When Love Came to Town

And Another Thing . . . LOVE

During Christmas, Christ-followers have traditionally examined four virtues: Hope, Joy, Love and Peace. At this week’s Gathering, we were all about Love.

What is there to say about love that has not already been said? It is the thing we most treasure; our loves are the deepest part of us. When we speak or think of love generically, we can detach from or be analytical about it. Love, as a topic, can even be boring!  But when it is not a topic, but rather a description of our emotion, we are incapable of indifference. Love is passion—a passion that is frequently at war with reason. People in love are often encouraged to “keep their heads,” or to not “do something stupid.” Love puts us at risk. Love is wild. Love is alive.

God is Love. C.S. Lewis, describing Aslan (the lion who represents God in the Chronicles of Narnia) says, “He is not safe, but he is good.” The love of God is not a safe thing. It is a good thing. Rich Mullins used to say that “God has terrible taste.  He loves everybody.” His taste is bad enough to extend to each of us, as well as to all the people we do not like, all the people we are indifferent about, and all the people we do not know. Psalm 100:5 says, “For the LORD is good, and His love is eternal; His faithfulness endures through all generations.” God knows all. God loves all. And God loves first.

God is “all in” with us. He doesn’t wait to see if we “get him” or if we can bring something of interest to the table. He loves us first. He gets us and commits right away – even before we are born. He gives us joy. He lifts our head. He gives us something interesting to contribute to his world. And he saves us. He loves us so much that he gave the dearest piece of himself, as a sacrifice to rescue us from a life without him. 

Christmas is when we celebrate the start of this story.  We celebrate that God successfully entered our human condition. We celebrate that heaven and earth intersect in a baby who will grow up to be the spitting image of his father. Jesus is the perfect expression of God’s love for us.  As we examine Jesus, we begin to notice that God’s love is different from ours. His love is wild and risky and alive, but it is also filled with reason and choice and intention.  His love is a decision of his will and an expression of his heart.  He intentionally moves in love toward us and intends that his love will transform us into his image. 1 John 4:10 says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

This is God choosing to bless the world through a baby, containing the full measure of his love in a tiny infant-sized bundle of miraculous expectancy.  No wonder angels sang.  Love stories always come with a soundtrack.  In fact, according to Revelation, they have not stopped singing. One day we will join them.  Maybe we should join them now.

And that is all I have to say about that . . . for now.

Joy, Joy, Joy!

And Another Thing . . . Joy!

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come.” Those words have become so familiar that they may have lost much of their impact—becoming just a song we sing each year in between holiday shopping trips and putting up our Christmas decorations. But those words represent much more than just something nice to sing. Joy came to earth. Jesus’ entry into the human story was an unimaginable turn of events.

As the story is told, God, in Jesus, leaves wherever it is that he was and comes to hang out with us. The painter steps into the picture to shape the image from the inside. John says, “the Word became flesh.” The artist became paint. Improbable and impossible and way beyond reasonable expectation, yet this is the story of Christmas. Jesus comes to break death’s power over us, and he begins his impossible task by participating in the miracle of incarnation. The creator becomes a created thing. The eternal God becomes clothed in finite flesh. No wonder people doubt the Bible. If you don’t doubt it at least the first few times you hear what it says, you are probably not paying attention. It sounds like a fairy tale, but as Fredrick Beuchner writes, it is “a tale that is too good not to be true.”

Jesus leaves heaven and comes to earth and brings with him the nature and character of God. The story of his life reveals what these attributes look like when they are played out in the theater of human events. Jesus expresses the character of God through his love. He “so loves” that he winds up laying down his life to give us hope. His hope leads to joy, and his “perfect love casts out fear.”(1 John 4:18) The opposite of joy is not sadness, but fear. Nehemiah 8:10 says, “the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Joy’s strength overwhelms the strongholds of fear the enemy has erected on earth. Joy laughs at fear. Joy allows us to move with confidence in the callings we are compelled to establish. Joy is present regardless of the circumstance. Jesus says in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Joy to the world, the Lord is come.  Experience joy, because the Lord IS come.

Joy to the world! The Lord is come; 

Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns;
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

                                             Isaac Watts, 1719

And that’s all I have to say about that . . . for now!