An Uncommon Love

Hello! Merry Christmas! Here is this week’s Living Water! It’s a remix of Sunday’s message. Please remember to listen to Walk With Me, Wednesday night, 8 pm on yfnradio.com. And if you’re in the North Jersey area, please join us on Christmas Eve, 5:30 pm at First Reformed Church of Saddle Brook. Blessings, Christopher

An Uncommon Love

So I typed “the need to be loved” into Google and it registered 362 million results. Not surprising right? 

Just a quick survey of conversations with family and friends as well as today’s popular songs, television shows, movies and books reveals that many of them revolve around this quest to love and be loved. 

This is not necessarily a bad thing. To love and be loved, well, those are good things. It’s the kind of loving though that is presented through these media and more importantly, the loving that many of us experience in life that is concerning. Because with reality and in media, we don’t often see loving that is healthy, life-giving and whole. And yet it is driving a significant amount of behavior and decision-making – ranging from well-intentioned to foolish to destructive to even worse. 

Unfortunately, much of the love we experience and witness is based on appearances and surface, self-serving, often manipulative, convenient, and safe; in other words not really love at all. In addition, what adds to fuel to the fire with all of this is the strong connection between self-worth and loving. 

And yet, at the heart of all the sentimentality of Christmas is a great, wonderful, powerful, transforming truth: God’s uncommon love is made visible in the birth of Christ. Let me show you…

This uncommon love has four characteristics. First, it’s a faithful and promised love. It’s hard to find good examples of faithfulness and kept promises today. When Jesus was born, it was the fulfillment of a promise God had made to His people, that their redemption, the whole world’s redemption would come through David’s lineage. “I will maintain my love to him (the promised descendant of David – Christ) forever, and my covenant with him will never fail (Psalm 89:28).” When Jesus was born that never failing love was nearer than ever before and remains as close and promised today for us through the new covenant in His blood and through the Holy Spirit.

The second characteristic of God’s uncommon love is that it is unconditional – meaning there it is a free gift – we don’t earn it, keep it or remove it. Why? Because God loves us uncommonly because it is about Him; it’s His character. Much of the love we experience is based on our behavior, expectations, agendas and more. That’s not God’s love. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10).” God’s love as made visible in the birth of Christ was about Him and was His initiative. In our lives today, He loves us…just because. Unconditional love is so liberating – it frees us from who were were, from the past, it upholds us in the present and allows us to step confidently into the future. 

The third characteristic of this uncommon love is that it is sacrificial. Loving sacrificially is not too popular today. We want to love and be loved…conveniently, safely and without any pain. That usually doesn’t work out anyway. But God’s love in Christ is very different. “Who, being in very nature, God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness…(Philippians 2:6-7).” He was and is the Son of God and He completely condescends to us – Creator taking the form of one of His creations – to live, suffer, die and be raised for us – out of love. It wasn’t a mistake or random event that He came here. There is truly nothing like this. 

Finally, the fourth characteristic of God’s uncommon love is that it is daring. Jesus coming into this world as a human, as a child – think of the vulnerability, the risk. This is what moves us we about romantic love – a hero or heroine risks and dares to love when it doesn’t make sense, in ways that do not make sense or are unconventional. As well, Jesus enters this world not just as a vulnerable child – God dwelling in the flesh, so close, but then He dares to and actually does reach and transform human hearts, while at the same time challenging the religious establishment and turning social conventions upside down. He loved and still does love the unlovable among us and sheds His grace upon our unlovable characteristics – this is a daring, risky, nonsensical love – but it’s true and it’s ours. 

You’ve heard Garth Brooks, Adele and others sing this song. I ask you to listen to it as if it were coming from Jesus, “When the evening shadows and the stars appear and there is no one there to dry your tears, I could hold you for a million years to make you feel my love…I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue, I’d go crawling down the avenue, know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make you feel my love…Go to the ends of the earth for you, to make you feel my love.” This song echoes all of these God love characteristics. When you think about all of these together – faithful, unconditional, sacrificial, and daring – this uncommon love of God is, for many of us, barely believable – too good to be true. It’s inspiring and breathtaking and adds such meaning to what Christmas is really about: the revelation of God’s love in Christ – powerful, transforming, healing and ultimately saving…in other words, a miracle, a visible demonstration of God’s love and power. 

