibly good like Moses, Ruth, etc. or in modern times like Billy Graham or Mother Teresa, are all dead. If that were the end of the story, anyone reading the Old Testament would be in despair. However, the Old Testament also gave the readers hope for the future. 

A)     Gen 3:15 God will provide a savior who will be bruised on His heel by Satan, but in doing so Satan’s head and power will be crushed

B)     Isaiah 7:6 The Messiah will be born of a virgin, and his name will be Immanuel (God with us)

C)    Isaiah 9:6 The Messiah will be born as a child, He will never stop ruling (which Jesus continues to rule in Heaven as King of Kings even today), and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

D)    Isaiah 53 The messiah will be despised, rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. 53:5 He will be pierced for our transgressions, 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. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. 11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

So, the Messiah will suffer and die to pay the price for the sins of the people, and by his suffering, God will heal us of our spiritual infection and free us from our slavery to sin and death.

That was a good message of Hope that people could cling to, but the promise in Genesis was written by Moses 1400 years before Jesus is born, and the promise in Isaiah was written 700 years before Jesus was born. The promise found in Genesis actually dating back to Adam is even older (6,000 years). So that promise from God in the Garden took 6,000 years to fulfil. That is a long wait, and a lot of people died without ever seeing that promise fulfilled.

One of the beautiful passages in the Bible on the Christmas Story and Jesus birth comes when Mary and Joseph take Baby Jesus to the priest Simeon we read:

Luke 2:25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him.

26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” 33 The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Conclusion:

So then, at the birth of Jesus, at long last, after the entire world had been waiting on this promise of Hope God had shared for so long, Simeon announced that Jesus is the fulfillment of that Hope. Through Jesus birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension to Heaven we have Hope, Peace, Joy and true love that we celebrate at advent and at Christmas.

Now for those of us who have decided to trust in Jesus and submit to Jesus as our Lord, King and God, we have become forgiven, adopted sons and daughters of God and our anticipation changes as we await the return of the King.

I am living as a forgiven adopted child of God right now today.  I do not need to wait for Heaven to experience this joyful truth. However, I am not yet in Heaven, I am still living in a fallen world marred by sin. In this world we see violence, greed, gossip, slander, sexual immorality, bitterness and unforgiveness, covetousness, lies, etc. are prevalent. Families are broken, as are individuals. There is much suffering in this world. As beautiful as this world is that God created, sometimes I grow very weary living in it with all the lies and deceptions of Satan playing out.

I long for my real home. A home where Jesus is ruling directly as King, and all in His Kingdom acknowledge Jesus’ authority and desire to follow Him as God. Where all have repented and no longer desire to be “a law unto themselves”.

A place where doors do not have to be locked, where truth is told and lies are not allowed to stand, where Justice is impartial, where reason and emotion are balanced, where God is not mocked but worshiped, and where the Love of God overflows out of us to those around us. Where we experience powerfully supercharged filling of God’s Holy Spirit through which the spiritual connections that we have with those around us we love is beyond anything we can even imagine. I long to be with Jesus for all eternity.

I have similar longing to see again one day those I love who have died, and I remain grateful to Jesus to know many of them are in Heaven thanks to what Jesus did on the cross. I look forward to the day I can join them, and that Hope I have all starts with Christmas as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, Immanuel, God with us. 

Merry Christmas to you and your families. May you celebrate the Hope, Joy, Peace and Love Jesus has brought into this world, and draw ever closer to Jesus, and through Jesus may you and your families experience the richness of the Love God has for each of you.