Advent 4: Love
Genesis 3:8-15
1 John 4:7-21
Luke 1:57-80
In the past three weeks, we have been building up to this week. In two more days, we will be celebrating the birth of our savior. We’ve used this Advent season to help us prepare for this holiday as well as reflect on what Christmas means by examining each of the symbols of the Advent wreath.
Three weeks ago, we looked at the first candle of the Advent wreath which represents Hope. From the first sin in the Garden of Eden, God had a plan for the Messiah to come. Hope was present from the very beginning. Through the announcement to Zechariah and Elizabeth, hope was given to the future parents of John the Baptist. This was the messenger who would lead the way for Jesus and his ministry. Hope manifest itself in the birth of Jesus.
Two weeks ago, we looked at the second candle which represents preparation. All through Biblical history, scripture has pointed to the coming messiah. In the book of 2nd Samuel, God made the announcement that David’s heir would be the Christ. But that was not the only preparation. Isaiah wrote that the messiah would be born of a virgin. Many situations and people had to come together to fulfill the plan God set out. The prophecies were preparations for the future. He planned it from the beginning. Those preparations led up to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.
Last week, we looked at the third candle which represents Joy. We saw the sacrifice of Abraham with his son Isaac and the joy they experienced when the sacrifice was not required. Joy was also experienced by Elizabeth and her unborn son John when they saw Mary who was pregnant with Jesus. They were face to face with their Lord and savior, and they knew that salvation was coming. We also discussed how everyday events in our lives, we share, but how much more important it is to share the joy of our eternal salvation with those who may not know the good news. We have the promise of eternal life through Jesus the Christ because of God’s grace, not because of our own efforts. The joy is here because of the birth of the Christ!
Today, we look at the final candle of the Advent wreath and examine how God’s love has been the driving force behind the birth of Jesus. The past three weeks have been nothing less than examples showing God’s love for us. We have done nothing but earn eternal damnation through our own sin and disobedience to God’s Word. But, God loves us so much, that he sent His own son to suffer and die in our steed. God is love.
The Garden of Eden
Back in the earliest recorded history, we find that God has a story of love for us. In Genesis, we read a story about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God has spent his time doing nothing but preparing a place for man to dwell. He’s created the earth, the sun, the moon, the animals and a place to live. He’s done this all for the sake of one man and one woman. Adam and Eve.
Picture this… a lush green landscape filled with every kind of fruit tree known. Ripe harvests of fresh fruits and vegetables are ready on the vine, in the trees and on the ground. Colorful flowers fill the area with roses, tulips and other assorted colors and smells. A gentle brook flows through the area in peaceful harmony with the surrounding beauty. Paradise is what Adam and Eve were brought into. They were also greeted with the immediate presence of God in their midst. They were able to talk directly with and to God. They knew their maker in a way we can only imagine.
With all these beautiful surroundings, they were given only one command to follow; do not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. One simple command that we, as sinners, could not keep. Adam and Eve both broke this rule which set all of mankind on a path of sin and with that, separation from God. God loved his creation and created a world for mankind to inhabit. He was unable to let man condemn himself because of His love for us.
God, in his infinite love of man, set a new path. Here in the Old Testament lesson we heard moments ago, we hear of the prediction of Eve’s offspring crushing Satan’s head and Satan bruising the heel of the Messiah. This is the Gospel within the Old Testament and the story of Jesus and salvation.
Love is a difficult thing for sinful man to grasp. John tried to explain God’s love for us in his letters. John knew Jesus not just spiritually, but also personally. He was there to experience first hand the love of our savior. He tried to communicate that to others in the Epistle lesson we heard earlier. “If we love one another, God abides in us.” (1 John 4:12) But, “if someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20). This is a small version of the love that God has for us. It is clear direction that we are to love all of our fellow men, not just our family, friends but our co-workers, our boss and even strangers on the street. God sacrificed so much for us, this is a small price to pay as a tribute of thanks.
The infinite love of God for man is difficult to comprehend. In our sinful flesh we are apt to be vengeful and hold grudges. We are apt to hurt those closest to us as well as strangers. Regardless of how good we are today, we are still sinful men and women. But, love can be expressed even to those we do not know. The story of Christmas is one of conscious, dedicated sacrifice and love. Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice for the mistakes of others. We can experience the joy of love because we know the story and the impact of Christmas. But, it may be more important for us to demonstrate the love of Jesus and be examples for others to see and experience that love.