It’s the love you’ve been searching for, the love of which you’ve dreamed, the love you’ve been thirsting for…and it’s the love that doesn’t have to be sought after or found; it finds us…it has found us – that’s the baby in the manger! Please hear me today. Loving and being loved never should have been and no longer has to be a distorted, fearful, manipulated, or pretentious experience. Oh, when we awaken to find and behold the gift of God’s uncommon love for us in our hearts and lives – it’s better than even the best Christmas morning gift opening! Then all the fear and self-serving and confusion can disappear as fast as the wrapping gets torn off presents. And then when you and I, depending on God, start to try to love others in these ways – loving spouses, children, family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, fellow church members, everyone faithfully, unconditionally, sacrificially and daringly…what’s possible is this amazing, uncommon love of God becoming more and more visible so that while it may not be a baby in a manger or a man on a cross or an empty tomb; but it will still be His body. Christ in and through you and I – loving, reaching, restoring, liberating, lifting up, and embracing right here, right now for all the world to see and know. 

May the gift and miracle of God’s uncommon love truly become yours this Christmas.  

Amen. 

Rev. Christopher B. Wolf

Isaiah 42:7

cbrianwolf@gmail.com

www.christopherbwolf.com

 

Christopher B. Wolf is the author of Giving Faith a Second Chance: Restarts, Mulligans and Do-Overs (2007) and With You Every Step of the Way (September, 2011); and the host of Walk With Me, Wednesdays 8 pm on WYFN 94.9 FM-NY and on http://www.yfnradio.com.

 

“It is a matter of sharing and bearing the pain and puzzlement of the world so that the crucified love of God in Christ may be brought to bear healingly upon the world at exactly that point.” N.T. Wright

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2011 Christmas Letter

Advent 2011

 

 

Dear Members and Friends of First Reformed Church of Saddle Brook:

 

 

“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19

 

 

For as long as I can remember, there is a single moment I long and wait for every Christmas Eve…

 

It’s after the service, after gatherings we might attend, it’s after everyone else has gone to bed…

 

In the sacred quiet of this miraculous night, I sit and try to treasure up “all these things and ponder them in my heart” – the wonder of God coming near – Emmanuel.

 

As this season continues and we approach this night of wonder, I invite you to please join us for the following:

 

            Sunday, December 11 – 10:30 am           Worship on the Third Sunday of Advent

            Sunday, December 11 – 4 pm                 Annual Vespers Program with Dinner

            Sunday, December 18 – 10:30 am           Worship on the Fourth Sunday of Advent

            Saturday, December 24 – 5:30 pm          Christmas Eve Service

            Sunday, December 25 – 10:30 am           Christmas Morning Worship

 

I know, I know, we live in a cynical, non-stop time; and to say that I am still amazed and in awe may be surprising. But if you think about it, no matter how many Christmases that we share and experience, the story, the event, the miracle is still as awesome as it was at the first one. God chose to come to us and to save us. It takes my breath away when I go there and sit with Him in the quiet of that night.

 

As the heavenly messenger proclaimed with a light that conquered the darkness that night, “Do not be afraid, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:11).” If there was ever news too good to be true…and yet it was and is true. The hopeless, hapless shepherds lives are turned upside down as they are told to go see the proof – a baby wrapped in cloths lying in a manger (Luke 2:12). He came to us. In just one night as the Son of Heaven bent down to dwell on earth – the separation from God was being bridged, being poor was never the same, being hopeless and grieving were never the same, being on the outside was never the same, sin and death would never be the same either.

 

And He still comes to us, while we are still sinners, while we forget about Him, while we are distracted, while we despair, while we think this is “just another Christmas.” I invite you this year more than ever before, to take all these things – His arrival, His promised return, His sacrificial and transforming love, His death and resurrection and His Kingdom and reign – and “treasure up all these things and ponder them in your hearts.”

 

After the trees, lights, gifts, carols, cookies and food; in the quiet of Christmas Eve and in the quiet of our hearts and souls – the hope, the peace, the joy, the love – the wondrous, once and yet eternal gift of God in Christ can come alive again.

 

 

In Christ’s Love,

 

 

Pastor Christopher B. Wolf

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Presents and Presence

Maybe it’s just easier…

Maybe it’s just easier to believe that a jolly old elf flies around the world in one night driven by reindeer, somehow comes into every home undetected, consumes tons of cookies and milk, and makes and brings billions of gifts to good girls and boys everywhere.

