T HE GIFTS THAT WE GIVE are usually expressions of love, aren’t they?
That’s what we try to make our gifts at Christmas particularly. Through these gifts we attempt to show someone that we care about them. Gifts are physical expressions of that love that we hope they will appreciate and enjoy. So at best, our gift giving is a display of love.
Of course, there’s a darker side. Sometimes we give gifts out of obligation. Sometimes we give gifts, and we rack up dreadful debt in order to do so. For others of us, the giving of gifts provokes a feeling of loss and sadness as we remember those who are not here that we love and have gone ahead of us.
Gifts can, therefore, be bittersweet for many people. There’s a lot of love; there are also some challenges and there’s also sometimes no small degree of sadness and sorrow and loss mixed into Christmas.
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ON THE NIGHT of Jesus’ birth, love came down and dwelt among us. How do we know, it’s a gift of love? It’s in the Bible. A Christmas gift that without fail communicates perfect love. A gift that brings true joy to the hearts of all who receive it.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
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THE FIRST THING to see here, of course, is that God’s gift to us is a gift of love. God so loved the world that He gave.
God’s love is a giving love, a generous love. It is grace love, free and unconstrained love.
God doesn’t make a list and check it twice to find out who’s naughty or nice before He gives His Christmas gift. God gives love without reference to our merits, our goodness, our deserving.
You can measure God’s love by what He gives. Sometimes even our gifts work like that, don’t they? It’s not the price, but something so thoughtful, so kind that the gift touches our hearts. It shows us how well they know us and how much they love us. The gift itself is wonderful but the kindness and the care that stands behind the gift is what’s really so powerful and so moving about it.
We feel loved with gifts like that.
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AND THAT IS NEVER more true than the love of God for us. What gift expresses the vast, unmeasured, boundless, free love of God? What gift could possibly describe the dimensions of the way God loves you?
God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. So much is crammed into that word — He gave His Son; He gave. God gave His Son to participate in our humanity. God gave His Son to the cross.
Nothing can serve as a full, perfect explanation of the love of God for you but Jesus Christ, born in a stable, living in obscurity, dying in shame, rising in victory, now reigning in glory for you and for me.
God so loved that He gave His Son.
In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:10)
You can measure the love of God by the gift He’s given. He’s given us His Son, His only Son, the Son whom He loves.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son.”
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HE LOVED THE WORLD. Those words are almost scandalous. God so loved the world.
We think of this term, “the world,” as a way to talk about everybody in the whole world. It is a numerical thing. God loves every individual in the whole world. God loves the king. God loves the shepherd. And that’s certainly true.
But more than that. The world is an ethical concept, a moral concept. God’s love encompasses all creation. The rocks and trees, the skies and seas. Everything God brought into being.
So take out your measuring tape, John is saying. Here are love’s dimensions. Try and take them in this Christmas. What a precious gift He has given for you, His only Son. What a costly gift it was to give. He gave Him up to the cross and He gave Him for the world. Here is love. Here is how much you are loved.
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ONE MORE THING as we peer into the manger and see the face of love.
“Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.”
Love others with a costly, sacrificial love. Not just a few. But the whole world.
Perhaps we begin in our own town. Look beyond whether someone is naughty or nice. See people in need of love. We all need to be loved. Every one of us.
We ought to love one another with gifts so thoughtful, so kind they touch the hearts of others. Something that shows them how well we know their desires and how much we love them — even if we don’t know them.
The gift itself is wonderful but the kindness and the care that stands behind the gift are what people long for.
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LOVE COMES DOWN at Christmas. Love goes out from us to the whole world. Do not be afraid to choose love.
