Rediscover Love

Good morning, and merry Christmas! It’s such a joy to be gathered on Christmas Eve Day to worship and praise our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ! If you are visiting with us today, would you please take a moment to let us know you’re here? We’d like to be able to send you a card thanking you for your visit. You can do that a couple of ways. The first is that you can text the word WELCOME to 505-339-2004, and you’ll get a text back with a link to our online communication card. If you’d rather use pen and paper, you can find a physical communication card in the back of the pew in front of you. Either way, if you’re a guest this morning, I’d like to invite you to come down and see me when the service is over so I can give you a gift of thanks.

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Opening

This is it. Our last Sunday of Advent. Tonight, we will celebrate together as we worship as a family and recap what we’ve looked at this Christmas season, and tomorrow we will celebrate the birth of Jesus. This morning, we’re going to open with the passage about the wise men from Matthew 2, so please open your Bibles or your Bible apps to the first twelve verses of that chapter, and stand as you are able in honor of the reading of God’s holy Word:

Matthew 2:1–12 CSB

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born. “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they told him, “because this is what was written by the prophet: And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah: Because out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.” Then Herod secretly summoned the wise men and asked them the exact time the star appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you find him, report back to me so that I too can go and worship him.” After hearing the king, they went on their way. And there it was—the star they had seen at its rising. It led them until it came and stopped above the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overwhelmed with joy. Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and falling to their knees, they worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their own country by another route.

PRAYER

There were once two old farmers. They were neighbors, but they had a feud that had gone on for a few years. They both did all they could to avoid each other during that time.

The whole thing started over a cat. The cat was a stray, but both of these farmers began feeding the cat and claimed it as their own. From there, everything went downhill. The neighbors quit talking, and the grudge escalated to the point that one of them dug a ditch to reroute a spring to make sure it divided their properties from each other.

One day, a carpenter came through the area looking for work. He knocked on the door of one of the farms, and the farmer said, “Well, if he’s going to try to divide us up with that ditch, then I might as well finish the job. I don’t even want to have to look at him!” So he asked the carpenter to build a fence all the way across the property, a nice, big, tall fence.

The carpenter said, “OK, I could do that, but it will take a lot more wood.” So the farmer went into town to buy more wood, and the carpenter started working with the wood in the shed.

That farmer came driving back down the dirt road to his home, but when he looked across the field, he didn’t see any fence going up. Instead of the barrier he’d wanted, he saw that the carpenter had built a bridge across the creek. And there across the bridge, his neighbor came walking toward him with his hand outstretched, a big sheepish grin on his face. “You’re a brave man,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d want to hear the sound of my voice again. Can you ever forgive me?” The first farmer was surprised, and as he reached out to shake his neighbor’s hand, he found himself saying, “Aww, I knew it was your cat.”

That story is by the singer-songwriter David Wilcox, who uses it as an introduction to his song called “Fearless Love.” The song goes on to weave together another narrative about a church protest and a person caught up in it remembering Jesus’s teaching to His disciples to love their enemies by using the example of carrying a Roman soldier’s pack twice the distance required. The chorus goes, “Fearless love makes you cross the border.”

The love that Jesus embodied in our world is indeed fearless love. Besides simply lacking any fear, the love of Jesus defies and overcomes fear. Today as we continue our journey through Advent, we are focusing on the love that Jesus brought into our world and our lives.

As a quick recap, the word Advent means “coming” or “arrival,” and the season is marked by expectation, waiting, anticipation, and longing. Not just an extension of Christmas—Advent is a rediscovery of Christmas, a season that links the past, the present, and the future. Advent offers us the opportunity to share in the ancient longing for the coming of the Messiah, to celebrate His birth, and to be alert for His second coming, looking back in celebration at the hope fulfilled in Jesus’s coming, while at the same time looking forward in hopeful and eager anticipation to the coming of Christ’s kingdom when He returns for His people. During Advent we actively and hopefully wait for both. And each week, we’ve been focusing on a different attribute of God represented in the coming of Jesus: hope, peace, joy, and love.