(Sounds even wilder when described like that!! LOL)

And yet, in a just a few days, children will believe in that with their whole hearts, and all of us willing accomplices wink and play along. And beyond that, it’s not just a parent and child thing – it’s a cultural cornerstone.

I know, I know, Santa is safer. Believing in or going along with Santa doesn’t require any risk – it doesn’t cost anything (soul-wise). Giving gifts and bringing joy – these are all good things!!

But there is something better…

If it is outrageous or silly to believe all this Santa stuff (unless you’re a child)…what about the outrageous, ridiculous, comical, and delusional idea that Jesus, the Son of God, the second person of the trinity, the Word of God, who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin – was the child born in Bethlehem some two thousand years ago? And that He dwelled among us, presence, in the flesh and was full of grace and truth? And, that all of this came from God’s steadfast love – that He loves us this much?

Now when we truly believe in Him and it affects our lives – it is risky and it does cost us. That’s the difference between the commercialized Christmas and the real one – between presents and presence. The real one asks us to believe in people and things that aren’t visible – that we can’t prove with scientific methods. It asks us to love the unlovable, it asks us to give of our time, money and talents to what the world views as losing causes, it asks us to forgive and then forgive again and again.

Listen, Santa’s nice and generous, but he wasn’t born to save us from our sins and lead us to live a transformed, God glorifying, truly satisfied life.

So, on that magical night, in which the hopes and fears of all the years are met, can you and I believe with our whole hearts, minds, strength and soul that this gift of Jesus is real and that it is for you and me and for others; and can we believe in and live in ways that show His presence shapes our lives in the present?

Because after all the wrapping is thrown away and food is cleaned up everybody goes home and the tree comes down and it’s all over, there is still one gift there, the best gift of all.

It’s more than a jolly old elf bringing gifts. It’s more than a holiday. It’s more than the gifts and time with family and friends. It’s that God, who didn’t have to and on many levels doesn’t make any sense in doing, came to dwell with us – to be present with us, to love us, to save us and to open the way to Heaven for us.

Can we believe it?

Can we share it?

Merry Christmas and Amen.

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Christmas Letter of Hope – 2010

Advent 2010

Dear Members and Friends of First Reformed Church of Saddle Brook:

It started with a dream.

Just when Joseph had resolved to give up his betrothed Mary, an angel appeared to him in a dream – calming his fears, encouraging him to marry Mary, and that the child she was bearing was the one whom the prophets had foretold – as impossible as it seemed, that God would dwell in flesh among his people and save them. Now that’s a dream!

It is said that Joseph awoke from this amazing dream and obeyed what he was asked to do – and their son Jesus was born. This same Jesus is the one whose miraculous birth we celebrate all these thousands of years later in this season of possibility. Please join us for these events to celebrate this glorious season:

Sunday, December 19 – 10:30 am        Worship on the 4^th Sunday of Advent

Friday, December 24 –    5:30 pm        Christmas Eve – Candlelight & Carols. Invite friends!

You know, a little like Joseph, we find ourselves in difficult times with seemingly few options. The economy, jobs, our culture, even the church in the world and our own church – all give us pause. But God has not left us without dreams either. There is the dream that during this difficult economic time, we can watch God provide and rediscover what really matters. There is the dream that our culture can awaken and turn away from destructive things and return to God. There is the dream that the worldwide church can become more united and alive by embracing the lead of the Holy Spirit. And, there is the dream of our own church here in Saddle Brook, to be renewed and strengthened. A dream of a church that is passionate for Christ, sharing and growing together and demonstrating the love, compassion and grace of Christ for neighbors and the community around us.

A little like Joseph, we may be astounded at what we hear in dreams like these. But, a lot like Joseph, let us, despite how impossible our dreams may seem, be faithful and wait on the One who makes all things possible. Let us be faithful and wait on the one who promises to renew our strength like wings of eagles. Let us be faithful and wait on the One long ago came to dwell with us and never leaves or forsakes us.

This is the season of possibility! And to dream and to embrace dreams in a season of possibility is a glorious gift of God! My prayer for us is that we, through the season of Advent and remembering the birth of Christ this year, experience the words of Psalm 126, “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy…”

It starts with a dream.

In Christ,

Pastor Christopher Wolf

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Heavenly Peace

Philippians 4:6-7

Heavenly Peace (Remix of Sunday’s Sermon – audio at www.firstgrandville.org under Resources and Downloads)

Peace, real peace seems hard to come by these days. Where can it be found?

