Well, good evening and welcome to 10th. Um, this evening we're in a second week of a period where we're thinking about and meditating on the birth of Jesus Christ, the incarnation, enfleshment of God. Um, and as pastor Liam reminded us last week, um, whether or not we celebrate this season, we celebrate Advent as a season where a set of holy days, the reality is, um, Christmas is here and so it's a wonderful time for us to join our hearts and minds together with one another and with the Church Catholic being reminded of what exactly we're celebrating, that God took on flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, being born of a woman that he might save us and being renewed in our wonder at all of that. And tonight, while Christmas time is indeed here, it's not yet Christmas. And so while we know where we're going, we know what we're looking forward to and where the season is leading us to that Bethlehem manger, we're left with some time to ponder and prepare. And I don't know about you, but I know that the Christmas season has come. I know that time has come. You know, when I hear Christmas songs. And not necessarily when I hear them for the first time, because they get played obscenely early. But there's always, every year, there seems like there's one distinct moment where maybe I'm standing in line at the grocery store, or I'm in a car driving somewhere, in a coffee shop, and usually not paying much attention, but I'll notice like, oh, Christmas songs playing. Yeah, it's time. Like, it's that season of year. and are cued into that and cued into the season. And Christians, we have our songs and our seasons as well. While my friends would know that I'm a strong advocate that Christmas songs shouldn't just be sung at Christmastime, the reality is that the church has always sung songs with seasons. Since at least the 6th century, Christians have had songs to go with Christmas. They've been called the antiphones, these songs of expectation, often with the phrasing, oh, something. Our famous hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, is one of those. So words of that song find its root as early as the 6th century. Well, I'm sure we'll hear more about Immanuel and the coming of God, coming of Immanuel and God with us in the coming weeks. Tonight, we're actually going to be looking earlier on in that set of songs, earlier on in that set of hymns to prepare for Immanuel. And so the first of those seven antiphons, those seven songs is actually called O Sapientia or O Wisdom. And it's a call for wisdom to come and it finds its root in the passage that we have before us tonight. To prepare our hearts for Emmanuel, we're gonna go back to the Old Testament, back before the birth of Jesus, to understand what exactly is happening in the birth of Jesus. But before getting started, before looking at our passage, we need to do a little bit of ground clearing. When we read the Old Testament as Christians, we can often fall into two errors. We can either completely skip over the meaning of the original author and ignore it to fill our own meanings, or we can overemphasize the meaning of the original author and actually miss what the Holy Spirit is trying to communicate to us. And one of the ways that we can do this is by missing What the original hearers would have read has a certain ambiguity in the text. The text of the Old Testament in these books has some questions that are left for them to understand. We can read it on this side of Christ and very easily fill in that gap. But as you read through the Old Testament, as you read through this, you should get a sense that there's this great who question that is developing as we go. There's these figures that when you're reading about them, they loom larger than life and press the bounds of this world as it were. So who is that seed who will crush the serpent's head? Who will hold the scepter for Judah? Who is David's heir? Who is the one like a son of man? These are figures that don't fit into the normal pattern of this world. And as pastor Liam has been saying in the last few Sundays, we can see Christ all over the pages of the old Testament. Every time we see God, every time we see Lord, every time we see Holy one, we see God. But in certain passages, we can also press beyond that. We can go further up and further in and see that there is our Lord. There is the Lord. And there's someone there with him. And when we do this, when we, when we seek to press further in, we need to read and discern persons in the text. We need to discern who these persons are and who's speaking to who. Right? So in Psalm 110, who is David's Lord? My Lord says to my Lord, who is there? Who is the ancient of days that crowns the son of man? There's this who question. And our passage tonight, who is wisdom? does the Lord relate to wisdom? Tonight as we look at our passage we will look at wisdom before creation, wisdom when creation was happening, and wisdom now. Let's start first with wisdom before creation. Look with me At verses 22 to 26, it reads, the Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago, I was set up as the first, before the beginnings of the earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. And when there was no springs abounding with water, before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth. Before