Advent prepares us to celebrate the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It’s a season of devotion and remembrance of Christ coming in the flesh and moving into our neighborhood, so to speak, as well as anticipation of His Second coming. God demonstrated His love for us by sending the Savior. Remembering that first Christmas allows us to make our current Christmas celebration one to be remembered. Advent is a journey of sorts. We are exploring the gifts of Christmas delivered by and through Christ: hope, love, joy, and peace. We are going to look at love.
It would be right to see, at least in part, the Advent journey as a journey of love. John reveals to us God’s view of love in 1 John 4:7-16. This passage speaks of God’s love for us, as well as the love He intends for us to have toward others. Last year Americans spent nearly a trillion dollars on Christmas. This is shocking. They also spent almost a hundred billion on their pets. Why? Because they loved their family, friends, and, yes, even the family dog enough to give. Now, I’m not saying God loves us like our dogs or that His love for us doesn’t exceed that of those we love most deeply, but it demonstrates His love’s selfless and sacrificial nature. God does what he does for us out of love. He loves us. It is so important to dive deep into the love of God. We ought to explore a love that manifested itself by God entering the world through His Son that first Christmas. Here’s the point: God’s love that sent Christ into the world that first Christmas, which has been present since before the world’s creation, is abundant enough for us all to receive and share with others.
The history of the world, the Sacred account of Holy Scripture, is a love story from Genesis to Revelation. Creation, to now, to the unforeseen future, is the story of God’s love for people (you and me) and His plan of redemption to bring us back into a saving relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. No doubt, the love of God came spectacularly in the stable in Bethlehem. But Jesus’ birth was the culmination of a long history of love. This love of God that sent Christ to us then is the love He has for us today, this Advent season; it’s not something new. Psalm 139 declares that God knew us intimately before we were even born. Paul writes in Ephesians 1:4-6 that it’s important to realize and accept that God’s love does not depend on us. His love is not something we have to earn or perform or maintain. God’s love start’s with God, not us. God’s love for us existed before even we did and will continue throughout eternity. The reality of God’s love can be mind-blowing. However, we must accept that God’s love for us exists beyond the constraints of time, space, and our limited understanding. The love of God is worth focusing on, meditating on, and basking in during this season of preparation and always. In fact, receiving God’s abundant love begins by accepting that it originates with Him and Him alone.
Despite what we know in our heads, believe in our hearts, or even confess with our mouths, a struggle exists to live in the reality of God’s love for us. God’s love is far beyond ours or anything else we have experienced, making it difficult to embrace. Here’s the good news, despite our inability to completely grasp God’s love, He does love us – He loves you! God’s love is unconditional. His love is constant. His love does not disappoint. God’s love is pure, perfect, and plentiful. Think of Mary and Joseph. God chose them to parent Jesus. They were ordinary people. How about the shepherds? They were ordinary workers. A smelly band who were divinely told of Christ’s birth and the first recorded witnesses. Then, we have the Magi (the wise men). They are a foreign group of mystics. Yet, led by a star, they come to worship the Lord. Look beyond the typical picture of that first Christmas. Where would you fit into the scene years ago there in Bethlehem? Where do you find yourself in the here and now? No matter where you are on the journey, God’s love is for you.
Paul writes in Ephesians 3:17-19 that God’s love is deep, wide, long, and high. His love doesn’t rise and fall on the waves of our fickle feelings. Even when we feel distant from God, He is still close to us. Nothing can shake God’s love. Nothing can tear the believer away from God’s love (Romans 8:38-39). His love will never fail us now as we await the celebration of Christ’s birth this Christmas or when He returns at the Second Coming and His ultimate work is complete. The truth is that receiving the abundant love of God continues as we walk in the knowledge of its unfailing consistency.
Christmas can be a wonderful time to gather with friends and family, but it can also be challenging. The nature of God’s love is that it’s unending and unlimited and cannot be contained. God does not want His love to be contained. We are instructed in God’s Word to love others. We are even to love the unlovable. To love can be easy at times and so hard at other times. Sometimes the hardest people to love can be the closest to us, living in the places we live, work, go to school, and play. The people we are called to love may drive us crazy. Practically speaking, the Advent journey of love is about God’s love in us overflowing to others.
We can’t love with Christ’s love in our own strength. We can’t self-manufacture selfless love for long. It must come from the true source of love, and it can. We must cease trying hard to love others and experience the depth of God’s love in a way that overflows from our life to the people around us. When we boil it all down, receiving the abundant love of God continues to be a blessing as we allow it to overflow to others.
The gospel truth is that God is love, and He sent His Son as a sacrifice for us due to His eternal love that originates with Him and Him alone. Secondly, we can rely on God’s love and walk in the knowledge of its unfailing consistency. Lastly, the love of God, which He first had for us, enables us to love others by its overflowing from our lives to others. Advent and Christmas is a great time to receive, grow in, and put this love into practice. I pray this Advent season, this Christmas, will find us basking in God’s love and sharing it with others. Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone)!