In the world, in our nation, in our churches, in our communities, in our homes and in our hearts – there is little peace. Everywhere you look, there seems to be strife, turmoil and havoc.

And it shows no signs of stopping.

I don’t know that I have any answers about stopping it. Which really only leaves – how to exist, survive, and maybe even thrive in the midst of the turmoil.

Obviously, there are a lot of choices as to how we try to search for peace in our lives. This peace can be defined as rest, or an escape, or an inner calm.

Usually we seek peace through the things of this world. And we usually seek it on our own power.

Have you ever heard the phrase “Starting off on the wrong foot”? Any search for peace that begins with “I” is like that. It may work for a while, but in the end it will probably make things worse.

For example, when we are stressed and overwhelmed by all this turmoil in our lives and we want to find some peace, some might think, “I need a drink” or “I need another prescription or pill” or “I need to go on the Internet to look at some pictures” or “I need to use (drugs or people)” or “I need to go shopping” or “I just need to control others or situations” or many other things that “take the edge off.” And unfortunately, when we rely on these “sources” of peace too often, well, they can become quite the opposite of peace – they can become prisons and cause more and more chaos in our lives. When we rely on them so much – we can start to worship them. The problem is that they are “gods” that don’t give life or peace – they steal them.

You see, the things of this world cannot produce the peace we actually desire. Seeking peace with anything that begins with “I” won’t work. But there is one thing that can…

“Don’t fret or worry.  Instead of worrying, pray.  Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.  Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down.  It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life (Philippians 4:6-7 The Message).”

Did you catch that? “A sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down.” God’s wholeness – better than anything on earth – check. Everything coming together for good – not worrying about yesterday, today or tomorrow – check. (It) will come and settle you down – received rather than sought after or created – check.

Received from where?

Received from knowing and believing in Jesus as savior and that through Him we are forgiven and free – this is the one true source of peace in this world, but not of this world – from Heaven above.

“None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I am absolutely convinced that nothing – nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable – absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us (Romans 8: 38-39 The Message).”

Received how?

Received through prayer. Prayer doesn’t start with “I” – it starts with “Lord” or “God” or “Help!” “Instead of worrying (or seeking peace in the things mentioned above), pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers…” Like using a hammer, we need to use prayer to bang and shape our fretting, worries and strife into requests and cries to God – who will hear them and respond.

Guess what else prayer does? There is a letting go in prayer. Maybe you have heard it as “Giving it over to God.” When we are “doing” something ourselves or just continuing to worry we are keeping it. When we pray, we are giving “it” to God. Each time we pray about something, it is a little less ours and little more in God’s hands. Do you see?

I have heard so many great stories of people, in the middle of disasters and chaos, talk about feeling at peace – facing death even, with peace. Some have described it as feeling like they are being enveloped in a warm blanket. I just know it’s real. I have been blessed to witness it many times. For me personally, I can think of times where things looked pretty bad, but somehow I felt okay – the experience was like God whispering “It’s okay” and I believed it and it was wonderful. I just need to rest in that more!

“It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life (Philippians 4:7).” Focusing on Christ and others instead of ourselves through prayer is a main catalyst of this process of displacing worry and all the ways we have tried to deal with turmoil in our lives.

Speaking of prayer, my prayer for us during this season when we think and sing about “heavenly peace” is this: I pray that God gives each of us the clarity of vision to see and name those places in our lives where we are seeking peace in ways that ultimately make things worse; and that the peace of Jesus Christ will not only knock on the doors or our hearts but will tear them down if necessary and chase away strife, turmoil and havoc and replace it with a peace we have never known.

Amen.

Discussion Questions

1. Before reading this, how would you describe peace?
2. Are there some things you are doing to deal or cope with life that may offer peace in the short-term but are actually destructive? Is there someone you can talk to about it?
3. Are you feeling overwhelmed often? What are the sources of these feelings? Try turning each one into a prayer.
4. What are some ways you can turn worries into prayers today?

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christopher-B-Wolf/17378287393

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Once Upon a Time, Christmas 2008

You know that every great story starts with “Once upon a time”…when you hear those words…it makes you think a certain way…

Every great romance story has key ingredients – you need a hero, you have a beloved who has become lost or captured or stolen, you have an enemy or at least some tremendous obstacles, you have a daring rescue, and then you have the reunion…

Have you ever thought of Christmas in this way?

