Advent 2020: Love

Week 4 of Advent is the week that we light the second to last candle of Advent.  This candle represents love. But what is love? Is it an action? Is it a feeling? 

Love comes in many different ways.  We love movies, certain foods, places to visit, or songs.  There is also the love that has to do with relationships.  We love our parents and family members.  We love our friends.  We love our wives and husbands.  We love our pets.  We love ourselves.  We love God. 

Matthew 1:18-24:

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:  ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’ When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.

I look at these verses and I think about the movie The Nativity Story. Can you imagine how hard it must have been for Joseph to not make an accusation and still marry Mary? Here is the woman he was betrothed to, and she's pregnant? Now we all know a modern man would accuse the girl of being unfaithful, and I am sure that crossed Joseph's mind too. In the movie, her parents Joachim and Anna were livid, begging her to say it was one of Herod's men. The entire village gossiped about her. Here was Mary, a virgin when she became betrothed to Joseph, she went to visit her family in near Jerusalem and she comes home pregnant. What was her family to think? 

Mary's only come back was "I have broken no vow. An angel told me..." Now, let's be honest here, if your child came to you and said that an angel had spoken to them, they'd be in the psychiatrists office first thing Monday morning, especially if you've never experienced that sort of thing before or didn't believe in it. Yet in Judaism, angels (Hebrew: מַלְאָךְ‎ mal’akh, plural: מלאכים‎ mal’akhim) are supernatural beings that appear throughout the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), rabbinic literature, apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, and traditional Jewish liturgy as agents of the God of Israel. They are categorized in different hierarchies. Their essence is often associated with fire. The Talmud describes their very essence as fire. And the people of Mary's time would have been familiar with angels as messengers, but ti would still be hard to believe that an angel of the Lord had come to Mary. 

So God sent Gabriel once again to Joseph to assure him everything Mary said was true. Therefore he made no accusation, he took Mary to be his wife and claimed Jesus as his son. I imagine Jesus growing up in his father's carpentry shop learning the trade, even though Joseph is worried he can't teach him anything, yet he taught him how to be a carpenter. 

This week, we see that God loves us so much that He sent his Son to live among us. We see that Joseph loved Mary in such a way that he didn't raise accusations against her, we see that Mary loved God so much that she didn't question Him, and accepted her calling. 

Advent Week 4 Prayer: 

Heavenly Father, The whole meaning of Christmas can be explained in one little four letter word…LOVE. You sent your gift of pure love to us that first Christmas. Love descended from heaven to be born of a virgin. Love lay in the scratchy hay of a manger in a meager barn in Bethlehem. All of your love, God, was robed in the delicate skin of a baby and wrapped in swaddling clothes. This final week of Advent, help us to reflect on the magnitude of love that was made manifest in Jesus.

Your word became flesh and you made your dwelling among us when Jesus was born. You set aside all of the glory and splendor of heaven and chose the most humble way to enter into your kingdom. Beneath the stars, surrounded by all of the hosts of heaven, Love came. Welcomed by an earthly mother and father, shepherds and wise men, Love came. 

You are King and King and Lord of Lords, Messiah and Ruler of All, yet you came not as a lion but as a lamb. You came as an innocent baby whose purpose was walk this earth in complete love, and then to sacrificially give his life as an atonement for the sins of His children. Emmanuel. God with us. Love in the form of a man.

That was your plan. From beginning to end, you knew every minute of Jesus life. You knew that the cross of Calvary was waiting for Jesus, yet you still sent your only Son so that our sin debt could be paid and we could walk blameless because of the shed blood of Jesus.There is no greater gift then this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends. You willing gave the gift of your life because of your love. Your righteous blood covered our sin. You redeem and restore us when we confess you as Lord and Savior of our life. In that moment you give us the gift of your love for all eternity. We receive grace upon grace and mercy upon mercy in that moment.

The greatest gift of all came that first Christmas. It wasn’t wrapped in a beautiful package and set under a decorated tree. The greatest gift came wrapped in the flesh of baby Jesus and laid in the rough wood of a manger. Our perfect gift would later be rewrapped in the scars of our sin and nailed to the rugged wood of a cross on Calvary, all because of love.

Father, this final week of Advent, fill our hearts and minds with the significance of that truth. Thank you, Lord, for loving us enough to send Jesus. In Jesus’ precious name we pray. Amen