“The arrival of love”
It’s not long until Christmas now—just days to go before we celebrate the Saviour’s birth—with many plans and preparations that we busy ourselves in. With the arrival of Christmas so close on our calendars, the church readings connect us with the corresponding time some 2,000 years earlier—when the Saviour’s arrival would also be very soon. Matthew tells us: “Mary was found to be pregnant.”
With this imminent arrival, there were also many plans and preparations to attend to. When the angel came to Mary and announced that she would conceive and bear a son who would be called ‘Son of the Most High’, Mary responded: “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:35-38). But I wonder how Mary planned to share this news with Joseph? Maybe she prepared by rehearsing the scenario in her mind. When the time comes and she is found to be pregnant, she desperately tries to explain to Joseph: ” I haven’t been unfaithful. An angel came to me and told me: ‘The Holy Spirit will come to you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God!’
Then, Joseph makes plans. Hurt, angry, upset and very confused, all he knows is that he is not the father. We might imagine him trying to process what on earth is going on as he comes to terms with the shock: “Yeah, right Mary—an angel called Grabriel visited you. Sure, the Holy Spirit got you pregnant. What a likely story! I loved you Mary, I trusted you, I’ve been faithful to you…” Heart pounding, lump in the throat, sick in the stomach feeling rises in Mary as the words come like a hammer blow: “the wedding’s off!” A young, pregnant, single mother with nothing behind her, left alone to raise her unborn child with no social security supports. They are suddenly very vulnerable.
In the culture of the day, unfaithfulness was a matter punishable by death. So Joseph makes plans and preparations—he will divorce Mary to fulfil the demands of the law, but he will do so on the quiet, sparing Mary’s dignity and life. Sooner or later, though, people would have found out. Divorce meant Mary’s life was at risk—and if Mary died, so would the baby.
What if Joseph’s plans to divorce Mary had have come to fruition? Against the backdrop of these human plans on earth, God had his plan from heaven: “God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17).
God did not let human beings with their limited understanding derail or unravel his plan. So, after Joseph had considered divorcing Mary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
We began the season of Advent with a sequence of readings, the first of which was from Genesis 3, telling of the Devil’s temptation to Adam and Eve to turn aside from God and be their own authority. Ultimately, this is what sin is about in all its various forms. Through one man this condition entered the world, and death through sin (Romans 5:12). Sin is a real power, passed on from one generation to the next. With the will of the human nature bound in this way, the good we want to do we cannot do (Romans 7). Jesus himself said “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). In our natural state we are just like Adam and Eve, reversing God’s order of things, where God is on trial and we are the prosecutor. Mere humans create God in our own image determining moral standards, even calling evil ‘good’ and good ‘evil’ (Isaiah 5:20).
After Adam and Eve sinned, the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time (Genesis 6:5). We don’t need any example to search for as we have all seen and heard the news reports since Sunday of what took place on our own shores at Bondi. ‘Sickening’ and ‘horrific’ don’t even come close to describing the evil of this. While on the surface it presents as a terrorist attack of hatred against the Jewish race, at a deeper level, in the name of a rival god and religion, it is an attack on God himself and his good order, and the preciousness of all human life he has created. Yet this despicable act is the extreme on the one spectrum of sin. It shares the same starting point as the infant throwing a tantrum at the supermarket, children teasing and taunting in the school playground, disrespect of parents and teachers, the undermining of authority, workplace bullying, adults engaging in street fights and road rage. That starting point is the human will. Jesus says: “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15)…but the heart is fiercely loyal to the self even when that means dominating and hurting others.
