December 13, 2014
Advent: Experience Love
Luke 2:1-20 NOTES NOT EDITED
SIS—Christmas is essentially a “Love Story.”
It was a classic love
story. It was even called, “Love
Story.” This movie debuted in 1970. I turned 14 that year and just beginning to
enter the “dating scene.” It would be many years and many miles away from my
little country town before I would find true love. I have now lived a “Love Story” for 35 years
come next week. My “love story” began
during the Advent season, 1979. That is very fitting.
Christmas is essentially a
"Love Story." As I said, I was 14 when the blockbuster classic movie,
"Love Story," debuted in 1970. It starred Ali MacGraw and Ryan
O'Neal. I grew up with the haunting melody of the theme song in my head--truly
one of the great pieces of music ever written. The official title is,
"Where Do I Begin," and my memory goes back to Andy William's cover
of the song. The first lines ask the question: "Where do I begin//To tell the story of how great a love can
be//The sweet love story that is older than the sea."
That’s a great question, as
well as a great song. "Where did
love begin?" Not with Ali and Ryan to be sure. There was of course, Romeo
and Juliette, Antony and Cleopatra, and Homer and Marge (Oh, that came later).
What about Joseph and Mary? This, too, is a classic love story--and a beautiful
one. But, love did not begin with any of these couples, not even Joseph and
Mary. Love began in the heart of God,
"for God so loved the world He gave His only Son." Christmas tells us
of God's love for man.
Think about the two
timeless Christmas movies that have endured for over half a century. “It’s a Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stewart
and Donna Reed and “A Miracle On 34th Street” with John Payne and
Maureen O’Hara both tell the Christmas story against the backdrop of romantic
love. In “It’s a Wonderful Life” George
Bailey falls in love with and marries Mary Hatch. Romance blossoms in, “A Miracle On 34th
Street” between Fred Gailey and Doris Walker.
Christmas is essentially a love
story.
The whole world takes on a
different ambiance at Christmas time. I
remember when I was an elementary school child during the Viet Nam War. Over the course of the war several truces and
ceasefires were proposed—though, as I recall, most did not last the entire
period, usually 24 to 30 hours.
Similar Christmas truces
took place in both WW1 and WW2 when the entire world was embroiled and entangled
in war. I am not sure about the Korean
Conflict. My point is this: the Spirit of Christmas has the power to stop
wars—even if just for a day.
Love seems to overflow the
shores of humanity during Christmas time.
This should not surprise us because the Christmas Story is the “Ultimate
Love Story.” The Christmas story
demonstrates love on so many levels: individuals,
families, communities, and nations. Most
importantly the Christmas story is a “Cosmic Love Story.” It is universal in scope and stretches back
into the recesses of eternity. Christmas
tells the story of God’s love for man.
Let’s read this love story. LUKE 2:1-20
When we examine the
Christmas story from the perspective of a love story between God and mankind,
how can we measure that love. I think we
can measure it in at least three ways.
1. We can measure it
by it’s COST.
The most common way to
ascertain the “value” of something is to examine it’s cost. I will not address getting a good deal by
paying far less than something is worth, or paying too much for something that
really has little value. We all know of
these traps.
Let us consider the issue
of God’s love from the perspective of “the cost accurately expressing the true value.” Notice Luke 2:4:
4 And Joseph also went up from the town of
Nazareth in Galilee, to Judea, to the
city of David, which is called Bethlehem,
because he was of the house and family line of David.
Everyone had to return to
the home of their ancestors to be registered.
Joseph and Mary’s ancestral home was the town of King David. It is easy to pass over this verse as just
filling in a few details, but these are details absolutely essential to the
Christmas story. These details establish
“Who” Jesus is in regard to God’s plan of redemption for mankind. Joseph and Mary were both descendants of King
David. Joseph would adopt Jesus and so
Jesus would be a double-descendant of David through both Joseph and Mary. This clearly identifies Jesus as the
Messiah. The Jews understood through
Scripture that a Deliverer would come from God and be a descendant of David,
the son of Jesse. Listen to what the
prophet Isaiah declared:
11:1
Then a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse,
and
a branch from his roots will bear fruit.