he made the earth with its fields were the first of the dust of the world. Now, hopefully the uniqueness of the who person is clear here. Hopefully you get what I'm saying that we have the Lord who's doing this works, but there's another figure that's there with the Lord who's there before even creation began. Who is this companion? Who is the companion of the divine that predates the dawn? And immediately the first verse of this passage, we get caught up into an age old debate. The first verse, the Lord possessed me at the beginning of his works. Many of your Bibles might have something like a footnote there that will say something like created or begotten or fathered. And this passage becomes a center of debate as early as the fourth century. In the mornings we've been saying as part of the season, we've been saying the Nicene Creed, talking about God of God, light of light, very God of very God. And it's in this period, in this season, around in Isaiah where two figures, a man named Athanasius and a man named Arius, debate and have a debate that's centered around this passage, that's centered around Proverbs 8, 22. And Arius wants to read this and say, the Lord created me at the beginning of his works. And so his answer to this who question is Jesus. He thinks it's Jesus, but he thinks Jesus was created. His slogan would have been that there was a time when the son was not. He would have said there was a time when Jesus didn't exist, when the father didn't have a son. And he would have said that that was before creation, but that Jesus wasn't eternal. Athanasius would have also said that the answer was Jesus, but he pressed back, knowing what he knew from the rest of scripture, knowing what good theology told him, and reading this text as it's meant to in the light of Christian scripture, he says, no, Jesus was not created. Rather, the Lord possessed him, fathered him in eternity, that there was no time when the son was not, but rather the son was always with the father. And so the answer right out of the gates to this who question is Jesus. And the emphasis of our passage, not like what Arius was saying, not that he was somehow created in between to go between, but that Jesus was there with the Father from eternity. And we see in this text a wonderful, a beautiful doctrine. can talk about the eternal generation of the Son. And this is how we can distinguish the Son, this is how we can talk about the persons of the Trinity. It's not some special properties that go with each person, it's not what they do, it's these relationships of origin that they have in eternity. And so we can talk about the Father because the Father begets the Son, and we can talk about the Son because the Son is begotten of the Father. We can talk about the Spirit as the bond and the the proceeding bond that holds them together, that unites them in joy and love. We know this and we see this developed throughout scripture. We see this later on in the new Testament. And so we wouldn't necessarily say that the original author of this proverb has this fully in mind, but the spirit is intending this. The spirit is looking forward to the coming of the sun and instructing us that we might enjoy that all the more. The idea that the Lord begets the Son, begets wisdom at the beginning of his works, is supported in our text by the language of being brought forth. We see that in verses 24 and 25, he is brought forth, he is birthed and brought forth. And that this word, that the possessed word, has echoes elsewhere in scripture so that when Eve in Genesis 4, after the fall has come about, has Cain and she's rejoicing, she possesses, she has birthed a son and she rejoices in that. It's the same word. The Lord, the eternal God of the universe is birthing forth and generating, begetting a son. So who is this wisdom? He's the son of the father. Wisdom brought forth and begotten of the Lord in eternity and before all time. So before we even get into the passage, we're building up and we're seeing that whoever this wisdom is, he is God. Whatever this wisdom will do, whatever instruction this wisdom has for us, it comes with the authority of one who has been with God in eternity. Where was wisdom in the beginning? Where was Jesus? Where was the word? In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Wisdom before creation was wisdom begotten of the Father and wisdom beside the Father. But what about wisdom when creation sprang forth? Where was this wisdom then? Well, 27 to 31 help us there. When he, when the Lord established the heavens, I was there. When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limits so that the waters might transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in the inhabited world, and delighting in the children of men. So not only was wisdom there before creation, but wisdom was there at creation there when the circle was drawn on the deep, when the skies were made firm, he was there to all of God's questions. When God's speaking to Job at the end of that book, he says, where were you when I was doing those things? What a wisdom would have answered. I was there. I was there in all of it. And here we see something important. We see that this eternal relationship between the father and the son, this eternal, the fact that the son, that wisdom