Scandalously Amazing Love
On Christmas Day, Mike Nicholas, a tall and slim young man with dark hair was making his way south on I-85 just below High Point, NC trying to hitch a ride. For two years, he hadn’t been home. His family had heard nothing from him. He and his mother had a disagreement and he had set off across the country, going from town to town, from odd job to odd job. He was the prodigal son but now he was ready to go home. He had only 30 miles to go but a ride was hard to come by. As he stood by the side of the road, he said to himself, “Mom, I’m tired and hungry, but I’m coming home.” The cold wind blew and a few trucks rumbled by. Then from across the road, Mike heard his name called. To his surprise, it was his stepfather waving and calling to him from his truck. Mike ran across the highway as his stepfather said, “Get in Mike, we’re going home.” Mike tossed his bag in the back of the truck and embraced his stepfather. “How did you happen to be here?” His stepfather said, “I came to pick you up. Drove straight here.” But how did you know I’d be here? I didn’t write or call.” “Your mother sent me. Just this morning in her prayers for you, she knew you were coming and that you...” would be right here. The two looked at each other without saying a word. “She’s waiting for you son. Let’s go.”
Christmas is about a God who so loves his children so much that He came to bring us back home into a loving and intimate relationship with Him. The meaning of Christmas can be summed up in two verses. The first is John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The second is this: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” But here’s the most amazing thing: this God knows all of our sins and all of our shortcomings. We’re pretty good at hiding our imperfections from one another but we can’t hide our stuff from God. We are fully exposed to God and yet in spite of all our junk, God comes for us to bring us home.
Part of the mystery and wonder of Christmas is experienced in those moments when we are confronted with our true selves and our sins, when we really see the ugliness of our hearts and our lives, and we wonder, “How can God love me?” We hear about the grace of God and the unconditional love of God but the question we really struggle with is: “How can God want me? How can God love me?” When you think about it, this is irrational love. How could a perfect and holy God who knows the worst of the worst of us still love us and want us? We, who have rebelled, turned our backs on God, disobeyed his will and followed our own path, are still recipients of God’s loves as He desperately pursues us to return home to Him.
This irrational love is illustrated through an obscure prophet named Hosea in 720 BC. God says to Hosea, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife, this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” Now picture this for just a moment. You are told to marry a woman you know is going to be unfaithful to you. That’s setting you up for a lifetime of hurt and pain. And yet, that is exactly where God is with us. God has tied himself to us and this command to Hosea is an example of his scandalous, irrational love towards us. Even though He knows we will sin and rebel and cheat on Him by placing other things and other people first in our lives, God has tied and bound himself to us in unconditional love. He has not only chosen us but he has chosen to always claim and love us no matter what we do or what we fail to do. And Israel time and again proves to be a willful bride choosing to do her will rather than God’s and choosing others to be the god of their lives, turning to them for love, meaning and purpose.
Why would God choose to love and be in relationship with such a people? The answer is: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And God has not only chosen to be in relationship with us, he has chosen to be in a covenant relationship with them. Now when you enter into a covenant relationship, you have committed to be in a faithful relationship no matter what happens. So Hosea does exactly what God says and marries Gomer and what does she do? She pursues multiple relationships, with just about everyone except the one she is covenanted to. She has children by multiple men. And even worse, she becomes a prostitute in the stable of a pimp.
In this story, Hosea stands for God and Gomer stands for you and me. And Gomer’s adultery represents our idolatry, the times when we have turned our back on God and His will for our life and when we have made other things and other people first in our lives. When you express your faith in Jesus Christ, you made a vow of fidelity to God. God has entered into a covenant with us. We are his chosen people. The vast majority of people in this room have made this pledge to God and even though we may come to worship on Sunday morning or Christmas and Easter as the case may be, we go away from this place and act like the indifferent and adulterous spouse.
The problem is that we have rebelled and too often chosen to live life on our terms, believing in Jesus and what he did for us but never really choosing to accept the invitation of Jesus to live like him and live for him. And so what we have done is cut ourselves off from the source of life by trying to find life in temporal things. And we continue to live under the influence of a pimp, our world and our culture, whose goal is to get as much out of you as possible by telling you happiness comes from power, prestige and possessions. And many of us have prostituted ourselves by buying into this lie and pursuing these things, even by making Christmas about giving and receiving gifts rather than giving ourselves to the Christ child. And that is the way it has been from every generation until God once and for all said, “Enough! I am going to show you the depth and breadth of my love for you.”
God says to Hosea “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites.” Hosea’s wife is living with a pimp, has no interest in Him, has committed multiple adulteries, and has never asked him to save her. And he goes to her pimp and buys her back, brings her home to his bed and loves her as God loves her, making her his wife and the mother of her children.