As we’ve journeyed through Advent, we have been looking at different people in the Nativity story. We have dug into narratives of Simeon and Anna, of the shepherds, and of Elizabeth and Mary, but today I’d like to take a little different approach. I’d like to look at all the people in the biblical account of Christ’s birth. When we do, we realize that the birth of Christ brings together a wide variety of people across many different divides and contrasts.

If we walk through the story in order, we start with Zechariah and Elizabeth and Mary and Joseph—the old and the young. The prophets and covenants of Israel’s past and the fulfillment of the promise of the Messiah and the new spiritual future. The separation and death of the past and the restoration and life now present.

Then we meet the shepherds and the angels—the beings of earth and of heaven, the physical and the spiritual. And as they head to the stable, there are animals as well as humans, the beings of creation. And here we can look to Matthew’s Christmas account and meet the Magi.

Now, while I understand and agree that the Magi, or wise men, could not have possibly been at the birth of Christ according to Scripture, that doesn’t change the reality of the fact that their coming to Israel was due to the birth of Jesus. “Nativity” literally means “the occasion of one’s birth.” So while they were not at THE moment of Nativity in the stable, it was the Nativity that prompted them to come. So I think it’s okay to include them.

Who were these mysterious visitors from the East? We’re not entirely sure, as the only record that we have of these Magi is found in our focal passage, so we should be reluctant to make too many guesses. But we do know they had followed a star a long distance to find and worship the promised Messiah. Some scholars think they may have come from Babylon, some from Persia, some from India, and still others suggest that they may have come from as far as China. At any rate, whether they are astrologers, royal court advisers, or some kind of actual rulers, the Magi were noble and wealthy men who demonstrate God bridging even more divides. The Magi were the esteemed opposite to the lowly shepherds in human social structures. But importantly, they were almost certainly Gentiles, and not Jews, and their inclusion in Jesus’s birth story echoes the radical idea that Jesus the Messiah brings salvation and restoration to all people, not just the Jews.

The Magi were also holy men of some sort. They seem to have belonged to more of a mystical tradition than the Jewish leaders’ structure, but they importantly contrast the spiritual Jewish leaders of the day. There were no Pharisees and Sadducees and spiritual VIP’s of the time who were invited to Jesus’s birth. Instead, we see these travelers of a different race who receive an audience with King Herod (albeit one with sinister intentions), yet who were willing to disrupt their lives with a great journey and humble themselves to worship the baby of a poor, unassuming couple in the Judean countryside.

The cast of characters God assembled for the arrival of His Son on earth is far from the expectations any of us would have imagined. And probably even farther from the expectations of the people of that time, who lived and breathed within that culture and its divisions. To us, it may seem like a ragtag bunch. To them, it was downright blasphemous that the Messiah would be so lowly and associated with the full spectrum of unclean humanity and creation. In fact, on an even deeper level Jesus Himself, in His incarnation, brings together the Divine and the mortal.

Old and young. Past and future. Death and life. Earth and heaven. Physical and spiritual. Rich and poor. Royal and common. The holy and the base. Gentile and Jew. Divinity and mortality.

Could Jesus have united any more divisions simply by being born? Hardly. He pretty much covered them all. And in so doing, God revealed several things about His love that I’d like for us to explore today.

1: Christ is love embodied.

The Bible talks about love in many places. God is love and the Bible is His love story for all humanity. From Creation, God made people and shared time with them in the garden. When sin entered the world, bringing death and brokenness and separation from such a close companionship with God, He continued to work and covenant with humans. Through generations and generations, He worked His plans and promised a Messiah to make a way to restore relationship with humanity. That way is Jesus, who is described as the groom and the church as His bride. This relationship with God that He brings us into is a relationship of love. It is a reunion with love itself.

John the apostle eloquently describes the love of God in the fourth chapter of his letter 1 John.

1 John 4:7–16 CSB

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.

I think that we can agree that there are a lot of things out there that divide us, and I’ll speak to that in a moment. But for now, the thing that we need to realize is that the greatest division, the biggest difference, the most profound separation plaguing humanity is not racial or political or geographic or economic or ideological. It’s spiritual. Without Christ, we are separated from God because of our sin: the things that we say, do, and think that are not obedient to God. In fact, the Bible says that we are dead because of our sins:

Ephesians 2:1–2 CSB

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient.

