God Becoming Flesh - Transformation

Isaiah 9: 2 – 7

John 1: 1 – 15

November 30, 2025

Advent I

This is a dark time of the year, isn’t it? The days are short, the nights are long. It seems like it is time to go to bed, but I look at the clock, and it is only 7:30. Advent begins in a dark time of the year.

Advent begins in the midst of longing. We long for more sunlight. We long for more warmth. We long for those delightful evenings when the warmth and light of the day persist past dinner time. We long for the freedom of those lengthy, sunny and warm days of summer.

But is that all that we long for?

Israel knows what it is like to long for better days. After a lengthy 400 year stay in Egypt that started off promising under Joseph but ended in slavery under the Pharoah, Moses delivers a contentious and grumbling Israel to the Promised Land. After a relatively short period of glory, the nation of Israel begins to splinter and divide. The promise that they had longed for faded quickly. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians all take turns occupying the Promised Land and carrying Jews off into exile. The Jews return; the Temple and Jerusalem are rebuilt only to have three groups of Greeks taking turns occupying Israel until finally giving way to the Romans.

It is a long season – this dark season of occupation. And yet, even in the darkness there is hope. Just as we wait for the Messiah to return for a second and final time, Scripture hints to an occupied Israel of a first Messiah to come; of a light that will shine, of the yoke of slavery being broken by the arrival of this long-awaited Messiah. And oh, this Messiah will be fabulous!

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. A light shining at the end of a very long occupational tunnel – a light promising the end of chaos and the restoration of God’s people.

No, Advent doesn’t begin with celebration - it begins with longing. It begins in the dim light before dawn, when one wonders if darkness will have the final word. It begins in the predawn light that recognizes that the world is not yet as it could be. Advent begins with a flicker, a flicker, a small, tiny flame in the midst of the darkness.

This first candle we light is a sign of hope, not because everything is bright, but because even a small flame transforms the darkness around it. That small flame of hope both transforms the now AND points us to a different future….. if we have eyes to see.

Advent is God’s invitation not just to wait, but to be changed while we wait. Every cold winter night holds the promise of what is to come. We choose to live in the promise or be overcome by the darkness. We choose to live in the light of anticipation or be overwhelmed by the chaos of brokenness.

Our second text tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, and all things came into being through Him.”

Hold that thought and come with me to Genesis, chapter 1. Scripture tells us that the earth was without form and void, [one translation I like called it unformed chaos] and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. In the darkness, God is there and transformation begins.

It is there – hovering over the waters, bringing forth order out of chaos – it is there that we find Jesus – both the second person of the Trinity and yet also the Messiah that we awaited. In the midst of the chaos, in the midst of the darkness it is there that we find Jesus; it is there that we find the first small flicker of light – hope in the darkness. Jesus, co-creator of the universe found in the darkness of chaos. Jesus is that hope!

Jesus, as the precursor to Creation. Jesus, as the answer to a broken and occupied Israel. Jesus in the darkness….. but look at what has to happen; look at what Jesus so willingly, so lovingly, so graciously takes on.

You know, we talk about transformation all the time, but we usually talk about the transformation that occurs for the believer. Once we were lost, but now we are found. Once we were blind but now we see! Once we were broken but now we have been made whole in Jesus. All of that is true, but that is not the only transformation that occurs in the salvation story, is it?

Our triune God, living in perfection and complete love, in the midst of no sin and brokenness is compelled by love to create a humanity that decided it wants to be in charge. God willingly allows creation to be transformed to include a wayward and darkened humanity. Everything for God changes. It is not that God changes, but the context in which God finds himself is changed, is broken, is darkened by his beloved humanity.

But it doesn’t end there, does it? Genesis tells us tat God seeks us out – moving out of God’s light to encounter our darkness. And over, and over, and over again God comes to us, seeks us out, finally in the human form of Jesus to tell us that darkness does not have the final word. A transformed Jesus does.

Advent tells us that Jesus undergoes the greatest of all transformations….. for us. Jesus will become human, flesh as we are flesh, a baby crying in the manger. We await nothing less than the transformation of Jesus himself – God with us – Emmanuel.

This is what we wait for, long for, anticipate in the darkness of Advent. And just as the transformation of Jesus will become real for us once again as we wait out the weeks of Advent, so our own transformation becomes new and real every time we choose light over darkness, every time we choose to wait in hope instead of despair, every time we move through the darkness of Advent knowing – KNOWING – that the light of Bethlehem awaits us.

Friends, transformation is both an event and a process. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit chooses to come to the chaos of unformed Creation and transformation occurs. The Triune God comes to a broken and self-centered Israel over and over again – continually faithful in seeking to bring Israel out of the darkness.

Finally, Jesus becomes flesh – what a transformation! One moment holding the entire chaos of Creation in his hands as co-author and the next minute cold, naked, weak and vulnerable as a baby held by Mary.

These transformational events make possible the process of transformation that we undergo. Our transformation continues to deepen, to broaden, to become more real each and every time we hold up the light of Advent – a light in the darkness.

This first candle of Advent teaches us:

· Transformation begins in the dark—when we dare to hope.

· Transformation grows as we walk—choosing light over shadow.

· Transformation deepens as we prepare—making space for Christ.

· Transformation becomes real because Jesus comes—again and again, into our world and into our hearts.

So, as this Advent begins, may we awaken. May we walk. May we prepare. And may we be transformed by the One who is coming, the One who is already here, the One who makes all things new. Amen.