Love
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16
Something about entering the Christmas season brings on the warm fuzzies within us. Even if you are celebrating in the Southern Hemisphere ( countries like Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, or Brazil), celebrating Christmas is always connected to cozy, cold, heartwarming memories and evoking feelings of Love, romance and just feelings of goodwill and warmth toward each other.
Incidentally, Christmas in July is an actual thing for some nations in the Southern Hemisphere. They often mark off dates to do all the cold-weather-related activities to celebrate Christmas, including watching Hallmark movies ( Hallmark runs a week of Christmas movies to help people get into a Christmassy mood).
Hallmark movies have become a sort of tradition for people during this season. Curling up on the couch with warm cocoa, the Christmas tree lights flickering, and watching people fall in Love on the screen under the mistletoe has somehow wound its way into many of our lives.
Human beings seek the happily ever after end on the screen just as much as we do in real life. The cynics among us would silently roll their eyes as the couple on-screen found their way to each other through all the challenges and road bumps.
Perhaps it’s not romance, but who has not found themselves shedding a tear as Kevin McAllister ran into his mother’s arms on Christmas morning in Home Alone 1 & 2? Forgetting your child once is crazy, but to do it twice in a row! Still, a mother’s Love is incomparable & we are often maudlin during this season.
Love is the word that gets thrown around our culture all too easily these days, and during Advent, as we enter the Christmas season, we hear a lot about Christ’s Love.
We will light two candles during week 4 of Advent: the Candle of Love and the Christ Candle ( lit on Christmas Day).
But even as we consider Love this week, let us ask ourselves, have we used the word Love flippantly this year? Have we used it with meaning? Have we shown love to those around us or be the recipients?
I doubt many of our stories about Love would resemble a Hallmark movie. Love does not always involve romantic dinners, flowers, candles, or getaways. More often than not, we find love in the nooks and crannies of life when a friend calls you every day on her drive home or pops in to say hello. Someone who comes to a doctor’s appointment with you and holds you when you cry. Love is a home-cooked meal, a folded basket of laundry, fresh coffee in the morning, or watching TV while eating cereal. Love is your parents checking on you when you are sick, even if you are 45, or your in-laws buying your favorite dessert when you visit. Love is an unexpected hug, a word of encouragement, or people who understand you without saying a word.
Love is many things to many people, but Love is sacrifice. Giving up something of yourself for another person no matter what.
Christmas is love that came at a huge personal cost to God—something that went above and beyond what we could do for another person. God chose us and decided to send His Son for us, knowing way before He was born that His Son would die for us. For me, For you, For the world. (Isaiah 53)
Love is a young virgin holding her baby boy, not knowing one day she would watch Him die. Love is a young man accepting his pregnant bride and raising the Son of God as his own.
God knew that sin would separate us from Him. He knew this world was broken, and we needed a Saviour to save us from ourselves. Our broken, hopeless selves. He gave Himself for us. God knew this would be painful for Him, BUT He did it anyway.
God knew what Jesus would endure but wanted to adopt us into His family. He sent His Son to die for us because He first loved us. We love because He first loved us. He showed us Love, both unconditional and eternal Love.
1 John 4:9-10
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
And this is what we are called to do. We are called to love others the way He first loved us. We might not always feel like it, and that is OK. We are broken people living in a broken world in desperate need of a Saviour. And we are called to love.
John 15: 12-13
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater Love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
We might be in a season where our pain has overwhelmed us, and we might not feel this Love during this Christmas season, and that is where we need God. We can focus on Him, the sacrifice He made for us, and the promise made years ago about the birth of His Son. And we can rejoice and thank the Saviour who was born for us, the Messiah, the Lord.
Questions to consider:
How can Christ’s sacrifice compel you to love others in this season of gifting?
What sacrifices have you made in the past that have led to your “joy being made complete?”