Self-sacrifice for others
In The Christian Leader, Don Ratzlaff retells a story Vernon Grounds came across in Ernest Gordon’s Miracle on the River Kwai, a story based on World War II events. The Scottish soldiers, forced by their Japanese captors to labor on a jungle railroad, had degenerated to barbarous behavior, but one afternoon something happened:
A shovel was missing. The Japanese officer in charge became enraged. He demanded that the missing shovel be produced, or else. When nobody in the squadron budged, the officer got his gun and threatened to kill them all on the spot… It was obvious the officer meant what he had said. Then, finally, one man stepped forward. The officer put away his gun, picked up a shovel, and beat the man to death. When it was over, the survivors picked up the bloody corpse and carried it with them to the second tool check. This time, no shovel was missing. Indeed, there had been a miscount at the first checkpoint.
The word spread like wildfire through the whole camp. An innocent man had been willing to die to save the others!... The incident had a profound effect… The men began to treat each other like brothers.
When the victorious Allies swept in, the survivors, human skeletons, lined up in front of their captors… instead of attacking their captors, they protected them and insisted: “no more hatred. No more killing. Now what we need is forgiveness.”
The sacrifice of this one man changed the hearts of those around him. He knew that he was innocent, yet he chose to take the blame just the same. He faced the punishment to save the others. God willing, we will never be faced with a situation as grim as this one. But we can still impact those around us by our actions. As the song goes, we can show we are Christians by our Love.
Let me share another story of how love can change those around you.
Monk Story
There is a story told of an old monastery that had fallen upon hard times. It was once a great order, but as a result of waves of persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, all its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy years old. Clearly it was a dying order. Things looked grim.
In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a fellow priest from a nearby town occasionally used for prayer. As the abbot agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot on one of those occasions to visit the priest and ask him if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.
The priest welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the priest could only commiserate him. “I know how it is,” he exclaimed. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no-one comes to the church anymore.” So the old abbot and the old priest wept together. They talked for a short while and then the time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other. “It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years,” the abbot said, “but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?”
“No, I am sorry,” the priest responded. I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Savior is one of you.”
When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, “Well, what did the priest say?”
He couldn’t help,” the abbot answered. “We just wept and read the Bible together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving – It was something cryptic – was that the Savior is one of us. I don’t know what he meant.”
In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the priest’s words. The Savior is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that’s the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the Father Abbot? He has been our leader for more that a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Eldred! Eldred gets so grumpy at times. But, come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people’s sides, when you look back on it Eldred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the priest did mean Brother Eldred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Savior. Of course the priest didn’t mean me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just so ordinary. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn’t be that much for You, could I?
As they each contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat one another with extraordinary love and respect on the off chance that one among them might be Savior. And on the chance that each monk himself might be the Savior, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary love and respect.
Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander among some of its paths, or even now and then to go into the dilapidated buildings to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed this aura of extraordinary love and respect that now began to surround the five monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it.
Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery to picnic, to play, to pray. Its beauty drew them in. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.
Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the priest’s gift, a vibrant centre of light and spirituality in the realm.
The church can be an amazing place when it is working as its supposed to – when we are treating one another as if each person were Christ himself. When we are following the command Jesus left – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love should not be a foreign concept to us. But an infection environment of love often is. Through the caring for one another, we can spread the love of Christ and create a nurturing climate. Through these two stories, we can see that the expression of love can change those around you. Our actions often speak louder than words. Whether we realize it or not, the world is paying attention. As Christians, we should express Love by caring for one another, listening to what people actually have to say and by taking time out of our busy lives and trying to make a difference. The life that we lead here on earth is a temporary existence which compared to the eternal salvation of heaven.
God loved us so much that he gave his only begotten son to die for us. He showed his love for us by sending his son to atone for our sins. During his life on earth, Jesus was the example of love. He showed compassion and mercy for those who needed it and offered forgiveness to the repentant. He also explained the standard of love we are to share with others “love your neighbor as yourself.” We may not always be able to follow the command, but we should make every attempt to treat even total strangers with a spirit of love and compassion in everything we do. God didn’t ignore us when we stumbled in sin. He offered his hand to help us back to our feet.
Just as the man in the shovel story sacrificed himself for total strangers, we should also be willing to lend a hand when a stranger needs assistance. Just as the Monks change in attitude changed the mood of those around them, we also should be an example of love and compassion that has the chance of changing the mood within our own communities. God’s love doesn’t end at the church door. It extends to the whole world. In the same way, our love should not stop at our families, but stretch to all people.
