Christmas Eve God is Love Luke , 1 John Pastor Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church The most worn out word in the Church

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Kimberly Hampton
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1 Christmas Eve God is Love Luke , 1 John Pastor Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church The most worn out word in the Church and in many other places is the word, Love. It s like a bald tire with no traction. Like a knife that can t cut butter. Like a song nobody wants to hear. Like a cell phone with no service. Like a squeezed out tube of toothpaste. The word Love is like Clark Kent with kryptonite around his neck; it s lost the power to move anyone or anything. Love is like a person who walks into a room and everyone just kind of nods, There she is again. Love is just a worn out, tired, exhausted frustrated word. And yet the word Love is still capable of electrifying hearts, inspiring great sacrifice and devotion, of uniting us with God and with other people, motivating incredible acts of generosity and creativity. Love is like a third rail that can power a train. Love can burn hotter than any fire. Love can inspire music, poetry, and overcome any obstacle for the sake of the beloved. Don t underestimate the power of love; it can turn a Clark Kent into Superman. Love is the most powerful force in the universe. Love is what we celebrate at Christmas. Listen to these words about love God s love for us, and our love for others. Listen to the grandeur and expanse of God s love for you, for all people, and the love we re to share. 1 John , 7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15

2 2 God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 16 So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Those who say, I love God, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. This is my 29 th Christmas Eve as a Pastor and it s the first time I ve used this passage from 1 John on Christmas Eve. Usually we round up the usual suspects - Mary and Joseph, the innkeeper, shepherds, angels, and of course, the baby Jesus and we don t stray too far from the manger. It s important to hear that story as we have tonight. But 1 John 4:9-10 shares the What of Christmas very well. God s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Christmas is about learning for the first time or remembering for the umpteenth time that God loves us very much. There are many dimensions of love and in the Bible and especially in the story of Christmas and the birth of Jesus the constant emphasis is on God s initiative in love. God always takes the first step toward us and graces us with love prior to and independent of any response we might offer. In the dance of life we re all in the corner holding up the wall or sitting in the bleachers feeling awkward, unwanted, and scared. God is the one who walks up to us with a big smile and an outstretched hand and invites us to dance like James Brown saying, Get up offa that thing, And dance 'till you

3 3 feel better. Love is the nature of God that we can know as human beings. Love is not one thing among many that God does. Everything that God does is loving for the God revealed in the birth and life of Jesus Christ is LOVE. God s love is not abstract love looks like Jesus, not physically; there s no physical description of Jesus in the New Testament. Love looks like how Jesus treated and regarded people especially the sick, the outsiders, the poor, the people on the margins of society. Love looks like how Jesus told us to live our lives. Love is raking a neighbor s lawn or shoveling a driveway. It s making a meal or providing a ride. It s a listening ear and caring presence. Love means giving up some of our time, energy and attention for someone else. Love looks like Jesus who gave up everything and sacrificed himself for human sin. As one person observed, Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you. 1 God s love is creative I mean who would have written the story the way we have it in Luke s Gospel? Jesus is born in Bethlehem, not Jerusalem or Rome; to a poor unknown couple rather than to someone powerful, rich, or in the religious hierarchy; in a manger or cave, not in a temple or palace. Shepherds, not priests or the governor, King or Emperor, get the news first from angels and a mighty heavenly chorus. And that s just the birth of Christ. Look around at the world God made and the gifts we re given every day not just at Christmas that reflect God s creative love. Sigrid Undset wrote, And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans--and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused--and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself. Love is what God through Jesus Christ has given us so we can know what God is like and now it s our turn, like the shepherds who saw and heard the angels and went and shared all that they had seen and heard with Mary and Joseph, now it s our turn to 1 Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