This is the biggest problem, the largest difference that we face. Without Jesus as our Savior and Lord, we stand opposed to God. And if that’s the case, then without Christ, we stand opposed to the One who defines real and true love, because John told us here that God is love. His character and nature define it. It is a fixed quality that He has in perfection, and He has shown us what it means by sending Jesus.

Yes, Jesus the Son of God came as the baby placed in the manger that very first Christmas night. And then that baby grew up, living a perfect life along the way, and grew into the man that Isaiah would describe as “a man of suffering who knew what sickness was.” (Isa 53:3). He never sinned, and then He was put to death on a Roman cross to appease the crowd. He took our sins and shame, our separation and discord with God on Himself on that cross, paying the penalty that our sins deserve. He died in our place for our forgiveness, and He defeated death and rose again for our deliverance. When we believe in Jesus, surrendering our lives to Him and trusting in Him alone to save us, then we are restored to a right relationship with the One who is love. He comes to live in us by His Holy Spirit, and we live in Him. And He will never leave us or forsake us, according to the promise of His Word.

But salvation is found in no one other than Jesus. This Christmas, if you’ve never trusted in Jesus to save you, then surrender to Him today, even right now, by believing the Gospel message that you’ve just heard, and experience a new kind of love this Christmastime. A love that will literally change your life forever.

You see, according to John, when we come to faith in Jesus, we are then empowered to live lives of fearless love: loving one another with God’s love, which defines and propels us, which is our second point:

2: Love defines and propels us.

Jesus brought this reconnection and restoration to love Himself when He entered the world on that first Christmas night. Near the end of His earthly ministry, as He was gathered with His twelve disciples for their last Passover meal together, He told them:

John 13:34–35 CSB

“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

As Jesus teaches His disciples, He wants to make sure that they love like He does. And here’s the most important part: How will people know that His followers really are followers of Jesus? It’s by the love they show to other people. You’ve heard this before. How will people know we are Christians? By our love.

Love is what defines us. It marks us and characterizes us. At least it should. The Church hasn’t always done so great a job of this. We as the church body don’t always do a great job of this. It’s easy for us to point the finger at some pretty big wrongs by the Church through history. And we can all probably think of public Christians and churches in our time who make us cringe with anger or embarrassment at their rigid, unloving actions.

But we must also look at ourselves too. I know personally that sometimes I struggle with loving those who are different from me in various ways. I want to be known as a loving individual, a person who exemplifies Jesus in all that I do, but I know that I don’t always live up to that standard. But the wonderful thing about the Gospel is that when we are saved, then it is the love of Christ that compels us by the Spirit, not merely our own desires. Look at what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:

2 Corinthians 5:14–16 CSB

For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion, that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way.

Christian, I get it. There are a lot of people out there with whom we disagree. But we cannot look at them from that kind of worldly perspective any more. We’re compelled by the love of Christ to proclaim the hope of the message of the Gospel to them, which is to love them. Because what does love DO? It desires the very best for the object of that love. And what is the very best for everyone? To know the Lord Jesus Christ through faith, having their relationship with God restored through believing in Him. There isn’t a person out there who isn’t worthy of your love, because there isn’t a person out there that Jesus didn’t die for, which is the display of how much God loves each of us.

Of course, none of us is perfect, as individuals or as a collective Church. But each of us can certainly find opportunities in this Christmas season and in our current cultural climate to allow God’s love to flow through us to others.

On that note, we move to our third point.

3: Love empowers us to cross the borders.

Wow, these are divided times. It seems our culture, our nation, our world, our people have multiplied the ways to divide us. There is no shortage of the “us’s and the them’s.” It’s by no means an excuse, but this really isn’t all that new, even though it feels new to us. Throughout history, our world has been filled with wars and plunder and oppression, even at the time of the birth of Jesus. There have always been the weak and the powerful, the haves and the have-nots. There has been too much us versus them since Jesus’s day and even farther back in history. Sadly, there still is. And then Jesus arrived on the scene of history with a revolutionary teaching that would have seemed crazy to the hearers of the day, but which still ripples through time to this very moment:

Luke 6:27–33 CSB

“But I say to you who listen: Love your enemies, do what is good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone hits you on the cheek, offer the other also. And if anyone takes away your coat, don’t hold back your shirt either. Give to everyone who asks you, and from someone who takes your things, don’t ask for them back. Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do what is good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.

