Christmas Eve – Love Is the Gift of Christmas
For some of us, Christmas is a wonderful time of love, joy, and beauty. For others, it is a time of stress, duress, and grief.
Our feelings at Christmas are often shaped by the significant events we’ve experienced in the year that is ending and each of us has experienced all kinds of moments and events from the exhilarating to the heartbreaking.
For some of us, Christmas reminds us of the beginning of our faith journey when we were little children, for others, perhaps this Christmas will be a beginning, the first step in becoming a follower of Jesus, God’s greatest gift of love, whose birth we celebrate.
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The first video is just the sermon.
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This video is the complete 4:00 service.
Love Is the Gift of Christmas
And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Beth-lehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. 16
And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. 18
And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. 19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. 20
And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
If you wanted to convince someone you loved them, what would you do?
I know what I and many other people have done.
You might try to tell the person in words that were heartfelt, genuine, and true.
You could try to spend as much time as you could with them to show how important they are to you and that they’re a priority.
You might give gifts of immense value or thoughtfulness to show how much they mean to you.
You might engage in act of service to help or bless them or to make their life easier or more enjoyable.
You might try hugging them, holding them, or walking hand in hand to show through your caring touch that you’re there for them and with them no matter what.
These are all ways you try to show someone you love them.
What if you were God and you wanted to convince people that you loved them, what would you do?
If you’re God, you have a lot more power and resources at your disposal than a mere person. Many people like superheroes such as Spiderman, Superman, the Hulk, Thor, and others. You may have a favorite. Each of them has a unique power that’s identified with them that no one else has that makes them a superhero.
If you look at religions of many kinds, they often imagine a god or gods with superpowers, like the characters in the Marvel Universe. What approach would you take as God of the universe if you wanted to show people you loved them?
The Bible is the story of how God expresses love to people for hundreds and hundreds of years in all the ways I mentioned – in words spoken through prophets and leaders, by encouraging people to spend time with God daily and to take a day off from work every week to worship, rest, and give time to important relationships.
God gives gifts of life, land, food to eat, water to drink, prosperity, the beauty of all creation and more.
God serves and blesses people with healing, direction, guidance, protection, and wisdom.
God cares for the people and nurtures them like a loving parent and is described as holding them close as a mother hen covering her young and having compassion as a father does for his children.
God does all this, and it doesn’t work as well as God hoped it would. People keep turning away from God, doing their own thing, ignoring all the ways God is expressing love to them and not returning that love.
If you’ve ever been in love with someone, and tried to make that clear, and your love wasn’t returned or reciprocated, but was ignored or rejected, you know how painful that is. God has experienced that and continues to do so to this very day. And that’s what leads to Christmas.
It’s like after centuries and centuries of trying, God decides, “This isn’t working, I’ve got to try something different.”
What God tries is not an expression of mighty, superhero power. God goes in totally the opposite direction and does something none of us ever would have thought of. God chooses to come to earth not in power or might, but in the humblest, weakest, most vulnerable way possible. In a way few of us ever think too deeply about or contemplate in great detail.
We tend to have a romanticized view of the birth of Jesus. In our imagination, we envision Mary in flowing robes looking like she’s just come from a spa, gentle animals gazing lovingly down on the baby who never looks like a newborn middle eastern baby and who appears to already be six months old. That’s not the way it was. It was hard for Mary and Joseph, and we shouldn’t be surprised if life is sometimes hard for us too.
Mary and Joseph were desperate to find a place for her to give birth and couldn’t find one. They ended up in an outdoor livestock area. Unclean, unkempt, unwelcome. Tradition – dating back to Justin Martyr in the second century – says it was probably some kind of cave. Smelly, damp, cold. They had to use a feeding trough as a bassinette. The word “manger” is warm and fuzzy, but don’t romanticize it. A manger was a feeding trough for the animals.
Luke tells us that Mary wrapped the baby in cloths. That was common for the day. Long strips of cloth were used to wrap the baby tight and keep their legs and arms straight and secure. The process is called swaddling.
It reveals something of the lonely nature of Mary’s motherhood that Luke records that she was the one who wrapped Jesus in cloths after His birth. In other words, there was no midwife or relative helping, which would have been the norm. She and Joseph were there all by themselves. No one offered them hospitality or help. Mary had to wrap the baby herself after going through the pain and effort of childbirth. It couldn’t have been easy. And Mary was young. Very young. At that time in that culture, engagement usually took place immediately after entering puberty, so Mary may have just entered her teens—13, 14 or, at the most, 15.