4 4 communicate and share with others the love of God in Christ for them to which we are witnesses. It s important that we hold on to love in the midst of these full and busy days leading up to and including Christmas. Sharon Jaynes creatively re-wrote 1 Corinthians 13 for Christmas. If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to my family, I m just another decorator. If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I m just another cook. If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing. If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir s cantata but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point. Love stops the cooking to hug the child. Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband. Love is kind, though harried and tired. Love doesn t envy another s home that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens. Love doesn t yell at the kids to get out of the way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way. Love doesn t give only to those who are able to give in return but rejoices in giving to those who can t. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust, but giving the gift of love will endure. It s important to understand that the passage about love in 1 John 4:7-21 is not being written to people who are living easy lives. In fact, they re facing hatred from some people outside their faith community and some of the folks on the inside of the church aren t loving other members either. The Christian response even in the face of hate is love. Every Friday the Wall Street Journal publishes an article entitled Houses of Worship. This week s article December 22, 2017 was The Salvation of Napalm Girl by Kim Phuc Phan Thi, (Author of The Fire Road: The Napalm Girl s Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness and Peace ). A Pulitzer Prize winning

5 5 photograph of Kim in 1972, when she was nine-years old, running with arms outstretched, shrieking in pain and fear, the victim of a napalm bombing, made the horror of war and hate real to millions around the world. Kim wrote, Those bombs have caused me immeasurable pain over the course of my life. Forty-five years later I am still receiving treatment for the burns that cover my arms, back and neck. But even worse than the physical pain was the emotional and spiritual pain. For years I bore the crippling weight of anger, bitterness and resentment toward those who caused my suffering. Yet as I look back over a spiritual journey that has spanned more than three decades, I realize the same bombs that caused so much pain and suffering also brought me to a place of great healing. Those bombs led me to Jesus Christ. My salvation experience occurred on Christmas Eve. It was I was attending a special worship service at a small church in Vietnam. The pastor, Ho Hieu Ha, delivered a message many Christians would find familiar: Christmas is not about the gifts we carefully wrap and place under a tree. Rather, it is about the gift of Jesus Christ, who was wrapped in human flesh and given to us by God. As the pastor spoke, I knew in my heart that something was shifting inside of me. A decade removed from the defining tragedy of my life, I still desperately needed peace. I had so much hatred and bitterness in my heart. Yet I was ready for love and joy. I wanted to let go of my pain. When Pastor Ho finished speaking, I stood up, stepped out into the aisle, and made my way to the front of the sanctuary to say yes to Jesus Christ. When I woke up that Christmas morning, I experienced my first ever heartfelt celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. I know what it s like to experience terror, to feel despondent, to live in fear. I know how wearying and hopeless life can be sometimes. After years in the spiritual wilderness, I felt the kind of healing that can only come from God. My faith in Jesus Christ is what has enabled me to forgive those who had wronged me- no matter how severe those wrongs were. Faith also inspired me to pray for my enemies rather than to curse them. It enabled me not only to tolerate those who had wronged me but to love them. No matter what type of pain or sorrow you may be experiencing, as Christmas approaches, I encourage you not to give up. Hold fast to hope. It is

6 6 hope that will see you through. This peace I have found can be yours as well. I pray that it finds you this Christmas. The world has more than enough hate. What it needs at Christmas and throughout the year is love. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin summed up the possibility of Love this way: Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. What we celebrate at Christmas is God s love made real in a baby who would become a man who shows us what self-sacrificing love looks like even to the point of dying on a cross that our sins might be forgiven. God wants to be in a loving relationship with us and wants us to love others as well. In this world of sin Don't believe the lie that you can't make a difference. Be the light and the hope to someone who needs it. When all else fails, simply choose to love. Jason Romano Prayer Loving God, we have not loved the world as you do or as we should. We have not forgiven our enemies seventy times seven times. We have not turned the other cheek when people have offended us. We have often failed to be gracious toward those who think or believe differently than ourselves. We have not gone the second mile with most people, and with some not even the first. We have not befriended the stranger, the immigrant, the refugee, and the alien. Yet you have loved us with a steady and unchangeable love. You have been generous toward us far beyond what we deserve and merciful when we didn t merit mercy. Forgive us, Lord, for seeing the faults of others and not seeing our own. Receive us again as your children, and teach us anew this Christmas how to love and be loved. In the name of Christ we pray, Amen. Blessing: 1 Corinthians 16:14 Let all that you do be done in love. And may God bless us all, everyone.

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