Love Will Move Series

Love Will Move

Series: When Love Comes

December 6, 2020 – Brad Bailey

Intro

It’s SO good to be able to share this time today. As I’ve shared before, I have found that going through this pandemic bound season is hard for all of us...in various ways and degrees...and what has made the most difference is going through it TOGETHER. I find that experiencing this as a shared experience... alongside others... who we see or hear... helps us to keep our sanity and some smiles. And it’s also helps me stay centered... connected to God as the center of life. I think it’s wise to realize that the whole nature of being “socially distanced”...can have a slow and subtle effect on us becoming disoriented... as we lose our sense of center... and find ourselves drifting. So I have been praying for us... for you... that we will not let this year leave us drifting... but rather stay intentional with every source of connecting together with God.

And I’m especially glad to begin to walk into this Christmas season together. Now...I realize how different this unique “Christmas season” will be. In many ways, the holiday season comes as the final accent to this year... that’s been so strange and different... of trying to adjust to so many limits and losses. For some ...this unique Christmas season may mean a change to the usual travel...to time with extended family... to a particular event you would attend... maybe even less time shopping amidst the decorated malls.

But here’s what this unique Christmas season does offer... the opportunity to realize that the real wonder of Christmas... is as present as ever. We have an opportunity to focus on the actual ‘reason for the season’ as they say.... that of the birth of Christ...of God coming to us...for us. What Christmas is truly about...is beyond the reach of any pandemic... what entered our world has already come.

Three of the Gospel accounts tell us about the events that led to the birth of Christ... and the fourth Gospel... the Gospel of John... steps back to describe the cosmic nature of it all...as John describes...

John 1:14?The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John spoke of Jesus as the Word of God... which refers to the divine nature by which God speaks forth all that is. And Jesus became the living word... God incarnate...which means God bearing flesh. While we in our human nature are endowed with some aspect of God’s image... originally bearing his spirit.... we are not part of the source of life itself. And John is clear... in Jesus we see the glory of the one and only... who actually bears the very nature of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. It’s staggering. God becomes man... dwells with us...and then ultimately dwells within us.

I want to invite us to take this in over the next few weeks. Through this month of December...we are going to focus on the profound and astonishing reality... of love coming to reach us. The living testimony of the Gospel accounts captures how those who were closest to Jesus...could hardly take it in. As it became real... that God was present with them...it was beyond their imaginations...let alone their understanding. They had long seen that his teaching transcended the minds of men... his authority was that of God ...but how could God be with them... in the flesh. And there comes this ultimate moment... when Jesus has been resurrected as he said he would be...and he comes to them...and there they are... with his eternal existence truly present in the temporal world. The undeniable reality is that God had come... and it’s amazing and frightening...and as John describes,

John 20:21-22?Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.

“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Imagine those who first heard those words. Imagine how those first followers... wondering how God was going to finish what He had so clearly began... imagine them hearing these words. And hear them for yourself. “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

The one sent...is now sending.

If we were each asked to identify one word to describe Christmas... I can imagine many great choices... joy... peace... generosity... but perhaps the one word that we might have not considered...is SENT. Christmas in one word... is about being sent. It is the love of God that sent Christ ...and now sends us.

And how does he send us? Jesus said it... he sends us “As the Father sent him.” How Christ came into this world...and engaged the people of this world... is the way we are to go forth into the world and engage others. In these weeks leading to Christmas, we are going to give space to take in the love that has come to us... how that love then leads us in loving others.