was there in eternity, being begotten of the father, also helps us understand the acts and the creative acts of the son. We see that these eternal relations are mirrored and taught to us and communicated to us in the acts of each person in time. So the son is begotten of the father and embracing that and enjoying that life, the son then pours out the love of the father in creation. He's this creative work. He's this creative workman. He's not only there in creation, he is the origin of creation. Wisdom is verse 30 tells us was the master workman. He was the beginning, it was begotten of the Lord and calls forth creation that he delights in and that honors the father. And as we look at this creation, we can quickly say, okay, he was there before creation, he was there in creation, and we could just nod to that and move on. But we should tarry here. We should search and see and savor these words and the meaning that they have for us. And in doing so, if we look closely, if you look at these and you read this text as a Christian with your antenna on, your ears attuned, You see, or maybe better yet hear, echoes of Genesis that are coming through. The heavens are established. They're created along with the earth. There's the deep, the skies, the earth above. The pattern is there. The text of Proverbs here is alluding to Genesis. It's wanting to make us think about that. But there's some differences. And the differences actually come through in what's lacking. In the account in Genesis, In all of these creations, there's also the animals, the birds, the beasts, the sea animals that aren't here in the text of Proverbs. Here instead, the emphasis is on the role of wisdom in shaping and structuring the world. Wisdom, this personified wisdom, the son of God, is there giving it order, giving it meaning and a purpose and an end. It's a structure in which the sons of Adam can live and flourish, right? We see this in the text where he is giving bounds to the water so that they cannot rebel. He is giving structure and order to creation so that we could flourish, so that we could live. And when we do in the end, What a wonderful picture that is that then I was beside him like a master workman I was his daily delight rejoicing before him. So the son Creates this world that he rejoices in that is the joy and the proud and joy of his father and they're Rejoicing in this world by the bond and unity of the Holy Spirit delighting in it. What a wonderful thing That is what a wonderful picture Wisdom in this passage gives us the meaning, gives us the purpose. And if it stops there, it would be a wonderful story. But between 31 and 32, between wisdom before creation, wisdom at creation, and wisdom now, there's the great gulf that we know all too well. We know that that delighting, that rejoicing in the sons of Adam didn't last long, that Adam and Eve, Adam, our forefather in his sin, didn't trust the structures that wisdom had given to the world, didn't trust the commands that he had given him and instead sought to be like God, sought to take that pride onto his own, to have his own wisdom. And so he ate of the tree of good and evil. And so wisdom now comes into a world that's broken, that isn't created the way that it's supposed to be, that rebels against the structures that were put there in the first place. And so the tone change reflects that. We see wisdom in 32 to 36 calling out into a world that is broken, calling and demanding to be listened to. It reads, oh now, oh sons, listen to me. Blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise and do not neglect it. Blessed is the one who listens to me, watches daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. And whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord. But he who fails to find me injures himself. All who hate me love death. Imagine if words were able to describe the brokenness, right? That the son was there with the father rejoicing, delighting in this creation and it was fallen. The sons of Adam transgressed the wisdom of the Lord, transgressed the structure that was there and brought us to where we are now. But even then, verse 32 gives hope. The sons of Adam, are taken on as wisdom's sons. Wisdom does not leave us alone, but takes us on, adopts us, includes us, does not forsake us. And that helps us to understand just why God becomes incarnate, why the sun takes on flesh in the incarnation. This helps us to understand why we're celebrating Christmas. God comes to us. It is God with us because he is restoring the structures that we have broken. He is restoring the world to what we have abandoned. When Adam fell, the craftsman then comes to fix his work. There was a movie that my family used to watch when I was growing up. Something of a Hallmark movie, kind of cheesy, but it was called The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn. And it was this premise of an old African-American man who was a carpenter. And Noah Dearborn was, I mean, he probably looked like he was 50, but was much closer to 90 and had spent his entire life working with his hands. He was a carpenter and a craftsman. And there's a scene at the opening of the movie where some old town building, a town hall or a courtroom or something, has these beautiful doors, much like what we have out front, that are broken. And