|
|
Christmas Day John 1:1-14 Not long ago, a group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4-8 year olds, “What does love mean?” I’d like to share with you some of their responses. From Karl, age 5, “Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.” From Emily, age 8, “Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My mommy & daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss.” From Chris, age 7, “Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.” While these are really good, here’s a couple that are also pretty deep. From Billy, age 4, “When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.” From Rebecca, age 8, love is like “When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too.” And here are the two that really caught my attention for today and the ones I’d really like for you to remember. From Karen, age 7, “When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.” From Bobby, age 7, “Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.” I use these quotes a lot in my wedding sermons because, as you know, weddings are a celebration of love and commitment. You often you see the bride and the groom up here batting their eyelashes at each other and you can almost see the little stars coming out of them as their eyes meet when the brides comes down the aisle. Well, I wanted to share with you these quotes about love today, not because today is a wedding day for anyone I know, but because Christmas is also a celebration of love and commitment. The difference with today is that it isn’t a celebration of love and commitment between a bride and a groom, but rather, it’s a celebration of love and commitment from God to us. Today is the day that God declares his loves to us, it is the day where God makes a commitment to us. Today is the day when we celebrate that God took on our human existence in the form of Jesus and lovingly committed himself to us and to the entire human cause. Today is the day that our God was born to us and his birth is the consummation of so many promises in the Old Testament. It is God’s way of saying to us, “I, the Creator and King of the Universe, take you, my beloved, to have and hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live.” Little Karen, age 7, had it right. When you love somebody, as God loves us, on this day, Mary saw his little eyelashes go up and down for the first time and that star came out, signifying to all God’s great love for us. Paul Harvey tells a story about a man who didn’t believe this love. He didn’t believe that there was a god, and he certainly didn’t believe that even if there was a God, that he would lower himself and take on human form to show the world how much he loved it. This man who had no faith didn’t hesitate to let others know about how he felt about God and religion and especially religious holidays, like Christmas. His wife however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have faith in a loving God, despite her husband’s disparaging comments. One snowy night, his wife was taking their children to a Christmas Eve service in the farm community in which they lived. She asked him to come, but of course he refused. “That story is nonsense!” he said. “Why would God lower himself to come to Earth through a man called Jesus? That’s ridiculous!” So she and the children left, and he stayed home. A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. Sitting in his living room he heard a loud thump. Something had hit the window. Then another thump. He looked out, but couldn’t see more than a few feet. Bundling himself up, he ventured outside. In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese. Apparently, they had been flying south for the winter when they go caught in the snowstorm and couldn’t go on – lost and stranded on his farm with no food or shelter. A couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed. The man was moved to compassion and wanted to help them. The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought. It’s warm and safe and there they could wait out the storm. So he opened the doors wide, hoping they would notice and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn’t seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them. He went into the house and came with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread crumb trail leading to the barn. They still didn’t catch on. Getting frustrated, he got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe. “Why don’t you follow me?” He exclaimed. “Can’t you see this is the only place where you can survive the storm? If only I could become like one of them, then I could save them,” he said out loud. Then he had an idea. He went into the barn, got one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circles around behind the flock of wild geese. He then released it. His goose flew right through the flock and straight into the barn and one by one the other geese followed it to safety. At that moment, he stopped and considered what he had said moments ago. The words reverberated in his mind, “If only I could become like one of them, then I could save them.” At last, he understood God’s heart toward humankind…and he fell on his knees in the snow. He had come to know the One who “became one of us just to save us.” This is the kind of love that God has for you. He became one of us just so that he could save each and every one of us. Pastor Jack’s favorite phrase was, “God loves you.” On this Christmas day, when there are so many different distractions – new presents, family & friends, grief & loneliness, I encourage each of you to recognize and appreciate exactly what Bryan, age 7, stated so clearly, “Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.” Stop and listen, God’s love is here. His name is Jesus and he loves you.
|
