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An archive of Jacob Nannie's Sermons & Lectures
Well thank you, Roslyn. Good morning, everyone. If we don't have a chance to meet yet, my name
is Jacob Nanny. I'm the pastoral resident at the Shawnee campus, and it's so good to be back here
with you all to preach during the Christmas season. You know, every year, a lot of us,
myself included sometimes, actually my wife and I don't do this often now that I think about it,
we put up nativity scenes, right? And nativity scenes, most of the ones you buy, if you're buying
a normal nativity scene, they seem to be nice and peaceful and warm and gentle and ideal. They're
calming even. You may have one in your living room or somewhere right now, but those nativity scenes
are also pretty misleading. I mean, have you ever really looked at them? Mary looks like she
just woke up from a nice peaceful sleep. Joseph looks like he's fully rested. Of course, he hasn't
lost sleep in the past days, and it looks like Jesus never cries and never will cry. They're
peaceful, and it's just completely glowing. What an ideal image, right? You know, one of our
favorite movies, especially this time of year, is Christmas Vacation. Christina and I, we see this
movie every year with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and what I love about Christmas
vacation is that it is very real it's a little closer a little closer to what
Christmas actually looks like I'm sure it's a comedy but it's really kind of
not that far off it's not that romanticized had a friend of mine tell
me his wife doesn't like Christmas vacation because she doesn't like we're
in movies where the plots seem to be everything going wrong and in this movie
everything going wrong. Things are constantly going wrong. The lights don't work. The tree is
too big. The guests show up unexpectedly. Schedules fall apart. Tempers flare. Expectations
collapse. And what's striking is that there's a real lack of peace almost the entire time.
Clark keeps saying, this is supposed to be a good old-fashioned family Christmas. And that gets let
down throughout the entire movie. This is not how this is supposed to go, is what you feel.
And that's what makes the movie feel so familiar.
It captures a tension, the gap between Christmas, the Christmas we imagine,
and the Christmas we can and tend to experience.
The pressure to make it magical, the frustration when it isn't,
the sense that peace always feels just out of reach.
It's like it's one more thing that's supposed to show up but doesn't.
We feel that tension during the Christmas season.
and the real Christmas story was more like Christmas vacation than it is like kind of our
nativity scenes. It wasn't peaceful. It's not as peaceful as we seem to think it was. Mary didn't
just step out of a nice sleep. She just gave birth to a real human baby. Joseph isn't fully rested.
He probably hasn't slept in days, and I'm sure the baby Jesus cried when he was born. The real
Christmas story happened in a world that was filled with fear, with darkness, with injustice,
with busyness, with politics, with census lines, stress and exhaustion.
In other words, this Christmas story happened in a world
that's a lot like our world.
It didn't happen somewhere far off in a fantasy world.
It happened in a world that's a lot like our world.
And this contrast between an ideal and the real
is, again, a tension we feel during the holidays.
The season is warm. It's calming. It's peaceful. It's gentle.
Or at least it's supposed to be, right?
Instead, the messiness of life, it seems to ramp up around the season.
Year-end deadlines, financial stress, family tensions.
All this pushes us towards a big question that we as the church might feel during the Christmas season,
during the holiday season.
Where is God?
Jesus, this season is about you.
You're supposed to bring light and peace and comfort.
Where are you now?
We might not ask that question out loud, but we feel it, don't we?
We might live with that question in our minds.
We feel it in the ordinary.
We feel it in the messiness of human life.
We feel it in the darkness that seems to creep in in this season of light.
And if you feel that way, you're not alone.
I am sure Mary and Joseph felt the same way as the Prince of Peace entered into the world.
But this is exactly where Christmas, the real version, not the idealized version, meets us.
Christmas has the answer to our question, where are you, God?
This question, where is God? Where is God? Where is his presence?
It's a question we're seeking to answer in this year's Advent series.
Where is God? Where on earth does God live?
Where is God's presence?
And we're tracing the theme of God's presence from Genesis to Revelation in five weeks.
We've looked at the garden where God, his presence, walked with Adam and Eve, walked with his people.
We also look at the temple where God's glory dwelt behind a curtain but still with his people.
