PBPC Advent Devotional, Week 4 - Love
Week Four – Love
The Bible talks about several kinds of love, like the love between friends, or between husband and wife, or between parent and child. But this love is the love of God for Jesus and of Jesus for us. It is a decision and a promise of an unfailing relationship of delight and well-being. And the love we see in the birth of Jesus on earth foreshadows the love exhibited in his death.
Advent Song - Away in a Manger
Monday
Luke 2:6-7
6 While [Joseph and Mary] were [in Bethlehem], the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and swaddled him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Personal translation)
We hear these words and think of the peaceful old carol Away in a Manger. But birth is bloody and messy, painful and exhausting for the mom, and for the baby, too. And Jesus' mom tenderly swaddles Jesus to calm him. The familiar song asks,
"Mary, did you know… that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child whom you've delivered, will soon deliver you."
And some years later, she would have to watch him go through his own bloody, messy agony. She would seek him in a burial cave, again to wrap him.
Reflect on these actions of love. Mary's love, Joseph's love, Jesus' love. What similarities and differences do you notice?
Daily Practice
Get a Band-Aid and wrap it – swaddle it! - around your finger. Imagine God wrapping your whole self in his bandage, hugging you, holding you, healing your wounds. Delight in his enveloping love.
Tuesday
John 3:16
16 This, you see, is how much God loves the world: enough to give his only, special son, so that everyone who believes in him should not be lost but should have eternal life.
(translation by NT Wright)
God, in his very nature, in love. As a Trinity of three Persons, God has always loved. As a way of growing that love, God created humans, in his image, so that he could share more love with them. But when humans chose self over love, they walked away from God. The only way to restore that love relationship was for God to come to Earth and make it happen. In John 17:3, Jesus defines eternal life as knowing God and his son, Jesus. And knowing them restarts the love relationship.
Is there a family member or friend whom you haven't seen in way too long? Yes, you've telephoned, Zoomed, FaceTime'd, emailed, or maybe even postal mailed, but it's just not the same, is it? Feel the longing to be with them. Reflect on how that longing is what God feels to be with us. We couldn't go to God, so God had to come to us.
Daily Practice
Choose someone who could use a love pick-me-up. Pick up the phone and call them. Listen and ask interested more than you talk. Enjoy a sweet chat and wish them a Merry Christmas.
Wednesday
1 John 4:8-10
8 …God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (NIV)
At weddings we often read in 1 Corinthians 13 that
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. (NIV)
As newlyweds, we hope and pray that we can live up to that standard. But that way of being is God's very nature. God's love is a total, all-in, even-unto-death commitment for us and to us. Even though our commitment to him is pretty much partial, and tepid, and on-again-off-again.
Who do you think loves you most? God loves you more. If God were to write you a love letter, what do you think he would write?
Daily Practice
Sit for a moment with your hands on your knees. Clench your fists tightly, then open them and let them rest on your knees palms up. Close your eyes and receive God's love, wave upon wave of love, overwhelming love. Feel his acceptance, his delight. God loves you SO much!
Thursday
John 13:1, 34-35
1 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end….34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
(translation by NT Wright)
Jesus gave this command to his disciples on the last night he spent with them. And he demonstrated what he meant by washing their feet as if he were a menial slave.
What experiences of servant love have you known, either in the giving or the receiving? Why is love a command?
Daily Practice
This Christmas Eve day, pray for God to give you an act of servant love to do for someone. Do it.
Christmas
John 1:1-2, 14
1 Before the beginning began to begin, the Word already was, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning….14 And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (personal translation)
Since before time began, since pre-eternity, the Word, that is Jesus the Son of God, was always with God. And yet he released that pre-eminence, that majesty, that power, and limited himself to become as fully human as we are. He knew birth, and growth, and loss, and love, and grief, and purpose, and abandonment, and joy. It is truly a mystery that Almighty God, the One and Only, could and would limit himself so much. And it is a gift (grace) to us that he did so.
Before you open your various Christmas gifts, pause for a moment and reflect on the gift of the incarnation – the becoming human – of Jesus. Thank him. Offer him the gift of your heart and love.
Daily Practice
Get out your Advent stone and hold it. Turn it over in your palm. Reflect that Jesus' birth into humanity is the answer to a hope for which humankind had been yearning since Eden days. Thank God for his faithfulness to his promises. Pray for him to faithfully fulfill the rest of his promises by praying the Lord's Prayer: 'Thy kingdom come; thy will be done.'