Advent 2021: Love

 

November 28, 2021                     NOTES NOT EDITED
Advent 2020:  Love
Luke 2:1-7, et. al.

SIS—I’ve said it every Advent for over four decades:  Christmas is essentially a love story.

If you google the word, “love,” you will get millions of hits.  “Love” is very popular because love is very powerful.   Here’s what Psychology Today reported in an article: Love is as critical for your mind and body as oxygen. It's not negotiable. ….the less love you have, the more depression you are likely to experience in your life. Love is probably the best antidepressant there is because one of the most common sources of depression is feeling unloved.

Do we really know what love is?  The rock phenomenon, “Foreigner,” had a hit record in which the main chorus line says, “I Wanna Know What Love Is//I Want You to Show Me.” 

Psychologists continue to explore what love is.  One researcher described love as, “A mix of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs associated with strong feelings of affection, protectiveness, warmth, and respect for another person.” 

But, for the most part, nobody really knows what love is . . . at least not in any scientific way.  That same researcher went on to say, “Love has been a favored topic of philosophers, poets, writers, and scientists for generations, and different people and groups have often fought about its definition.”

Love is the most powerful force in all the world, but it defies any real analysis.  It is like examining the wonder of a snowflake you catch upon your palm on a winter day.  Before you have time to analyze it, it retreats into a tiny puddle in you palm. 

There have been many famous love stories throughout time. The Song of Songs detailing the love between Solomon and the Shulammite Lady; Antony and Cleopatra; Romeo and Juliet; the somewhat tenuous puppy love between Charlie Brown and Lucy; and of course, the love story we celebrate at Christmas between Joseph and Mary.  All these stories though, pale in comparison to the love story between God and man which reaches its zenith in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  That’s what Christmas is all about—a love story between God and man.

Christmas is about love, especially God’s love, which is the most powerful, transforming force in the universe. Love is powerful, but few people really recognize just how powerful and transforming love can be.  Even fewer people understand the “ultimate, transforming power of God’s love.”  God’s love literally changes everything.

In fact, God is the definition of love.  The Bible says, “God IS love!” (1Jn 4:8).  If you “wanna know what love is,” then you have to know Who God is.  That is what Christmas is all about. 

Let’s read that love story together.  LUKE 2:1-7

When we examine the “Love Story of Christmas” we see love displayed in Joseph’s love for Mary, Mary’s Love for Jesus, Our Love for Others, and most of all, God’s Love for Sinners.

1.  Joseph’s Love for Mary

Matthew 1:18 ^{(NLT) 18} This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Joseph loved Mary very much.  How do we know this?  The Bible never tells us this explicitly, but Joseph’s actions speak volumes. To be “engaged” (KJV, betrothed) meant much more in ancient Jewish life than it does in general today.  Engagement was a legally binding agreement.  Ancient engagement was covenant as binding as marriage is today.  Now, Joseph comes to “know” (or at least he thought he knew), that his virgin bride was pregnant.  Joseph and Mary had never been together intimately, so of course, Mary had committed adultery—and even more, had brought great shame upon Joseph who was a godly, righteous, devout believer in God.

Joseph had several options in face of this current discovery of Mary’s alleged unfaithfulness.  One, he could have simply forgiven her and married her anyway, raising the child as his own.  This, however, was something Joseph as a god-fairing, devout Jewish man could not do in the first century.  It would mean putting human love above his love for God.  A second option would be to drag her before a tribunal and expose her as an adulterer.  This would be a vindictive move that would ruin Mary’s life and the life of her family.  She would be an outcast. In traditional Jewish law she could also face being stoned to death.  But, Joseph loved God and he deeply loved Mary.  So Joseph decided to simply let the matter drop quietly and go his separate way. 

But . . . Joseph didn’t know what he thought he knew. What was obvious to all wasn’t really obvious at all.  Into this ugly, hurtful situation, God intervened.  Look at Matthew 1:20–22 ^(NLT)  

²⁰ As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. ²¹ And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” ²² All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet.

So many marriages are destroyed because people think they know what they really do not know.  Even if sin inflicts what appears to be a mortal wound on a marriage, love is more powerful.  When we allow God to intervene, even in our most desperate circumstances, “love always overcomes any problem.”  When it comes to problems in a marriage:  love is always the answer!

2.  Mary’s Love for Jesus

The centerpiece of any Nativity Set is Mary kneeling beside the manger where Jesus is lying.  The Christmas Story tells us:

Luke 2:6–7 (KJV 1900)  ⁶ And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. ⁷ And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

It is hard to describe a more loving or more powerful scene in all the universe than Mary kneeling beside the cradle borrowed from a cow which held her firstborn son.

Unless something is tragically, horribly, sinfully wrong, all mothers love their children.  Mothers carry their child for nine months in the womb, and then go to the very brink of death to give that child life in this world.  Mary had that natural love for her son, Jesus; but, she had something else—a deeper love; a worshipful love. 

After that first night in the stable with Jesus, and the visit of the Shepherd’s the next day, the Bible sums up Mary’s experience by saying: Luke 2:18–19 (ESV)

¹⁸ And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

The word translated, “treasured up” (actually in the imperfect tense meaning, it was an intense continuing action) means to think very deeply, or worshipfully, about something.  It means to be “consumed by the moment.”  Mary not only loved Jesus as her firstborn son, but loved him immensely as her Eternal Lord and Almighty God.