And by the way, next year in 2026, we're going to walk from Genesis to Revelation in 52 weeks,
tracing the same theme in a series titled, With God.
From Genesis to Revelation, in 52 weeks, we are journeying with God.
But today, we come to the most surprising location of God's presence,
the most surprising location of God being with us.
It's not a garden, it's not a temple, it's not a mountaintop, it's not a palace, but a manger.
In the manger, God answers the question once and for all, where is his presence?
His presence is here.
It's with us.
It's in our world.
It's in our story, and it's actually in our skin.
In the manger, God's presence became a person.
In the manger, God's presence became a person.
He does not stay far off.
He does not wait for us to clean up.
He does not hide in heaven.
He draws near, so near that he comes in human flesh.
And this nearness of God, God's presence,
is something that the people of God had longed for for 400 years,
up until this point where Jesus comes in the manger.
For 400 years, the people of God were waiting, and they're waiting.
They waited in suffering.
They suffered various occupations, Persia, Greece, and now Rome.
And with each one of those occupations from global empires, oppression and unrest ramped up for them.
And certainly they were asking the same question we asked, where is God?
When will God come to us?
Where is God?
And Luke actually highlights that tension that they feel.
They felt it in their history and they feel it even now in this passage.
He highlights that. At the dawn of Jesus' first advent, the unrest of the world is present.
It's in our passage. Verse 1, in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus
that the whole empire should be registered. The first registration took place while Quirinius
was governing Syria, so everyone went to be registered, each to his own town.
We might miss it there. Luke is highlighting something. He's highlighting the empire-wide
rule of Caesar Augustus. And he's noting that the census that Caesar is taking is kind of a symbol
and a reach of his power. And Caesar was viewed as powerful. In fact, Caesar was viewed as God.
In this stone inscription, Caesar is praised as the Son of God, the Savior, who will bring peace.
Here's what the stone inscription reads. Since providence, which has ordered all things,
and is deeply interested in our life,
has set in the most perfect order by giving us Augustus,
whom she, Providence, filled with virtue,
that he might benefit humankind, sending him as a Savior,
both for us and for our descendants,
that he might end war and arrange all things.
And since he, Caesar, by his epiphany or his coming or his advent,
excelled even our anticipation, surpassing all previous benefactors and not even leaving to
posterity any hope of surpassing what he has done. And since the birthday of the God Augustus
was the beginning of the gospel for the world that came by reason of him.
That's pretty intense language, isn't it? If I took out Augustus's name and kind of changed some
of the language, especially towards the beginning, you might think I'm talking about Jesus. It has
all the buzzwords, Savior, Son of God, Gospel, Advent, Epiphany. Here, Augustus is called the
Son of God, a Savior who, by his birth, is going to bring good news, and by his Epiphany or his
Advent, he will end war. But here's the thing. This Son of God, this Savior, did not bring good
news and his appearance did not end war instead he preserved unrest by
preserving his own power but this is what Luke's doing in this unrest in the
midst of the pseudo false God God the true God breaks into history and what is
announced? The gospel of the Son of God, a Savior whose epiphany will end the true war against sin,
death, and the devil. And this Son of God, this Savior, appears as a baby in a manger. You see the
contrast. Someone who's great, high, and lifted up isn't actually doing anything, but yet Jesus, God in
the manger, humbly coming to us, does everything. Take note of that contrast. Again, Caesar commands
armies but jesus is just a baby whose life hangs on at some point by a literal thread
caesar possesses exorbitant wealth but jesus doesn't even own a cradle
caesar sits in rome and dictates to the whole world but jesus is just a passenger in his family
carried along and wholly dependent on those around him yet even here in that contrast
the presence of god breaks in even in that unrest the presence of god in the person of jesus
breaks into our history luke is showing us something profound god does not wait for the
world to calm down before he enters into it he steps into history precisely when it is unstable
in the manger god's presence breaks into our unrest in the manger god's presence breaks into our
unrest if god waited for a peaceful moment in history to come in and do his work he would have
never come because paul says he comes in the fullness of time i think some of that fullness
is the fullness of unrest god comes to the unrest he's not waiting for peace because there is no
peace in the world without the presence of the prince of peace god doesn't wait he doesn't wait
for the dust of the world to settle and the same is true for us jesus doesn't enter into our lives
unless we have things settled before he comes he does not wait for the unrest in our life
