God is Not a Tourist

God Comes Near / John 1:1–18

John 1:9–11 ESV

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

God refuses to treat us like tourists. If we zip and zap right by Him, He will speak to us in advent language. The language of a God who has come close. God relates to the world, not as One visiting but as who who resides here.

God is not a Tourist.

John 1:1–3 ESV

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 made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Genesis 1:1–3 ESV

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

God Lives in Your Neighborhood

John 1:14 ESV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Philippians 2:6–7 ESV

who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

But Christ did not just enter into our world for a moment like a tourist. The Scripture states that he “dwelt among us” the word “dwelt” means that he shelters with us. The audience would have understood this idea of taking shelter.

See in the Old Testament, the people of God, the Israelites, set up a shelter for God. They called it a tabernacle.

John 1:46 ESV

Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

The incarnation, Christ as God who has become flesh, redefines everything we know in creation. God reshapes our understanding through Him moving near. Christ becomes our history. He enters into the difficulties and the small towns of our own lives, brining new meaning of our lives by coming near.

See we forget that Advent is no season for tourists. Because Advent, in the moment of Christs appearing, still looks into the dark places, the Nazareths of our lives. Advent is not about what we skip over, its is about recreating all the darkness through the light of Christ.

John 1:4–5 ESV

In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There is nothing so small that Christ cannot change, nothing so dark that Christ cannot shine light upon. The incarnation changes everything, Christs invitation is to allow Him to transform you this season. We love being tourists. But mostly because we are too afraid to stop at the Nazareths.