This is just one of many,
many passages in the Scripture that speak about the Coming Messiah Who would
deliver God’s people. Now, the Jews
misunderstood the mission of the Messiah in regard to His first coming. They sought for “political deliverance” from
bondage to the Romans. Jesus first came
to deliver mankind from sin.
It is very significant that
Joseph and Mary are said to be descendants of David. It established Who Jesus was and what would
be His mission. The crowds following
Jesus tried several times to “make him a king,” but Jesus always pointed to a
different calling upon his life. On one
occasion the disciples (most James and John) were arguing over who would rule
in Christ’s Kingdom. Jesus pulled the
disciples aside and taught them about His mission as the Messiah:
Mat.
20:28 The Son of Man did not come to be
served,
but
to serve, and to give His life—a ransom
for many
Jesus was “born to
die.” He would have a crisis moment in
the Garden of Gethsemane when He would reaffirm His calling as the Messiah, the
Savior of the World. John 12:27 gives us
insight into what it means to say that Jesus is the Messiah,
27 “Now My soul is troubled. What should I
say—Father, save Me from this hour? But
that is why I came to this hour.
We know that the mission of
the Messiah weighed so heavily upon Jesus as He prayed the night before His
crucifixion, that Jesus actually sweat drops of blood. Crucifixion was a horribly painful death and
Jesus would feel the pain as if it were the pain of every person who would ever
live. That’s what “love” cost Jesus.
What did Yahweh’s love
cost? It cost EVERYTHING! It cost the death of the eternal Son of
God. There is nothing of higher value in
the cosmos—and never could be. When we
measure the value of God’s love—it is priceless.
2. We can measure
God’s Love by its EFFECTIVENESS
Look
at verses 8-9: 8 In the same
region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night
over their flock. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before
them, and the glory of the
Lord shone around them, and they were
terrified.
Just as we saw with the
details of Joseph and Mary’s ancestral home, these details about the shepherds
being the first to hear about the birth of Jesus are extremely important to the
gospel story.
These shepherds were no
doubt tending the flocks that would provide many of the sacrificial lambs for
the coming Passover celebration (our Easter time). Some scholars see this as support for the
idea that Jesus was born in early spring, not December. We know that December 25th was
chosen as an arbitrary day to celebrate the birth of Jesus as a Christian
alternative for winter pagan rituals.
Being a shepherd in the
first century was dirty, hard work that was not greatly appreciated by the
culture. Shepherds were considered
unclean by the standards of the Pharisees who were Jewish leaders of the
day. Contact with animal waste and other
“messy” aspects of the shepherds’ duties made them ritually unclean. Because sheep required care every day,
shepherds could not keep the Sabbath according to the strict standards of the
Jewish elite. The shepherds’ duties kept
them outside of the city and they had little contact with people, so people
generally were quite suspicious of shepherds—even though it is one of the
oldest professions in the world.
Shepherds were for these
reasons “outcasts” in society. They were
nobodies in the societal hierarchy. Well,
all that changed. They were the first
messengers of the gospel. No doubt their
lives changed immensely after hearing from the angelic entourage on the night
of the Savior’s birth. They went from
outcasts of society to ambassadors for God, well received by all who heard
their message. Look at verses 17-18:
17 After seeing them, they reported the
message they were told about this child, 18 and all who heard
it were amazed at what the shepherds
said to them.
One way to measure the love
of God is by its effectiveness in changing lives.
David Richard Berkowitz (born Richard David Falco, June
1, 1953), also known as the Son of Sam and the .44 Caliber Killer,
is an American
serial killer convicted of
a series of shooting attacks that began in the summer of 1976. With a .44 caliber
Bulldog revolver, he killed six victims and wounded seven others by
July 1977. As the toll mounted, Berkowitz eluded a massive police manhunt while
leaving brazen letters which promised further murders. Highly publicized
in the press, he terrorized New York City
and achieved worldwide notoriety. He was
tried for eight murders and sentenced to six life sentences. He became a Christian after being sentences
and serves God by counseling troubled inmates.
