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.
So what do we see... that we can be? How did God come to us... in the birth and life of Christ...that was able to reach us...and lead us in reaching others?
Well... it begins by seeing that ...
1. Love Chooses
When love comes... it begins with a choice that loves makes. Love initiates... love is intentional... love chooses. As Jesus explained,
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.
For God so loved... Love is behind everything. Such love is at the center of existence. It is this love that created our world in its original condition. It is this love that came to save us.
It is such love...that then acts with intention. Love chooses to come.
I believe every one of us will do well to stop...and hear that a little more deeply.
What lies behind our existence... is divine love... a divine love that chose to create and then to come redeem. You are not a child of chance...you are a child of choice. You are here... meant to be here... known...and loved. God chose to come for you.
Some of us may find that we react to such a love... something in us reacts because we know there is actually so much that isn’t worthy of such love. We might feel scared by such a love. We might react along the lines of feeling exposed by such a love. We might want to say...“But I ...”...and complete the statement with the some recognition of the fraud we are ...the flaws and failures that we know we cannot hide from God.
But here’s the truth. Nothing you say will change God’s love for you.
Because his coming is rooted in his love...not your lovability. His coming is rooted in his nature...not in your nature.
Jesus didn’t say,
For God so LIKED the world ... that he gave his son.
Jesus didn’t say, “For God found our physical attraction so special that he gave his son... “
He didn’t say, “For God so NEEDED you...”.
God’s love for you is rooted in his nature. His love is not rooted in his need... it exist in his very nature.
As C. S. Lewis wrote, "God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them." - C. S. Lewis
God’s love is that love that doesn’t love something because of the value it provides...but values something because it loves it.
As one man shared with me... when his youngest daughter Rosemary, was three, she was given a little rag doll, which quickly became an inseparable companion. If that rag doll was ever lost... it had to be found. She had other toys that were intrinsically far more valuable, but none that she loved like she loved the rag doll. Soon the rag doll became more and more rag and less and less doll. It also became more and more dirty. More ragged...and more dirty... but it never effected the love that Rosemary had for her. She didn’t love this rag doll because the rag doll was beautiful, she loved her with a kind of love that made the rag doll beautiful.
We generally outgrow this type of love...but in truth...it is the very love by which we are loved. We are all of us rag dolls. Flawed and wounded, broken and bent. Ever since the Fall, every member of the human race has lived on the ragged edge. There is a wonder about human beings still that even all our fallenness cannot utterly erase. We may be unlovely, yet we are not unloved. [1]
As we surrender to that love... truly come back to that center of our existence... it begins to transform us... and allows us to take it on to others. That is... as we understand that love has chosen to come for us... so we will choose to love others.
It’s commonly said that Christmas is about giving... because God gave his son. But let’s not miss that before there was giving...there was love. God gave because God so loved.
The truth is that we can be told to give and do so without love. And when we do... it can actually become a source of resentment. Some of us may do well to realize that we can have a list of people we think we SHOULD give to...but might do well to have a list of people we first choose to love... and then give as it becomes a natural expression of love.
As we enter this Christmas season, let’s realize that the process of giving is not our biggest challenge ...the biggest challenge is loving ... actually caring about others. If we love ...we will give.
So let’s start with the most essential challenge...which is to love others. The best gift we can give...is to choose to see the inherent value of others.
The second great wonder of what we see when love comes...is that
2. Love Empties oneself of it’s privileges
Love Empties. Love lays down it’s power and privileges to reach others. I don’t presume to understand all that took place when God chose to love this world... in coming to us. But we do know that after love chose ... love laid down all it’s privileges. God the Son... the source of all power...became powerless. The source of all glory became undignified. The source of all authority ...became a servant.
As the Biblical Book of Philippians says,
Philippians 2:5-8 (NIRV)
As you deal with one another, you should think and act as Jesus did.
In his very nature he was God. Jesus was equal with God. But Jesus didn’t take advantage of that fact. Instead, he made himself nothing.?He did this by taking on the nature of a servant. He was made just like human beings. He appeared as a man. He was humble and obeyed God completely. He did this even though it led to his death.?
These words tell us of how love emptied itself... as Christ laid down all the power and privilege of divinity to reach and rescue us. [2] He chose to relinquish his rights to come to you. He chose to forfeit his advantages to come to you. He surrendered his royalty to become a servant... who ultimately gave his life. As Paul describes in this passage, when he accepted being crucified on a cross...it was the ultimate act... the ultimate act of love... to which humanity should look... and gasp. There was God... now in flesh... stripped and mocked... nailed down...and dying...in our place.