to settle before he draws near he's not waiting for political calm he's not waiting for emotional
calm he's not waiting waiting for relational calm he's not even waiting for the spiritual calm
you long for he's not waiting for that to happen in our lives he's not waiting for that to happen
in our world no he steps into all of that unrest he breaks into chaos he draws near
when none of that makes sense to us this is the meaning of the manger that god shows up
not when everything's put together and neatly wrapped in the package but when things are falling
apart is your world falling apart do you feel unrest in the world you feel unrest in your work
do you feel unrest in your family do you feel that in your soul again the christmas season has
a way of highlighting these things for us the characters in luke 2 they felt that as well
we can kind of see as we read verses 4 through 7 joseph also went up from the town of nazareth
in galilee to judea to the city of david which is called bethlehem all right this is not his home
he has to go and travel a long distance because he was of the house and family line of david to be
registered along with with mary who at this time is traveling very pregnant she was engaged to joseph
and pregnant and to add on top of this while they were there the time came for her to give birth
and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him tightly in a cloth and laid him in
a nice guest room in a really nice house no in a manger because no one would give them a guest room
the world was at unrest the world at large especially the world for joseph and mary
and i wonder did those whom joseph and mary approach for a guest room did they feel that
maybe maybe they did maybe they feel the same things that you and i feel my world
already feels chaotic i can't possibly add on another thing they made no room for this little
family not realizing that the antidote to their chaos was found in the presence of mary's child
we all face unrest but the question is are you making room for jesus to enter into
that unrest or is your unrest closing the door to jesus is your unrest closing the door to the
only one who can actually bring you peace.
Unrest doesn't just happen around us,
it happens within us as well.
And the manger in Luke 2 tells us
that Jesus doesn't just break into the unrest that we feel
or that the world feels,
but he enters the mess of our lives as well.
Are you closing the door to Jesus?
We should not close the door,
we should make room for the manger,
make room for Jesus to enter into that unrest and enter into the messiness of life.
Because in the manger, God's presence also enters our mess. In the manger, God's presence enters
our mess. And a lot of things cause our lives to be messy, right? We have limitations, we can't
solve everything, life's a mess. Our circumstances are messy, our relationships are messy, our emotions
might feel messy, but the manger, the Christmas story, shows us that Jesus, again, enters into
all of that mess. Let's read verses 4 through 7 again with the eyes of the messiness of this
situation. Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea to the city of David, which
was called Bethlehem, because he was of the house of the family line of David, to be registered along
with Mary. Mary, who is telling the world, I'm pregnant with the child of God, and I'm a virgin.
That is quite unbelievable. That's a messy situation for Joseph and for Mary. They were
engaged, and when she was pregnant, what a mess to travel while you're pregnant.
And while they were there to add on top of it again and again, the time for her to give birth
came. Then she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him tightly in a cloth
and laid him in a messy manger
because there was no guest room available for them.
This situation causes unrest.
It is unrest.
It was also a mess, physically and inexperienced.
Mary and Joseph are limited.
They are not people of power.
They have a long, difficult journey.
They're tired.
They're displaced.
They're poor.
They're limited in what they can do.
And when it comes time to give birth to Jesus,
there is not a single guest room for them.
Instead, Jesus is born in impossible and messy conditions rather than ideal ones.
The manger where God's presence enters into our mess shows us that we are limited, but God is not.
Even in these circumstances, in Luke 2, God can enter in.
He draws near even in these circumstances, regardless of what we can do in our own strength.
Even we do not have the power to change our circumstances, God draws near.
So much of our life is us saying, this is not how I imagined things would go, isn't it?
This is not how I imagined things would go.
I wish my circumstances were different.
We might say that often too.
But this is where the manger speaks to us.
God draws near in unideal, uncomfortable, and unplanned circumstances.
and more than just our limitations and circumstances.
The manger addresses the most personal and tender part of our lives,
our relationships, and our emotions.
Mary and Joseph were dealing with their own limitations and difficult circumstances.
They were feeling the emotional weight of it all,
fear, exhaustion, confusion, relational strain.
Friends, the Christmas story is full of human emotion.
