This morning I am going to talk about two Christmases. The Christmas that each of us experiences around the tree we put up in our home, and that first Christmas in Bethlehem of Judea c. 2,000 years ago.

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We have come to the end of our journey. In this sermon we deal with the 8th and final Essential, “The Second Advent of the Lord in Glory.”

No aspect of Christian theology has become as controversial and as layered with competing opinions and arguments as the doctrine of the 2nd Advent of Jesus Christ. I am going to cut right to the chase, and give you what I believe to be the simplicity on the far side of complexity:

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For almost 15 centuries, the church possessed a visible unity in the form of the Catholic Church. In 1457 the Unitas Fratrum, or Moravian Church, became the first protestant church. Since that time 38,000 (FN1) other protestant churches have been formed. Today protestant churches are forming at the rate of 300 a year. These numbers do not include the many fiercely independent congregations that are scattered all over city and world.
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19 Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering (patience), gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 meekness, and self-control; against which there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. 26 Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another. Galatians 5:19-26

The 6th Essential is “the fruit of the Spirit” in the life of all believers. The term “fruit of the Spirit” is used only once in the Revised Standard Version of Scripture.

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The experience of the Holy Spirit is both subjective and objective. I have seen some unusual things attributed to the Holy Spirit.
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The story is told about a man who got on an airplane in New York City bound for Los Angles. He and the other passengers settled into their seats with the help of a stewardess, then the plane took off. As it attained cruising altitude, a recording came over the cabin speaker. A computer generated voice said:

Welcome to the first totally automated trans-continental flight. We took off from New York automatically. We are cruising automatically. We will land in L.A. automatically. There is no pilot, no co- pilot, and no flight engineer; but don’t worry, nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong…..”

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The 3rd of the 8 Essentials declares, “the real Godhead and real humanity of Jesus Christ.” That means that Jesus Christ is “fully God and fully human.” I know this is a paradox, yet I believe it is a necessary paradox, and this is how it came about.

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