Three months earlier when visiting her cousin Elizabeth (some say aunt), she composed a song about the child in her womb.  It’s been titled, “The Magnificat.”  We find this song in Lk. 1:

Luke 1:46–49^{(KJV)  46} And Mary said, My soul doth magnify [L, Magnificat] the Lord, ⁴⁷ And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. ⁴⁸ For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. ⁴⁹ For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; And holy is his name.

Mary loved Jesus as we all should love Jesus—as the Holy, Eternal, God Almighty.  Isaiah prophesied of this very day when the Holy God of Heaven would step into our world.  Here’s how Isaiah describes Jesus:

Isaiah 9:6 ^(KJV) For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: And the government shall be upon his shoulder: And his name shall be called Wonderful Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Mary’s love for Jesus was not only a mother’s love for her child, but a sinner’s love for her Savior.  That brings me to the next expression of love in the Christmas Story:

3.  God’s Love for Sinners

All the people surrounding Jesus in the Christmas story, indeed all the people who had ever lived or ever will live, are sinners.  The Bible says,

Romans 3:10–12 ^{(CSB) 10} as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. ¹¹ There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. ¹² All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one. (from Psalm 14)

Romans 3:23 ^(NLT) For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

Joseph was a sinner.  Mary was a sinner.  The Inn-Keeper in the Christmas story was a sinner.  All have sinned.  All are sinners.  But there is a special group in the Christmas story that demonstrate the radical nature of God’s love for sinners.  This group was the “shepherds.”  The Bible says,

Luke 2:8–10^{(KJV) 8} And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. ¹⁰ And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

These shepherds were the first people to hear about the birth of Jesus besides Joseph and Mary.  They didn’t hear the announcement from other men, but from a “Heavenly Host” in the grandest style.  To understand how much God loves us as sinners, you have to understand how “hated and despised” shepherds were in the Jewish community specially, and society in general.  Shepherds were “outcasts.”  They were social pariahs.  Being around stinking, soiled farm animals made them “unclean” in Jewish life.  Living out in the fields in the darkness made them socially suspect in society.

So despised they were that shepherds were not even considered reliable witnesses in a court of law.

On the ladder of sinners—if there were such a ladder—shepherds were on the bottom rung.

Yet, in the gleam and glory of a heavenly light show, God offered salvation to them first.  He said, “A savior has been born to you”—to who?—to you lowly, despised, outcast shepherds.  God said, “I love the world and I came to save it—and I’m starting with you shepherds first.”

Christmas—at the very core—is about God’s Love for Sinners.

Just how much does God love us as sinners.  Listen to John describe how much God loves sinners:

John 3:16 ^{(GNB) 16} For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life.

When God showed His love to a world of sinners, He showed it by giving the Very Best that He Had—His Only Son.  In fact, when Jesus died for our sins, God, Himself died!  God gave us Himself when Jesus came to earth to die in our place.

It is not possible to put into word’s what it means to say, “God loves sinners.”  Words of explanation for God’s love fall flat like a souffle in an earthquake.  It is incomprehensible to the sinner’s mind that God, Himself, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, would come to earth, be born in a stable, laid in a feeding trough, live an austere life as an itinerant preacher, and then be horribly killed on a Roman cross.  Yes, Jesus did rise from the dead—but He died a horrible painful death that we sinners deserved to die—and worse!

When God embraced the stinking, socially outcast, despised and rejected shepherds, God embraced all sinners whatever their position in life.

Christmas is a love story and the centerpiece of that story is “God’s Love for Sinners.”

But, the Love Story of Christmas, would not be complete if I did not mention one very important expression of love.

4.  Our Love for Each Other

1Jn. 4:19 ^(NLT) We love each other because he loved us first.

As I’ve already mentioned, love is the most powerful force in our world.  True love is a direct extension of the very Person of God Almighty.  When we love others, we become the extension of God’s love to our world.

The greatest expression of our love for others is to show them the “True Meaning of Christmas.”  Once again, in the Christmas Story, the lowly shepherds are a great expression of how we are to love others by sharing the message of the Savior born on Christmas Day.  That’s what church is all about.  The Bibles continues the story of the announcement of the Savior to shepherds saying,

Luke 2:13–18 ^{(NLT) 13} Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying, ¹⁴ “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” ¹⁵ When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” ¹⁶ They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. ¹⁷ After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. ¹⁸ All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished.

What greater gift could any of us share with others than the gift of the message of eternal life?  Isn’t that why we are here in church today—and every Sunday.  Isn’t that really why we give our time and money, and most of all our prayers?  So, other people can hear the true meaning of Christmas and have eternal life?  Yes, that’s what it is all about.

We love other sinners because God loved us first.  We love each other because God loved us first.  Just as God extended Himself to us, we extend God’s love to others when we let God work through us.

We not only share God’s love with those outside the Family of God, but we show true love when we share God’s with one another inside the Family of God.  We love each other because we are bound together by the scarlet rope of the blood of Christ.

As I said at the beginning of this message, people want to know and experience love.  I think if people wanna’ know what love is the best place to look is in the Christmas Story.

Christmas is indeed a “Love Story” at it’s very foundation.  It is about Joseph’s Love for Mary; Mary’s Love for Jesus; God’s Love for Sinners; and Our Love for Our Neighbor—whether in the fold or wandering without.