Jesus’s teaching was radical. God’s love is radical. Jesus said:

Matthew 5:43–44 CSB

“You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

Jesus didn’t only tear down the walls of division at His birth, He constantly reached across the chasm of separation and exclusion. He befriended hated tax collectors, and even invited one, Matthew, to follow as one of His twelve disciples. He spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well, which broke a couple societal taboos at once. (Jews did not associate with Samaritans, and Jewish men especially did not talk with women like this in public… and they STILL don’t in some ways.) He told His listeners that if a dreaded Roman soldier forced them to carry his pack for a mile, which the soldiers could and did do, to carry it two miles instead.

One of Jesus’s most powerful stories about this kind of unexpected love in action is the story of the Good Samaritan from Luke chapter 10. You probably know how it goes. A traveler was robbed and beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. A priest came along and crossed the road to avoid the bloody scene. A Levite (someone from the priestly tribe) did the same. But finally a Samaritan came along and saw the man, and stopped to help. The Samaritan bandaged the man’s wounds, put him on his donkey, and delivered him to an inn, where he paid the innkeeper to take care of the man until the Samaritan could return

This is a good and challenging story for us today, but it was astounding to Jesus’s ancient listeners. The Jews hated the Samaritans. Their racism against the Samaritans went back centuries to when the kingdom of Israel split. The Samaritans intermarried with foreigners and established their own temple to worship in. The Jews considered them an inferior race with a corrupt religion and viewed them with prejudice and disdain. But this is who Jesus was holding up as an example of loving our neighbor.

Jesus was crossing the divide. He reached across the cultural, spiritual, political, and racial divisions and calls us to do the same. He was illustrating the kind of love John describes later in 1 John 4:

1 John 4:18–19 CSB

There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. We love because he first loved us.

Jesus’s love is fearless love in that it calls us and enables us to cross the borders, to tear down the barriers, to reach out above the disagreements. The fear that is driven out by love is the fear within ourselves. Love overcomes the fear of the other, who may not look like us or sound like us or share the same perspective or experience as us. That doesn’t mean we agree with them about everything, but it means that we love them enough to serve them in real ways, to treat them as people, and to share the hope of Christ with them.

Maybe reaching across the divide begins in your family. Maybe in your home or neighborhood or workplace or community. Jesus at Christmas and all the time calls us together into His loving presence and invites us to make room for all, whether we think they deserve to be there or not.

There is a humility in love, a willingness to put someone else first. Sometimes love means taking the simple step of building that bridge as a gesture and an invitation. Sometimes it’s being willing to listen and not defend or attack. It is always being willing to choose to see someone else, not as “other,” but as “us”: broken but loved by God, invited into relationship with Him through faith in Jesus. This is God’s love. This is the gift of Christ. This is the heart of Christmas.

Closing

Friends, as we arrive at Christmas Day, I invite and challenge us all to rediscover Christmas by rediscovering the overwhelming, all-encompassing, all-inviting love of God.

And if you have never experienced this love that I’ve spoken of today: the love that God has shown us by sending Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins; the love that sets us free from punishment, guilt, shame, and death; then I want to invite you right now to respond in faith to the Gospel. Believe that Jesus is the Savior, that He died for your sins and rose again, and that He is the Lord of all, including you. Turn from doing things your own way and surrender to Him. You can respond in your pew, or you can come and share that with one of us up front so we can celebrate it with you. If you’re online and you are responding to the Gospel this morning, please send me an email at bill@ehbc.org.

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PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading (Matthew 1:18-25, Psalm 24 today; Luke 2 tomorrow)

No Pastor’s Study for Candlelight Service

No Prayer Meeting this week

Instructions for guests

Benediction

Ephesians 3:17b–19 (CSB)

I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

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