Advent 4 - Love

Preached at Hallam and Martell UMCs, December 23, 2007.

What can surpass a mother's love? Nothing—right? It seems that in all of creation there is no greater bond than that between mother and child. Even while the mother is still pregnant, there is a bond that has been established somehow.

It seems only fitting that as we approach Christmas on this 4th Sunday of Advent, that we talk about a mother's love. After all, I have spoken to you about HOPE—sure and certain expectation; we've talked about PEACE—found only in the Prince of Peace; about JOY--regardless of the situation, through faith in Jesus Christ. Each of these things sound familiar to what a mother experiences during her pregnancy.

This similarity between pregnancy and and Advent—that time of waiting before Christmas has not gone unnoticed. In “The Message,” Eugene Peterson conveys a fresh sense of Paul’s words in Romans 8 describing the waiting of Advent: "All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs… That is why waiting does not diminish us…we are enlarged in the waiting… the longer we wait, the larger we become and the more joyful our expectancy."

Imagine Mary, expecting the child that she knows will change the world. Listen to her words:
And Mary said:
"My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers."

She lifts up what God has done for her in this child she is carrying: she will be known, the humble will be lifted up, the hungry will be fed. Is there any doubt that she loves this child, and she loves God? And the closer she gets to his birth, the more she anticipates his coming. Yet, in some sense, the love that she feels for this child is in return for the what God has done for her. She recognizes that she loves this child, but that God loved her first—she was chosen to be the mother of this child.

The same is true for us. Each of us has been chosen by God to be the vessel of something incredible. But just as Mary had to respond in faith, we have to respond to God in faith, as well. 1 John 4:7-21 tells us that we love God because God first loved us—loved us enough to send his only son to bear the atonement for our sin. And as God loves us, he has put within us a longing for relationship with Him—and with others because of the love shown to us. We respond to God's love, extended to us in the guise of a baby boy, born to die so that you and I might live, by loving those around us.

John tells us that God is Love, and that Love is a gift from God. How we respond to God is the key to each of the attributes represented by candles in the Advent wreath. Hope, Peace, and Joy are all found through Love for humanity and in relationship with God.

Loving those around us allows us to know God. But knowing God is more than simply acknowledging God's presence—knowing God means having an intimate, experiential relationship with God. John refers to it as living in union with God—other translations say that God abides in us, and we abide in God. And if this is so, then that love of and for God will reflect God's character--if God IS love, then we will love those around us. This is really an expansion of the the Great Commandment—Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. They are intimately linked and inseparable, more like a single circle of gold than links in a chain.

I don't know about you, but I really hate shopping around Christmas. Whether it is the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas eve, or the day after Christmas, the parking lots are full and getting a place within 500 yards of the store means either circling like a predator, following them as they come out of the store, or else it means waiting an eternity behind that person who has stopped and turned on the turn signal to get into a parking place that someone still occupies. Further, the stores are crazy—filled with snarling, grouchy people—sometimes I'm even one of them! We as a people go into debt so that we can give presents to people, the government says we have to do our part to support the economy, Wal-mart's latest slogan for this time of the year is “save more money, so you can give more Christmas,” all the while one of the fastest growing industries is the construction of storage sheds to store all the stuff we don't even have room for!

Yet, even when we are confronted with the ugliness of the world, greed and gluttony. we are called to love those around us, even as God loves us. “We love God because God first loved us. If we say we love God, but hate others, we are liars. For we cannot love God, whom we have not seen, if we do not love others, whom we have seen. The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love others also.”

Friends, love is both experienced and expressed as part of a life lived in relationship with God. We can love without spending a fortune, we can love even if we don't have a fortune. The greatest gift we have ever received cost not a penny, but it was not free. Christ was born to give us the greatest treasure we could receive—eternal life in relationship with God. Christ was born so that we could truly receive, experience, and respond to love by this—loving those around us.