the courtroom, that building is being renovated and they have these new crews that are coming in to renovate it. And they're trying to kind of preserve it and make it look like what it used to look like. And the new crews can do most everything, but these beautiful doors, they just can't make them the way that they're supposed to. And so they call in Noah Dearborn. And he shows up and it's just kind of this funny scene where they've all got their power tools and everything and he kind of just shows up with his chisels and the same tools that he's been using for 60 plus years. And in a matter of no time, fixes the door and restores it to what it was meant to look like. Noah was able to fix it in the story because he was the one who built it. He understood how the wood was put together, how it worked. This is what we see in creation and in redemption. Creation and redemption are held together in the person of Jesus Christ because it's the one who built it is the one who's going to redeem it. The creator is the only one who can be the Christ, is the only one who can save that. It's only in him that salvation comes. But we see in our passage that there are temptations elsewhere. He comes to save us. But there are many false Christs, many foolish claims. Just like wisdom calls, makes exclusive demands on us in this passage. Wisdom says, hear my instructions, be attentive, don't neglect them, listen to me, watch at my gates. She says this because if you don't love wisdom, you love death. And so while in the midst that we can be celebrating Christmas, we can enjoy this season. We only enjoy it if we are in Christ. And so if you're here tonight and you don't understand that if you haven't learned to love wisdom, if you haven't learned to love Jesus Christ, then there are certain elements of the season that you might get, but you will never understand the joy that we're celebrating here tonight. You will not understand why we're so excited that God came with us. God entered into this brave new world, became our King, our captain, our friend, And he did so in Jesus Christ. And so I would encourage you tonight that if you haven't put your faith in Jesus Christ, do so. It's what you were made for. It was what he created you for, to know and love him and to glorify him. And so the struggles and turmoils of this world find their answer in the person of Jesus Christ. They find their answer in wisdom who made that. Our passage ends with a warning of death. The chapter before this also ends with death. You have seven, end of chapter eight, and in the midst you have this call to life. It is wisdom personified. It is Jesus Christ who has the words of life. Hear him, listen to him. We have to respond to that. And when we do, we find joy. Back in the debate that I mentioned earlier, that was what Athanasius saw. He saw that to question, to undermine who this wisdom character was, to say that he wasn't God, was to say that he couldn't save us. He wasn't the one who created us. He didn't know how the world was put together. He didn't have the power. He couldn't represent the father. All of these things connect together. So we see wisdom before creation being generated of the father and wisdom in creation being the creative act being set by the father and the father rejoicing in it. And when it's broken, we see wisdom coming, being sent by the father into the world that he might reunite us to the father, creation, redemption, Creator Christ, this person of wisdom, this person of Jesus Christ is where it's found. Wisdom was begotten and beside the father creates and construct a world that was built for us and for our good, but we destroy it in our sin. And so the creator comes as Christ taking our exact humanity, bear redemption in his body and bring words of life. And so in this time when we celebrate Christmas, we're caught up in the tension of celebration and anticipation. We celebrate that the creator came as Christ, that he saved us, they brought a new creation. And yet we still know that we're caught up in a world where Adam's sin reigns. And so for some of us, Christmas time might not be the most wonderful season. There might be difficulties with family. There might be sad memories of lost loved ones. And so, intermixed with the celebration of what has happened, there must always be this anticipation of what he is going to do in the end. This creator who becomes Christ will bring consummation in his second coming. He is coming again. He wants his kingdom back. And he's coming again. And so, as we celebrate As we anticipate, we should do so following the words of life that have been set before us by wisdom, by Jesus, for he is God and he has taken on our flesh to save us. Let's pray. Blessed God, we thank you that You not only save us from ourselves, but you save us to what we were meant for. You restore meaning and structure and purpose to our lives in a way that roots us and grounds us and gives us joy. Father, we're often tempted by the world to listen to foolish voices to listen to false narratives, but we know that you alone are the only ones with the words of life. Give us ears to hear them, that we might respond and that we might rightly anticipate the coming again of wisdom of Emmanuel, and that we might rejoice in that coming. I pray this in Christ's name. Amen.