Message: Love born again and again
Last Christmas, Love is all around us, Fairytale of New York, All I Want for Christmas, etc. Christmas Number ones and often the songs made popular in the charts are about love and lost love. Christmas movies are about finding love, rekindling love, failing at love, or Love Actually.
However, much of the love sung, spoken and longed for at Christmas in our lives is not of the love that came down to earth when the angel visited Mary – a young woman, unknown at the time, not in a palace or of great influence – and called her favoured one of God, blessed, chosen. Some how, some way, without full comprehension and understanding, Mary agreed and undertook the task of the ‘God-bearer’ (theotokos). Luke’s gospel later records words of what we call the Magnificat (my soul magnifies the Lord) about how God remembers the people and is sorting the injustices in the world, is loving the least and lost, and is setting things right as was promised. And when we read of the birth of Jesus in chapter 2 of Luke’s gospel when the shepherds come and tell Mark and Joseph their encounter with angels, Mary treasures the words in her heart, she cherishes them lovingly. I wonder if Luke’s source for his nativity narrative was a firsthand account from Mary’s own cherished memories, hopes and fears, and wonderings and worship.
Into our world again this year, Christ’s birth finds a world where the hungry have not been fed, the tyrants prance around flinging their power and money without many checks-and-balances, war rages, abuses of power and even professed love abound. Tempers flare, fuses may be short, road rage is all the rage, and a sense of entitlement prevails over common decency. I am left wondering is love anywhere to be found?
Let’s start at the beginning, it’s a very good place to start…
God’s promises have come down out of God’s love for the world, to the people who walk in God’s ways and who seek to be with God on the journey. The bible contains time and time again accounts of God’s love being born again and again, the people being warned and challenged again and again, and God’s love not giving up.
God’s love reminds us again and again that you cannot MAKE someone love you, treat you well, or follow your instructions. God is faithful, God’s love is steadfast and sure and endures forever.
And God’s love is an invitation. Each of us, each person, is invited to carrying God’s own love into the world, to bear Jesus’s love into our daily interactions. God’s love invites us and calls us to remember who we are and whom we serve by living out the embodiment of God’s love in the baby Jesus by the way we speak, act, and live as his followers.
God’s love is born again and again in our living and following of Jesus. We are not required to do this living perfectly out of our own steam, strength or sheer willpower.
God often chooses, invites and calls not necessarily the most obvious, most influential or even most talented (case in point right here!) to share the Good News of God’s great love and promised saving work to the world. It might be the sometimes-forgotten town like Bethlehem where something important might happen. It may be an unexpected person who is young, or old. or a woman, or a child, where God’s message speaks loud and clear of where God’s love is calling us.
Please, this week leading into the Christmas season, remember the gift God gives each of us to listen to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to be God’s action today, allowing God’s love to be born again and again in our lives to be a light to all nations.
Maybe this will look like not saying a harsh word when that would be easy to do so.
Maybe this is apologising first when you’d rather not.
Maybe it is choosing to not be offended and love someone who is not the easiest to love.
Maybe it is being strong and steadfast when the wild winds of life are threatening to blow you off course.
Maybe we can choose to remember Mary’s words and ways and how God’s love first came down at Christmas so we too can treasure all God has done for us in our hearts that it may overflow into the world.
The great love songs of Christmas Number Ones are not as great a love song as the child born in Bethlehem to be Good News of great joy to all people. God is with us. God’s love is born again and again through our lives.
May God’s steadfast, enduring love inspire our Christmas living as we remember, cherish and celebrate this gift this year and into the next.
Where will you take God’s love this week?
When will you share God’s love?
Who will you show love because God loves you?
I hope you will answer: "wherever, whenever with whomever I can."
Prayers from Roots on the Web
Call to worship
We come together in hope, love, joy and peace.
With Mary, we look for the peace and strength that comes from seeking and following your plan for us.
A prayer of approach
Eternal God,
as Christmas approaches,
we lay before you all that weighs heavy on our hearts:
the things we haven’t done;
the people we haven’t contacted;
the sadness that clings so close;
the pressures that threaten to mar
the peace and joy of this special time.
We lay them all before you in the name of Jesus,
Christ-child and Saviour. Amen
A prayer of adoration
Magnificent God,
with Mary we praise your name.
We honour your faithfulness through history;
we celebrate your presence with us today;
we trust your promises for the future
and we pray for the life-giving peace of your Son
for all the world, this Christmas and always. Amen.
A prayer of confession and an Assurance of forgiveness
God of peace and plenty,
forgive us: when we stifle the peace of Christmas
with our busyness;
when we tarnish the love of Christmas
with our selfishness;
when we silence the joy of Christmas
with our noise;
when we put presents before your presence.
Grant us your peace, mercy and forgiveness.
Dear God,
what we most long for is peace, hope, joy and love actually.
Peace of heart, mind, and spirit;
peace from burdens, guilt and past mistakes.
So we thank you for your gifts of peace, hope, joy and love
given through your gracious forgiveness, loving acceptance
and the assurance of your continuing presence with us. Amen.
A prayer of praise and thanksgiving
God of wisdom and wonder,
we praise you for your gift of peace and love:
for its depth when we are most troubled;
for its comfort when we are most afraid;
for its simplicity when we are most pressured;
for its truth when we are most disconcerted;
and for its stillness when we are most swamped by the
noise and busyness of Christmas.
We praise you, in Jesus’ name. Amen.