Let me show you…

Once upon a time, there was a King and he was Holy and He was almighty and He was Good and He was Just. And he created a beloved, a people that He made with His own hands. And His one desire was for them to belong to him, to be His own people.

The King had a powerful enemy who envied the relationship between the King and his beloved people. And almost immediately began poisoning the hearts and trust of the beloved people with seduction and suggestion. And, as is often the case, they developed what we would call, wandering hearts…the King always kept his promises to the beloved people but they would always break them.

Their wandering hearts and love for the King caused them to be separated, distracted, impure, lost and in darkness, asleep you might say, certainly unable to see or hear him.

Well, the King knew all along what it would take to win his beloved people back. It would take a daring rescue. It would take losing something very dear to him, but this love was worth it to him. The King would send his son, the prince to rescue the beloved people – he would risk it all.

But first, he knew that in order to awaken this love, he would have to appear in such a way that his love would recognize and see a rare beauty…and so he appeared in the form of a child, a baby. He knew that it would it be very important for the beloved people to see themselves in the prince. They could say, “He is like us…and if he is like us, maybe we could be like him.” And perhaps that would enflame their hearts for the prince.

Now part of this was for recognition because of course who can resist loving a child…but there was another purpose, the prince knew that in order to win the beloved people back, he would have to meet them where they were – he would have to descend to where they had fallen, which was in the darkness and decay of the world and bring light into that darkness in such a way that the beloved people would be able to step out of the darkness and follow the prince back. This would have to happen, not through a spell, not through magic but through true love and living in a way that made the love belong again to the king. And the people who were unable to do this on their own, would be given the power to step out of the darkness through the gifts of the prince – namely, his life, his words, his Spirit which he would give to them and his absorbing all the evil and corruption and darkness of the beloved people, so that it could be destroyed.

You see the love had lived so long in the darkness that it had become rather comfortable. And the enemy of the prince who was crafty, had seduced the beloved people into a way of living that was not worthy of the King. And because of who the King was, his character, his beloved people had to be made worthy of Him and they were not so, while in the darkness.

And so the prince had to come not only to be visible enough to be seen in the darkness, he had to teach the beloved people the way back to God, but also had to pay the price for the love’s unfaithfulness. Which he did with his life, but that’s a story for another time…

And so on an ordinary night, long ago, the prince came into the world, like any other child, and began the rescue of the King’s people. But it wasn’t easy, he was a prince born into poverty, he was light and he came into darkness, he was life and enemies wanted to kill him as soon as he was born…

I would tell you that this was the end, but it was just the beginning, because many of the King’s beloved people did see the beauty of the prince and fell in love with him and returned to the King with the hearts and with they way that they had lived, just as the King had known all along…the plan is working!

And although the darkness still existed, it was never the same after the prince’s arrival and the beloved people not only returned to the King but they started to help rescue others who were lost in the darkness by sharing the great story of the prince’s rescue – which drew people out of the darkness into the light.

And to this day, while the beloved people live for the King, they wait for the prince who after completing the rescue went back to the King and promised to return and bring them to the Kingdom one day…the great reunion that has already begun when the King and His beloved people will be reunited fully and forever, happily ever after you might say…

So I have no “The End” for you…this story is “to be continued” until that day…

Beloved people of God, this is no fairy tale romance, this is our good news story, our real story, our story of faith, and we are his beloved people for whom he sent his son the prince who would trade his life for ours to rescue us as well as giving us the power to turn away from the darkness and step toward the light…

Once upon a time, we were a people that walked in a deep darkness, but on us a light has shined. Once upon a time, on this wonderful, mysterious night, our hero, Jesus, came into this world disguised as a child and began rescuing us. Once upon a time, and even now…

Amen.

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The Unlikely Rescuer

 

It’s seems easier and easier to get lost in what Christmas isn’t about…

 

Black Friday, gift cards, parties and other events are all well and good. And in religious terms, we talk about joy, hope, peace, love (sounds a little 60’s doesn’t it 😉 and things like the Incarnation.

 

But beneath of all that, like the bulbs beneath the snow, there is something wonderful and mysterious, just waiting to emerge. It’s the true meaning of Christmas…

 

Madelyn’s Jesus Storybook Bible calls it “The Secret Rescue Mission” that God had been planning all along. And so we all think that if God is planning a rescue mission it is going to be perfect – all the necessary resources, personnel, and well planned. Maybe the first century version of Jack Bauer? 