And here we are reminded that it was only the CULMINATION of such love. It began in the very coming of Christ... in Christ emptying himself of all his power... his privilege... his rights... his advantages.
Behind all that Christmas represents... is a love that emptied itself... a love that stripped itself... a love that we should gasp at.
Walter Wangerin helps reflect on this in sharing about a bird called the Hornbill that lives in the rain forests of Africa. He refers to her as an awkward, unattractive bird... who is so actually worthy of the honor... the honor of reflecting her creator. As he explains,
“She lives in a perilous place. But she flies. At all times it is her nature and her freedom to fly... EXCEPT when she mothers her children. She's called the hornbill because she's got a beak as big as a hollow log, and on top of that beak, a horn.
Watch what she does to herself for the sake of others When the time draws nigh that she should lay and love a clutch of eggs, this ugly bird transfigures herself by sweet degrees and sacrifice. She soars through the forest in search of` the perfect tree, which has a hollow trunk to receive herself and her beak and her children. When she has found it, she enters, and then she flies no more.
Immediately, with the help of her mate from the outside, she sets to work to wall the doorway shut. Mud and dung make a hard cement, a little interior fortress: no predator will break in to terrorize her children or to eat them, no! They are protected by her love.
But the wall that protects her children has imprisoned her. There is no help for it. For the sake of her children she has exchanged the spacious air of the forest for a tight, dark cell and inactivity.
She has sacrificed her freedom, which is to fly. She has sacrificed her independence too. She is reduced to trusting absolutely in her mate. And if you look...you will see a slot in the wall she's constructed, a vertical gap exactly the size of her beak. If the hornbill is to survive in her cell, she has to eat. If she's going to eat, her mate must bring her food--and then she will feed with peculiar intimacy beak to beak through this slot, almost as though she were a child herself. If her mate forsakes her, she will die. But for the love of her children, a mother has chosen dependency.
But soon, when her children are hatched and very tender, something else comes flying out of` the slot, something so terribly beautiful .... it is feathers. One by one the hornbill's feathers sail into the air and flutter down to earth. But these are not the down of her breast; they are the longest, strongest feathers of her wing. And this is an immediate act of mercy for her children, because the shafts of these feathers could wound them as she moves about in the tiny space. Therefore, she plucks her primary feathers with a monstrous beak. And what does that mean? It means that this mother has torn flight from herself. It means that she has sacrificed her very nature for the sake and the saving of her children.”
And there lies a small and simple reminder of how the very source of all love... chose to pluck himself of his glory and power. A reminder of our Christ... who chose to leave the infinite sphere of heaven... willingly... compelled by his love for you.
It is often said that Christ HAD to come to rescue us from our sin...from the tragic consequences of our independence. That misses what we dare not miss. He did NOT HAVE to come. He chose to come. He chose to deny himself. He chose to diminish himself to dependency... as an infant dependent upon another--for the sake of a people who had proudly thought of themselves as so independent.
He chose to be walled inside this world, in time and space and flesh... to rescue those who had become self-imprisoned.
He plucked himself of his power and glory lest it harm us when we came near to him.
That is the love that we stand before at Christmas... that should bring awe...and wonder... and quiet our fears of being forgotten. [3]
That is the love that the creator of everything has for this world...and has for you. That is how he loves you...and that is how he calls us to love others.
When Paul spoke of how Christ emptied himself... he begins with these words:
“As you deal with one another, you should think and act as Jesus did.” -Philippians 2:5 (NIrV)
“As you deal with one another, you should think and act as Jesus did.”
As Christ was sent...so we are sent. As love emptied itself...laid down its advantages... privileges... rights.... for the sake of reaching us...so should we empty ourselves of our rights and privileges in our love for others.
So let me ask each of us to consider...
What rights and privileges may keep you from connecting with someone else?
The recent years have been filled with facing the dynamics of unfair privileges...related to gender... and race... and more. And it often leads to a conflict of control... one group having had more control and being told what others believe they SHOULD do and even HAVE to do. DEMANDING changes can serve some structural changes. But here... at Christmas...we stand before Christ... who CHOSE to lay down his power and privilege.
What rights and privileges may keep you from connecting with someone else?