We know that and we feel it during the holiday season again.
For some of us during the holiday season, emotions run high.
We're excited.
We're filled with joy and wonder and can't get enough.
I know I feel that.
I've had the privilege this year of, as of Friday night, I've watched 94 movies in theaters.
Trying to catch up to my brother-in-law who has watched 109.
I'm not going to catch him.
And part of that excitement is like, oh, hey, I get to go see more movies now in the Christmas season
and their Christmas movies.
That's exciting.
joy. We feel it. But for some of us during this season, emotions run low. Maybe it's loneliness.
Maybe it's disappointment. Maybe it's anxiety. Maybe it's exhaustion. Maybe it's discouragement.
I say again, doesn't the holiday season have a way of intensifying
our emotions, the lows and the highs? Families play a big part in this as well.
Some families are presently surprised to see someone they weren't expecting during the season.
What a joy that is.
Others are let down when they thought they would see someone that they were expecting, but they don't.
Some experience the joy of a newborn's first Christmas.
While others experience the sorrow of their first Christmas without a loved one.
Human relationships and emotions are messy, and the holiday season intensifies their messiness.
But this is where the presence of God becomes a person, Jesus. And this is where Jesus enters
into our lives. Jesus steps into our insecurities, our disappointments, our relational pain and
failures, the private chaos we keep hidden away, the internal disarray we feel. He steps into that,
and he's not overwhelmed by any of it.
The story of the manger shows us
you don't need to clean up your mess
before Jesus enters in.
You don't need to sweep the dust in your soul,
make the bed of your heart,
and make everything nice and neat
before Jesus steps in.
Instead, you need to move toward the manger.
You need to move toward Jesus.
I mean, think of your life.
What area of your life right now is messy?
Maybe some of those things I mentioned to you,
your limitations, circumstances, relationships, emotions.
Sometimes these areas feel too messy for God to step in.
I've got to get this right before inviting God in,
is what we tell ourselves.
But this is exactly where God wants to meet you.
Friends, don't let the darkness of sin, death, and the devil
convince you that you need to get yourself together before you enter the presence of god
some of us are thinking maybe maybe god will draw near when i stop numbing myself with alcohol
maybe god will draw near once i stop sleeping with my boyfriend or girlfriend
maybe god will draw near once i stop watching pornography
maybe god will draw near once i stop idolizing my career and chasing that over him maybe god
will draw near once i stop worshiping my own productivity i can list off many things we tell
ourselves we tell ourselves essentially maybe god will draw near once i stop pretending once
i stop hiding once i stop sinning in the same old tired ways but that is a lie in fact you won't stop
those things be free from those things have those things lifted from you until you move towards the
presence of god remember in the gospel in the gospels it's only when jesus moves towards
uncleanness and when those unclean move towards him that they are restored healing restoration
and transformation happens in the presence of jesus in mark 140 a man with leprosy a condition
where he would have to yell out constantly that he's unclean came to him to jesus and on his knees
begged him if you're willing you can make me clean moved with compassion
jesus reached out he didn't shy away he didn't say well go get some medicine first and maybe put
some gloves on before i touch you no he's moved with compassion he reached out and touched him
he said i am willing be made clean and immediately that word that mark loves so much immediately
leprosy left him and he was made clean this man didn't have to wait he didn't have to wait till
he could deal with his leprosy he knew the power of the presence of jesus and he drew
near that's when transformation happened not before or how about the woman with the issue
of blood in luke 8. a woman suffering from bleeding for 12 years another one of those conditions that
would make you unclean you'd have to announce that uncleanliness who had spent all she had on doctors
and yet could not be healed by any i mean that might be some of us today
all you have on doctors but you're still stuck with your ailment
knowing that she was unclean not fit to approach god she approached him from behind and touched him
touched the end of his robe and instantly same word therefore immediately the bleeding stopped
these two did not have to get their act together and figure out their ailments before approaching
jesus the only way for them to be healed of that was to approach jesus we don't need to clean up
the mess that is our lives we need the presence of jesus to draw near to us in the manger the
presence of god becomes a person and in that in that presence that person we are transformed
Rather than waiting for our darkness to fade,
he overcomes our darkness with the light of his transforming presence.