The love of God changed the
lives of social outcasts. The love of
God redeemed the life of a demon-possessed serial killer. The love of God changes the lives of broken
people. Nothing is more effective in
turning lives around than the love of God.
In fact, the strongest evidence for the truth of the gospel of Jesus
Christ is literally millions of changed lives over the last 2000 plus
years. The gospel does not merely alter
the course of a person’s life on this earth, but the gospel has the power to
change the course of a person’s life for all eternity.
Paul describes the gospel
of Jesus Christ like this (Rom. 1:16):
For
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is
God’s
power for salvation to everyone who believes.
If your life is headed in
the wrong direction, God can change things for you. You can measure God’s love by its
effectiveness in changing things.
3. Most importantly,
we must measure it PERSONALLY
Christmas means nothing of
any real value until Christ means something personally to you. Verse 19:
But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart
and meditating on them.
There are three major world
religions that share a common history:
Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
All of these religions venerate the history of the Old Testament of the
Bible. They have different perspectives
on that history. For example, Judaism
(and Christianity that grew up out of Judaism) believe that God directed
Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on the mountain, and later spared his life
to become the heir to the faith of Abraham.
Islam, accepts that same story but instead of it being Abraham and Isaac
it becomes Abraham and Ishamael. Jews
and Muslims share accept much of the same history.
Christianity shares that
same history, arising out of Judaism as a tree rising from its roots. But, Christianity has a very significant and
fundamental difference with both Judaism and Islam. In Judaism and Islam, Yahweh and Allah, the
respective gods are absolute transcendent.
That is, they are too holy to have significant interaction with
humans—moreso in Islam than Judaism.
In the Muslim tradition,
there are 99 names of God. Not one of these names refers to Allah as Father. In
fact, the Qur'an teaches that Allah is the Mighty (Surah 3:6) and Most Holy (Surahs
59:23; 62:1) but does not mention Allah in a familial-type relationship as in
Christianity (www.compellingtruth.org/Allah-Father).
In Judaism Yahweh is so
holy that Jews would not even speak His name.
Anytime the name Yahweh (YHWH, יהוה) appeared in the ancient scrolls the
Scribes would use a different stylus to write the letters and then destroy that
stylus. When any text involving the name
of God appeared, the readers substitute another world for God, usually “adonai” meaning Lord. The idea of God as a father in the sense of
being a “real father,” was considered blasphemy. Remember when Jesus referred to Yahweh as His
“Father,” that the Jews wanted to kill Him.
John 5:17 Jesus says after just performing a miracle on the Sabbath:
17 But Jesus responded to them, “My Father
is still working, and I am working also.” 18 This is why the
Jews began trying all the more to kill Him:
Not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His
own Father, making Himself equal with God.
Here lies the fundamental
difference between Christianity and “all” other world religions: God wants to have a personal relationship
with us. Contrast this idea with what
the Bible says in Romans 8:
15 For you did not receive a spirit of
slavery to fall back into fear, but you
received the Spirit of adoption, by whom
we cry out, “Abba, Father!” 16 The
Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, 17 and
if children, also heirs —heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—seeing that we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
The phrase “Abba Father,” emphasizes the personal
relationship between God and His children.
The term “abba” comes from an Aramaic word to which Paul adds the Greek
word for father, “pater” to which Paul adds the definite pronoun, “the.” Literally it is “Father, the Father.” In Greek when the word “pater” is proceeded
by the word, “the,” the translation is “my father.” It is difficult to translate the deeply
personal expression Paul is using here.
It certainly is an emphasis on a personal relationship. It implies, “Father, my dear father.”
I bet you have heard people
say, “Christianity is not a religion—it is a relationship.” Well, Christianity is technically also a
religion, but the emphasis is not upon ritual but upon relationship. Even for Judaism and Islam, ritual is
paramount. The idea of a personal
relationship with God is blasphemy.
