Advent – Love

Although love takes center stage in this season, we miss the gritty nature of God’s love because we’ve confused love with sentimentality. But the Love of God cannot be described with sanitized cliches or impersonal definitions; for the Love of God is told in dysfunctional family trees, gritty action, strange stories, and dirty glory.Advent consists of the four Sundays preceding Christmas Day in which the Church anticipates the future arrival of Christ by remembering His first arrival.Although it may seem counter to the festivities of Christmas, it is important to practice waiting.And in our waiting we focus on the themes of hope, peace, joy, and love along with the rest of the global churchIn First John, the Author summarizes his time with Jesus, his long career as an apostle, and a lifetime of reading the scriptures with three words. “God is love.” – 1 John 4:8, 16 “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” –Exodus 34:6.“I will give thanks to you, O LORD, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.” –Psalm 108:3–4.“...God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. –1 John 4:8-9.We miss that this is a season that shows off the love of God, in part because we often confuse love with sentimentality. But sentimentality is not love – it is a counterfeit. Sentimentality is to experience the internal emotions of love– but to do nothing with it. The four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, each tell of God’s Christmas love from a different angle. Emphasizing the Love of God, not with sanitized cliches or impersonal definitions; but through dysfunctional family trees, gritty action, strange stories, and dirty glory. The Gospel of Matthew and the God of love in a dysfunctional family tree.The first book of the new testament, written by Matthew for Jewish people, starts by thoroughly arguing that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. He argues that the Creator has entered the family tree. “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers…” – Matthew 1:1–2.Like a house built brick by brick, the story of God’s love is told name by name through Jesus’ family tree. And the family Jesus came from tells us everything about the Family he came for.The love of God shows up in dysfunctional family trees intent on redemption and writing a new story. The Gospel of Mark; The God of Love in gritty action. Mark’s nativity jumps straight into the action with Jesus being baptized, being tempted in the wilderness, and kicking off his ministry with an announcement; “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”–Mark 1:14God’s love for humanity is broadcast through Jesus’ every movement as he touches the sick, hurting, and vulnerable. It is Jesus’ willingness to reach out and touch that God’s love is made palpable. Mark does not begin with our king in a crib, but he tells of our God’s loving action– moving towards our deepest brokenness and his healing touch. The Gospel of Luke: The God of Love in unlikely places. A young engaged-to-be-married woman pregnant. She bears the weight of assumptions, disapproving looks, whispers, and small-town gossip. A working-class family, a feeding trough for a crib, minimum-wage shepherds, foreign seekers, and political refugees. In the most unlikely of places begins a complete reversal, an inverting of everything, the dawning of an upside-down kingdom.The God of Love displays his affection through the strangest stories with the most unlikely characters.“And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly.… God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.” – Dietrich BonhoefferThe Gospel of John: The God of Love in dirty glory. “14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” –John 1:14 “The Word Became Flesh”; this is the hinge by which all of John’s Gospel turns. John speaks of Jesus as “the Word [that] was with God, and the Word [that] was God” (John 1:1). In Jesus, “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” says the Apostle Paul (Col 1:19).What does it mean that the God of Heaven became flesh? That he took up residence amongst us? That he dared to be seen, touched, carried, held, struck, hated? The love of God is not pristine white garments pressed for Christmas day, it is in a dirt-caked robe of a middle eastern carpenter. Our God became flesh and dwelt with us, in dirty glory.