Advent – Love
As we move closer to Christmas we consider the love of God demonstrated in the incarnation of Christ. A love that enters into the chaos of our world and invites us to be a part of its healing.
01. ADVENT PROVIDES US FOUR WEEKS TO REFLECT ON THE ARRIVAL OF OUR MESSIAH.
Advent consists of the four Sundays preceding Christmas Day, and is observed by Christians all over the world as a season of anticipation. We learn to anticipate the future arrival of Christ by remembering His first arrival and reflecting on the themes of hope, peace, joy, and love.
Advent is a season of praying and waiting. Advent is a season to mourn the violence in our world and anticipate the Prince of Peace, a season to lament the brokenness in our society and anticipate the justice of God, a season to repent of the sin in our own heart and anticipate the redemption of Christ.
02. THE LOVE OF CHRISTMAS AS TOLD BY HALLMARK
The love depicted in a Hallmark movie s nostalgic, simple, and predictable. Hardly anything like the Christmas story.
02. THE GOD OF LOVE ARRIVES IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED OF WAYS.
The story of Christmas is that the God of Love shows up in the most surprising of ways and should cause us to ask the question – Am I paying attention?
“This messy, wild, loving God won’t be contained. Or appeased by complacency. Or confined to our rules and labels.This is a God who was born into troubled and violent times. As Jesus, as Messiah, he is invited back into our lives during this season, again into troubled and violent times. Chaos and discomfort are precisely what this God’s arrival cause, and where this God thrives.” – Gail Doktor, Advent Four: Love’s wild and worldly promises
03. THE FAITH OF MARY
“From the prophets, Mary knew that God could very well use someone like her—an unmarried teenage girl, a minority in an occupied territory at a turbulent time in history— to bring the Messiah into the world in the most unceremonious way: through water and womb, blood and labor pains, lullabies and gentle kisses and the helplessness of a baby’s cries. And so she said yes. She believed.” – Rachel Held Evans, Advent 4: Bringing God’s Dreams to Life
“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. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us… 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. ” –1 John 4:9-12, 17-18 (ESV)
Philippe de Champaigne's The Visitation (1643-48) depicts this moment in our story of two women carrying miracles meeting.
Elizabeth and John’s reactions depict what Luke wants of all disciples – that we recognize that life with God is a joy.
God is inciting joy within all of his Creation.
An unwed pregnant woman and a woman far past childbearing years become empowered by the Spirit and pronounce the Gospel– God is working in the uncertain and forgotten places.
04. THE GOD OF LOVE IS PRESENT
Our God is present with his people in the midst of the mess. While Jesus himself is being knit together and shaped in the womb– redemption itself is being born to the forgotten parts of our world.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it...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 1:1–4, 14 (ESV)
“15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” – Hebrews 4:15–16 (ESV)
05. SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
Two things to practice–
Being present with God.
Being present with others.
“Imagine a whole company of believers rethinking their lives, redeploying their energy, reassessing their purposes. The path is to love God, not party, not ideology, not pet project, but God’s will for steadfast love that is not deterred by fear and anxiety. The path is to love neighbor, to love neighbor face-to-face, to love neighbor in community action, to love neighbor in systemic arrangements, in imaginative policies.” –Walter Brueggemann, Celebration of Abundance (pg 25)