I think this “personal”
issue is what causes Christmas to have such a profound affect on peoples’
hearts—even those who have not personal relationship with Jesus as the Lord and
Savior.
What could be more
“personal” than God’s relationship with Mary and Joseph. Look at Luke 2:7:
7 Then she gave birth to her firstborn Son,
and she wrapped Him snugly in cloth and laid Him in a feeding trough.
That’s as close as someone
can get to another in a personal way:
“give birth.” Mary gave birth to
Jesus. She cared for him. She fed him.
She clothed him. She changed his
diapers. When she did all that and more
. . . she was doing it for Almighty God!
I cannot even fathom this intellectually, but with my heart I know that
this God is the True God for no other God so deeply desires a personal
relationship with His creation.
I think of the beautiful
song by Mark Lowry, “Mary Did You Know.” Part of the lyrics say, Did you know that your baby boy//Has walked
where angels trod//And when you kiss your little baby//You’ve kissed the face
of God!
We can measure the love of
God by it’s cost. We can measure it by
its powerful effects upon our lives and our world. We can measure it in many ways but until we
measure it “personally,” we will never know it’s height, it’s breadth, or its
depth. Moved by the Holy Spirit Paul
writes:
16 I pray that He may grant you, according
to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power in the inner man through His Spirit, 17 and
that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being
rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to
comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth
of God’s love.
Only through a deep and
abiding relationship with God can we fully comprehend what the virtue and value
of love. Aside from the Holy Spirit—God
Himself—dwelling in our “inner man” we cannot know
love. We cannot truly appreciate the
cost God paid. We will never fully
experience the effectiveness of God’s love.
We must measure God’s love personally.
The greatest gift of
Christmas is “Christmas itself.” Driven
by a cosmic-sized love, God came to a little manger in Bethlehem that would one
day lead to an old rugged cross on a hill.
All because of love.
Often, I ponder as I am
sure you do also, how could Yahweh—Creator and Sustainer of the
Universe—possibly love me? Of all the
wonders of a universe that is just under the size of infinity, how could God
even notice me? I am one small speck of
dust on a small pebble in the universe.
Could Yahweh really love someone as small as I?
As I studied this week I
came a cross a little Children’s Christmas book written by the God-touched
author, Max Lucado. The book is titled,
“Itsy Bitsy Christmas—You’re Never Too Little for His Love.” The book is written from the perspective of
two little mice from the stable in which Jesus was born. There names are “Itsy and Bitsy.” Along their road on a Christmas adventure
they meet a donkey named, Daniel. Here’s
the conversation:
“Who
are you?” Bitsy asked the donkey. “I’m
Daniel from a faraway town.” Bitsy said, “Are you here to be counted?” “No,” the donkey said very slowly. “I am here because of the King.” “What?”
Bitsy asked. “Haven’t you heard? The King is coming to Bethlehem,” the Donkey
explained. “But Bethlehem is an istsy
bitsy town,” Bitsy explained, “Why would a King come here?” “This King is
special,” the donkey explained. “He comes for everyone, big and small.”
“Like
us?”Itsy asked. “Like you,” the donkey
replied.
Christmas was God’s gift to
the entire world. Big, small, rich,
poor, red or yellow, black or white. God
offers His love to everyone.
Our world is truly and
“istsy bitsy” place among the vast galaxies of the universe. Only one thing makes earth different from all
the other planets. Oh, sure, perfect
conditions for life are part of it—but not the main part. The main thing that makes earth different is
“Christmas.” On no other planet did God
have such a love that He would be born into it; live in it; and die for
it. Christmas
really is essentially a love story.
Love was the theme of “It’s
a Wonderful Life.” Love was the current
running through “A Miracle On 34th Street.” Christmas is about love—our love for others,
and most importantly, God’s love for us.
I hope we all unwrap the
wonderful gift of God’s love this Christmas.
<<end>>
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