This is the message of Christmas. God wants us and has come to buy you back in spite of your past, your misdeeds and your rebellion. Norman Vincent Peale tells the story of one Christmas when he was 15 and his father, a physician turned minister, received a call from a brothel in the red light district. The madam had a girl who was dying and was calling for a minister. Quietly, his father explained to his mother where he was going and called Norman to get his coat. His mother protested that he was too young to go to a place like that. “There’s a lot of sin, sadness and despair in life and Norman can’t be shielded from it forever.” Norman and his father walked through the snowy streets and came to the house where they were led upstairs to a young frail woman barely older than Norman. As his father sat on the edge of the bed, the girl whispered that she had come from a good Christian home and was sorry for the things she had done and the life she had led. “I’ve been so bad, so bad,” His father put his hands around the small hand of this girl and said, “There are no bad girls or boys, just ones who sometimes act badly. They are no bad girls or boys because God made you and God makes all things good. Do you believe in Jesus?” The girl nodded and then Norman’s father led her to ask God for forgiveness. Then he said, “God loves you, his child who has strayed, and has forgiven you and no matter when the time comes, he will take you to your heavenly home.” And Norman Vincent Peale writes, “If I live to be a 100, I will never forget the feeling of power and glory that came into that room as my father prayed. There were tears streaming down the faces of the women gathered there, and mine too, because every sordid thing, everything corrupt was simply swept away. There was beauty in the place of evil. The love born in Bethlehem was revealing itself again on a dark, dismal street in Cincinnati and nothing could withstand it. Nothing. So that was the gift I received that Christmas…the knowledge that there is good in all people, even the sad and forlorn, and no one can be lost because of past mistakes.” For “today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” That is the message of Christmas: in the midst of our sin and ur rebellion, God has paid the price by giving his only son to take human form, a son he knew in advance would be rejected, despised, scourged and crucified. Why would God do such a thing? Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. God’s sees us not as we are but rather as we can become, as we were created to be. And so the gift of this night, the birth of the Christ child, shows the length and depth God goes to reclaim us to bring us back home to him.
Marjorie Holmes writes, “At Christmas, all roads lead home. The filled planes, the packed trains and overflowing buses all speak eloquently of a single destination: home. Despite the crowding and the crushing, the delays, the confusion, we clutch our bright packages and beam our anticipation. We are like birds driven by an instinct we only faintly understand- the hunger to be (home). She then remembers a Christmas during the Great Depression when her Dad was out of work and the rest of her siblings were scattered across the country and unable to return home for Christmas. But then just days before, each sibling conspired with the others to make it home no matter what to surprise their parents. When she arrived at the door, she writes, “I’ll never forget (my mother’s) eyes or the feel of her arms around me.” The next morning she was awakened by the sleigh bells hanging on the front door as her siblings each arrived. “Together. (We realized) it was the best Christmas gift we could give one another.” Many years later, her husband had to travel to Florida to perform a vital surgery which would separate them for Christmas. They had agreed that this would be the way it is for Christmas this year but then at the last minute, Marjorie and her daughter hopped a train and headed to Florida. On the way, she saw a sailor in his uniform with his sea bag on his shoulders and she knew here was another so immutably driven to “Come home.” And then she writes, “There must be some deep psychological reason why we turn so instinctively toward home at this special time. Perhaps we are acting out the ancient story of a man and a woman and a coming child, plodding along with their donkey toward their destination. It was necessary for Joseph to go home….The Child who was born on that first Christmas grew up to be a man, Jesus. He healed many people, taught us many important things. But the message that has left the most lasting impression and given the most hope and comfort is this: that we do have a home to go to….a place where every day will be Christmas, with everybody there. At home.
God wants you, God loves you, and this night we are reminded that God has come to buy you back. Our indifference, our adultery, and our idolatry make no difference to God. He is not ever going to give up on us. He is here. He is knocking but only you can open the door. God will never force himself on you but he will always be there waiting for you to turn to him. You were made to be in relationship with him. And I’m not talking about a casual relationship. I’m not talking about where God is a part of your life. I’m talking about where God is your life and he influences and guides every decision, every thought and every action.
And what you’ll find is that you will never have life to its fullest until you give into God, open that door and come home to Him. On this the holiest of nights, may we take the time to open our hearts and lives for the one who came to buy you back and bring you home.
A time of reflection with soft music playing in the background and then quietly breaking into singing. Possible songs could be: Song “Here I am to worship” refrain or “This is the air I breath” or another suggestion Adrain might have.
Then sing, “Silent night”