 

True on all the right stuff and the right person. But I think we would all say on some level, it certainly didn’t look like it at first. I mean, to rescue us all…sending a baby born out of wedlock to a virgin, in poverty, in a stable with an animal’s feeding box as his bed? This doesn’t sound like a good start to a worldwide rescue, right?

 

It has to make us wonder what this really was all about.

 

Christian recording artists, 4 Him have a song that I have been hearing on the radio recently. It is called, “Strange Way to Save the World.” Amen. Here are some of the lyrics, “But this is such a strange way to save the world; To think of how it could have been/If Jesus had come as he deserved/There would have been no Bethlehem/No lowly shepherds at his birth/But Joseph knew the reason/Love had to reach so far…”

 

It is a strange way to the save the world, isn’t it? When we think of trying to save the world today, we would think of power, or influence or money or bailouts. But to save us from our sins and the accompanying carnage, as it was then and is now, no amount of human influence nor wealth could save us from rescuing our rebellious hearts.

 

Like the song says, if the Son of God came into this world as He deserved, it wouldn’t have been in Bethlehem, or in the quiet of night, and instead of shepherds there would have been kings and rulers (and probably celebrities) gathered at his arrival.

 

See, God has this inclination of using unlikely people, things and circumstances for accomplishing His purposes and revealing His character in this world, then and still today.

 

Back then he used people like Abraham (the old guy from nowhere with his barren wife) to be the father of God’s people. Moses, the guy with the speech problem to be God’s spokesperson? The smallest guy of the family (David) slays the giant and becomes the most favored king of Israel. Joseph and Mary? Why are these people being picked for this important stuff? Why? Because when God uses the unlikely person or thing, it is more recognizable that it was God at work than if it were the expected or the powerful, right?

 

And today? Well, what I think is that God frequently shows up in the worst circumstances to demonstrate His best about Himself and His people. Let me say that again, God works and shines through the worst circumstances to demonstrate His best – God’s love, comfort, light, power and are all most visible in our worst times – that is the heart of the Gospel aka Good News.

 

For example, no one wants to see a young man with a family diagnosed with a terminal disease – that is not what God intended when He created the world. And yet, when this member of our church was diagnosed with a terminal disease almost two years ago, our congregation was led to demonstrate the love of Christ by thousands of prayers and by helping his family with everything from meals to cleaning to an purchasing an accessible vehicle and building them a house. And in turn this young man and his family have experienced the love of God in ways there never could have imagined, and so have all the people who have prayed and helped. In the worst of circumstances, God’s best has become very, very visible. God’s grace is always most visible when we are broken and in need.

 

And we think, there has to be a better, easier way for God’s best to be made visible. Why does it have to be this way, this unlikely, strange way?

 

Let me try. See, we live in a broken, broken world full of sin, evil, violence, disease, vanity, lust, corruption, hunger for power and wealth – all the things that aren’t of God. Our vision is blinded by all of these things. Our lives are contaminated and infected by them. So much so that we often long for and turn to and rely on very human, obvious, and likely prescriptions or answers for them – rather than turning to God.

 

And you know that God could fix all of this in an instant (and ultimately will fix it all one glorious day) but until then He chooses to work not around, not over, but through all the brokenness.

   

So the “love had to reach so far” (or be so humble) because the sin and brokenness goes that wide and deep. And Jesus’ arrival into this world had to be so unlikely and strange so it could be seen and remembered. So that thousands of years later, it would still be as mysterious and wondrous and curious as it was the first time.

 

In a world of bad news, in a world of often the worst news, in a world where the news is often forgotten the next day – somehow this strange, unlikely way of saving the world is still good news, still the best news we have.

 

And because of that best news, and in spite of all the bad news, we can still see and believe and hope and rejoice that God came to dwell with us in the flesh in order to save us…that above all, is Christmas.  

 

Amen.

 

Discussion Questions

1. Have you ever wondered why God uses unlikely circumstances to reveal things about Himself?
2. Do you have a story of when God moved in a “worst time of your life?” What happened?
3. What can we do to open our hearts to this mystery and make it like new?
4. Have you grasped why the “love had to reach so far?”  

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The Face of Love

Please click on the below link to hear my sermon from this morning. It starts about 30 minutes into the audio/file. Blessings, Christopher

 http://www.firstgrandville.org/downloads/122307_the_face_of_love.mp3

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