This is how God’s love is communicated, God comes in weakness. This is a picture of redemption. This is a story about being saved that can be romanticized, but that was very, very real. Real in a way that drives us to our knees to marvel at God come to Earth to save us. To save you.
As one writer (Karl Rahner) describes it, “God has come. God is there in the world. And therefore everything is different from what we imagine it to be. . .. When we say, “It is Christmas,” we mean that God has spoken into the world his last, his deepest, his most beautiful word in the incarnate Word. And this word means: I love you, you, the world and human beings.”
The question for you is, will you return the love that God has showed to you?
Love is the gift of Christmas, but each person has to decide what his or her response will be.
The holy family models love well. Joseph’s response was one of faithful loyalty. He never speaks but his actions communicate clearly. He never abandons Mary, not when she tells him she’s pregnant, not in Bethlehem, not in fleeing to and returning from Egypt. He protects her and their child and stands by them as long as he lives. True love is faithful and loyal like Joseph.
Love is also devoted, caring, and thoughtful, like Mary. Mary is caring for the baby Jesus from the moment he’s born. She heard from a divine messenger who her son would be before he was born so Mary did know from the beginning that he would be special. She pondered the message told her by the shepherds about the birth of her son who would become a Savior which was good news of great joy for all people.
Mary and Joseph returned the love God showed in their baby – they were faithful, loyal, devoted, caring, and thoughtful. Their hope and God’s is that you will return the love God has shown you in Jesus and that you will love Christ the same way.
The baby whose birth we celebrate would grow up to show people what God’s love looks like, he taught people how to live as God’s children, and he came to seek and save the lost, just like a good shepherd looks for lost sheep.
This Christmas, as we celebrate Jesus’ birth, we celebrate the most important message this world has ever heard. God loves you and sends Jesus for you. Jesus came to seek and save the lost and that’s all of us. And in his death on the cross, he opened the door to abundant, eternal, joyful life with God and God’s family.
Jesus is the best gift ever given, free for the taking, to everybody and all of creation. Christ is like free wireless, and all we need to do is connect and a whole new world and a new way of living opens up to us for all eternity.
For some of us, this Christmas is a wonderful time of love, joy, beauty, and family. For others it’s a time of loneliness, stress, dread, or grief. The good news is there may not be room at the inn for Mary and Joseph, but there’s room at the manger for all of us, no matter who you are or what you’re feeling this Christmas Eve.
Our feelings at Christmas are often shaped by the significant events we’ve experienced in the year that’s ending and I don’t think many of us are going to miss 2021. Each of us has experienced all kinds of moments and events from the heartbreaking to the exhilarating. This Christmas Eve, whether you’re here in person or watching online, with all that’s going on in your life, in our nation, and in the world Jesus’ birth can still be celebrated.
We often see in art and hear in song of wise men bringing gifts for the holy child. It makes me laugh when I hear the line in the song, “Do you hear what I hear?” “A child, a child shivers in the cold, let us bring him silver and gold.” What good are silver and gold for a shivering cold child! C’mon! How about a blanket for the kid and some hot chocolate for his parents?
I find it helpful to remember that not only can we bring gifts to the manger for Jesus, but we can also bring whatever we’re carrying that’s weighing us down.
Our grief, pain, illness, anger, exhaustion. The relentless impact of Covid.
The devastation of storms across the United States and around the world.
The internal storms within ourselves.
The daily tragedies shared on TV that leave us heartbroken and feeling helpless.
All these can be brought to the manger and given to God too.
On Christmas Eve, we embrace the birth of Jesus, the ultimate gift of love born in a manger. Christmas Day is a celebration of that love, of the good news of great joy for all people.
Each year we’re given the opportunity to be reminded of the depths of God’s love, comfort, forgiveness, grace, mercy, hope and peace even in troubling times.
And we must decide if we will return the love God offers us, or not. I hope you will because it is life transforming.
The manger scene, and all that it signifies, can be like a daily compass that reminds you of God’s gift of love, hope, comfort, forgiveness, and joy.
That manger scene remains the same and you can hold onto it and be guided by it.
All the hard stuff in your life may be your reality, but it’s not your compass. You can begin Christmas Day and every day with God’s love, comfort, and joy. Close your eyes and focus on the manger. Hear the baby’s cries. Allow yourself to be there and with open hands reach for and hold onto the gift of God’s love, Jesus. Jesus loves you. Jesus loves me. Happy birthday, Jesus. Thank you for coming.