God of Love

 

a precursor to

Everyone does the list of words through Advent in a different order. 

Most normally, you will see the order of Hope, Peace, Joy, Love.
I have seen the word Faithfulness go first and then Hope, Joy and Love.
Some in their liturgical ordering put Love on the 3rd Sunday and end with Joy.
Yet another group will put forgo all of the word we know and speak of Prophets, Shepherds, Angels and Magi. There really is no wrong way to go about celebrating the season Advent. But, the one thing we can do wrong is to leave Love out of the picture altogether. 

If Magi is the 4th Sunday, then we see Love being expressed in its greatest way.
Traveling from so far away, they bring gifts that will help the Savior's family make the long trek into Egypt for safety until the boy is old enough to return after the death of Herod. What would you be willing to give in order to bless a family you don't know or have never met before in your life? Love is the ultimate expression of who God is. None of us have met God. And, yet, we seem to have the unexplained connection to this faith and the God it speaks of. 

Nicodemus was a man who knew of the unexplained. It is the whole reason he comes to Jesus at night. He can't get past this nagging feeling that there is something more than what he has been taught to believe and what he himself has taught others to believe. How many of us know how to nod our heads at the correct things to believe? How many of us have been following the correct beliefs in our Christian faith? How many of us truly know what Love is? Jesus shows us what true love is. 

Last week we covered joy and we talked about the need to look beyond ourselves in being able to share Joy. Love is another step. If we have Hope and we can share in that with others, good. If we have found Peace because of what we share, good. If we can take the next step into Joy and begin to focus on the well being of others, then we are ready to move into Love. It's what God does with us. He sent his One and Only Son into a world with no Hope, that needed to find Peace, lacking in Joy, all of which could be found in the Love that only God can express. Can Merriam- Webster truly define it?

Can you gather how difficult it is to define something as exemplary as Love? Much of what we read above centers on the human emotion, the Eros or Greek meaning centers on the human carnal affection. Phileo is a word from the Greek that focus on our human desire to reach out. Agape is the word we use to talk about the Divine. John 3.16 is all about the Agape. God is reaching out to the world. He wants to bring the world close to him. This world doesn't handle change very well, however. Maybe that's why he comes in such a quiet unsuspecting way. Just a few people bothered to pay attention or listen. Too often, that how Love slips past us unnoticed. Our ears and eyes and hearts and minds miss the drawing in from God's Love. Our nature is on an intransitive plane with God. We don't share Love in the same interests or areas. We need to be shaken and moved.

Let the Love of God move you in this Christmas season. Let is shake you out of complacency into a devotion that moves beyond yourself. Move out into the world and share what God has done for you.