How about our gender... men...is there power and privilege in being a man that you could lay down to better love women in your life? Women...is there power and privilege in being a woman that you could lay down to better love men in your life? How about race. Again...I know that there are ideas and agendas about repairing racial injustice that some may rightfully question. But I believe my life carries a longstanding element of white privilege... and power. It’s not in the whiteness. It doesn’t reside in my skin. It resides in the social formation of my culture. It’s not a matter of any one group being inherently more or less sinful in nature. Much like gender...it is simply a matter of how power and privilege has become acquired and attached deep in the social fabric of our lives. And if that is something I believe to be true...then that becomes something I can take responsibility for trying to lay down...to cease operating from... as part of identifying with others...and loving others.
And of course... there are other sources of privilege that we may recognize can keep us separated from others... the privileges of our backgrounds, of education, of financial wealth, of having a place to live, of having family to share life with. All of these are gifts... that we can be thankful for... even as we choose to follow Christ in emptying ourselves of such privileges ...as we choose to become servants for the sake of reaching others.
There is a freedom to be found here. As we come to this Christmas season... and look how Christ came to us... we can discover a call to opt out of our world’s pursuit of status. It defies what this world encourages about the merits of being “upwardly mobile”... the ability to get more power and more privilege... more social status. When we look at Christ... we see God choosing the way of “downward mobility.” We see a world in which human life seems to desperately be trying to climb the ladder of privilege... here we see God climbing down. As many have said...the world is full of people climbing ladders that if they ever reach the top of...they will find have led to nothing. At Christmas...we see Jesus showing a better way.
And finally... the last great wonder of what we see when love comes...is that
3. Love Moves
That is... love chose to come... and stripped itself of all privilege to come...and then love made the move...from heaven to earth.
God actually “made his dwelling among us.”
God did not just TELL us he wanted us... or what he was willing to do... he actually came. Christmas is not just warm sentimental feelings drawn from a nice story... it’s about something a real move made to a real world in real history.
The point is simply that love is never an idea... it’s not just a feeling... it involves action. It moves towards another.
Christ actually left what we know as the heavenly realm. He left that which knew no bounds ... and entered time and space and vulnerability... the womb of a teenage girl... a peasant in a world that had long lost its dignity and decency... a world that now held danger and death.
Next week we’ll engage how he identifies with us further... but today I want to conclude by recognizing that love ultimately makes a move toward another.
And let’s embrace the call of love to actually move. I realize that this particular season is not one in which have the usual level of social freedom and activity... but we can still begin to consider this in our world within the reach of our lives. They may be family...neighbors...those who live in the same apartment building... co-workers we are still interacting with... or those we engage through social media.
I believe that we do well to hear these words of Jesus again...as we enter this season
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.
He was sent... sent to bring God’s love to you. And we are sent...sent to those around us.
I don’t know who all that may be in your particular life. I do know that someone needs you closer to where they are than you may be right now.
It begins with letting love come to us... to let our own hearts receive the love of God...who loved so much he came from heaven for us. And then to let that love lead us to love others. When Jesus spoke of having been sent... it wasn’t like a son sent off to fulfill some empty duty. He spoke of how the Father loves the son...and the son loved the Father...and how this mission was a bond. We are joining in this special bond. Just as he Spirit came and blessed Jesus ... declaring his identity as the beloved son...so God wants to bless us as his adopted children. Just as Jesus was endowed and empowered with the Father’s love... so are we. With his commissioning... comes his empowering them...as he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.
Christmas is about a lot of things... but as I suggested earlier... one good word I hope we will embrace this season... at the heart of Christmas...is the word SENT.
I want to invite you to become filled with a sense of mission... but not that which is imposed as a duty...but that which is energized by desire...by love...that same love that so loved the world it chose to send the son... and by which the son chose to empty himself ... and that moved to come dwell with is.
Let's pray.
Notes:
1. The illustration of the rag doll I first heard from Ian Pitt-Watson, former professor of preaching at Fuller Seminary. He shares it in “A Primer for Preachers. Leadership-Vol. 8, #2. It was also developed in Love Beyond Reason by John Ortberg, pp. 11-17
2. It is notable that many believe this text, Philippians 2:6-11, written between 50 and 60 AD, may be drawing from an oral liturgy of some type...which would mean that it reflects what had long been a shared belief... dating close to the life of Christ.
3. Drawn from Walter Wangerin, Jr., "The Manger Is Empty"