Friends, the manger does not only mean God is drawing near with his presence.
That's not the only thing it means.
And it doesn't only mean that God enters into humanity.
The manger also means that the light of life shines in the darkest of worlds.
And this is what John so beautifully explains in the opening of his gospel.
I love the opening of John's gospel.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things were created through him, and apart from him, not one thing was created that has been created.
And then John says this.
In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him.
Our world is dark. John knows this.
John names the darkness, the blindness, the resistance, the rejection of the light of the world.
He knows our world's full of deception and confusion and violence and despair and blindness, moral and spiritual.
But John also knows that this light that has come to dwell among us cannot be overtaken by any of that.
The light that shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.
There is a darkness out there.
In the world, yes, but also within each of us.
John knows that, too.
He knows that we experience this darkness internally.
We experience shame, guilt, unbelief, and doubt, addiction, fear.
Part of ourselves we keep hidden in dark, and parts we can't fix, we keep that hidden in darkness.
Despite this, Jesus is entering in.
He comes to his own.
But his own people don't receive him.
Some people love the darkness rather than the light.
But to all who did love the light, to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God.
To those who believe in his name.
Friends, this advent of Jesus, the light of the world, it means regeneration.
In the manger, the light of the world breaks into the darkness, the darkness of the world and the darkness of our hearts.
and transforms us in the manger god's presence overcomes our darkness
in the manger god's presence overcomes our darkness another lie that we believe is that
this darkness that we might know or might have in us is stronger than god's light again that's a lie
we don't say that bluntly but we feel it we tell ourselves that our sin is too
repetitive our shame is too deep our doubts are too entrenched our addictions are too rooted and
our hearts are too hardened that's darkness and there's no way that god can overcome that somewhere
along the way we begin to believe that if god truly knew what was in us his his light would
flicker, it would dim, or retreat. We think that our darkness has the power to extinguish
God's presence. But John will not allow us to believe that lie. He does not say the light
avoids the darkness, negotiates with darkness, barely survives the darkness. He says the light
shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. Darkness doesn't fight the light. It
doesn't win on occasion or slowly wear the light down. Darkness is powerless in the presence of this
light. I mean, darkness itself by nature is not a thing. It's the absence of light. And when that
light arrives, darkness does not need to be argued with or reasoned with or persuaded. It simply just
gives way. And so it falls for us to think that the darkness in us would do something against
Jesus. Jesus's light entering in us is going to overcome the darkness because that's what light
does. That means your shame does not intimidate Jesus. Your doubt does not confuse him. Your sin
does not exhaust him. Your patterns don't surprise Jesus. The light of the world does not flicker as
he draws near to you he overcomes our darkness this is why the manger matters so much
the light did not remain distant or abstract the light did not shout instructions from heaven
uncreated light became created flesh the light of the world moved into our neighborhood
stepped directly into the darkest world imaginable and steps into the darkest places of our heart
Again, in the manger, uncreated light took on created flesh so that our darkness might be dispelled forever.
So friends, don't hide from that light.
Don't hide from the presence of God.
Meet the presence of God in the manger, in the person of Jesus.
That presence is not meant to shame you, but to free you from the darkness without and the darkness within.
you don't have to fix yourselves you don't have to let the you have to let the light
of god's presence enter in to fix you you don't clean up before the light overcomes the darkness
that's there and whatever you face whatever darkness is within it's not too deep it's not
too rooted it's not too powerful for jesus to overcome to step into light confess what you've
hidden bring your darkness to jesus because he's already brought his light to you
the manger God's presence breaks into our rest in the manger God's presence
breaks into our mess and in the manger God's presence shines into our darkness
with a light that cannot be overcome the manger is an invitation to come to the
light come to the presence come to the person who came for you make room for the
manger in your hearts, even in your unrest. Move toward the manger even when you're messy.
Move toward the manger when you're messy. Meet the light of the world in the manger,
even when you have darkness within you. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the first advent
of your son, Jesus,
who came into the world
to overcome what we could not.
We pray that you would come now, Jesus,
into our life and light it up,
overcome our darkness,
help us in our mess,
help us in our unrest
that we feel even maybe right now.
And we pray that you would do this
swiftly, Lord Jesus.
Amen.