We couldn’t blame God if he wanted to screw up the watercolour canvas of his world and toss it in the rubbish. But rather than throw out, God comes to restore, even to make new. God so loved the world, that he sent his one and only Son to save us from ourselves. As flesh gives birth to flesh, everyone in our natural human condition is under the power of Satan from the time our mother conceived us. Everyone, that is, except Mary’s son. The child promised to Mary would not be conceived in the normal way. Joseph could not be the child’s father, for his father is the Father in heaven. While this child is born of Mary, he is God’s own Son; the Son of God. God himself had to step into our world to save us. He had to become one of us to save us. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, the Son of God would miraculously enter the world as a human being, just like us—except he would be the Holy One. This plan of God’s was foretold in the prophet Isaiah: “Behold the virgin will conceive and she will bear a son, and they will call his name Immanuel which means ‘God with us.’” (Isaiah 7:14).
God would not let his plans be derailed by human confusion, lack of understanding, and even evil and chaos. He would see his plan through, for no other reason than his love: God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
By nature, we humans are much better receivers than givers. We like to accumulate and guard close that which we have, keeping the best for ourselves and giving the leftovers away. We humans tend to attach motives to our giving. We usually give to those who first give to us. We prioritise our giving to those who we think are deserving. We might give to others when we seek a favour in return.
But God gives freely, abundantly, and the motive behind his giving is simply his love. He wants all people to share in the new life his Son came to bring. And so there is no discrimination with God’s giving—God so loved the world—every single person, of all times and places—which includes you and me, and even the most despicable person in history. He gives to us who don’t deserve anything from him. He gives to us who are spiritually poor and cannot give anything in return. He gave his own Son to die for we who are unworthy, such is the depths of his love for us. God couldn’t possibly have done anything more or gone to any greater lengths than giving his only Son for you and me.
God has come from heaven to earth triumph over evil not with force but with love from above, wrapped in strips of linen, laid in an animal’s feed trough, to be Immanuel, God with us, with all his saving help from heaven. He came not as a political enforcer to control others to become the greatest. But the greatest made himself the least and humbled himself to be the servant of all. He came to triumph not with swords, but with words. He didn’t come to force people to follow him, but gently calls us by name. He came not to curse and insult, but to bless. He won, not by dominating, but by giving up. Rather than mete out punishment and wreak vengeance he took punishment for evil upon himself, laying down his life on a Cross. He secured the victory, not with clenched fists but with arms outstretched in the biggest loving embrace the world has ever seen. Yet those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the Cross, if you are the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:39-40). But Jesus didn’t, because putting his own interests first wouldn’t have been the way of love.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
Love never fails. God never fails. These verses are God’s standards for love, and Jesus is the embodiment of this love in flesh and blood, for you. No matter what is happening in your life right now, Jesus has come to be Immanuel—God with us. As he is, he comes to transform hearts to be more like his own—to love without conditions and limits. He goes to work through his word and sacraments to change the shape of our heart to a Cross, that we might die to ourselves and live for God and others.
If it seems hard to love a brother or sister, Jesus, who is with you, says: “Love one another, as I have loved you.” If it seems like the world is rocked and the mountains have fallen into the very heart of the sea, Jesus who is with you says: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). If medical results have brought bad news, Jesus who is with you says: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish…” (John 10:27-28). If you are afraid and anxious, Jesus who is with you says: “My peace I give to you” (John 14:27). If you are tired and overloaded with carrying the heavy burden of life, the burden of shame, the burden of guilt, Jesus who is with you says: “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28).
Despite all the wars, fighting, terror, shouting, rage, hate, and the battle to assert control, in the midst of all of this there is love—love that has come down from heaven to you. God has revealed the name of his Son to you, that you might have a personal, direct relationship with the One who sits enthroned far above some 200 billion galaxies into the universe. God who sits above the highest heavens wants you to call on him, and he wants to listen to you. He promises to hear you and be with you forever with all his saving help from heaven until the day he returns, even as Jesus says: “Surely I am with you always, till the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20). Amen.
Pastor Tim Ebbs
St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Glenelg
Fourth Sunday of Advent, 2025
Questions for reflection:
“In the midst of all the war, fighting, terror, shouting, rage, hate, and the battle to assert control, there is love—love come down from heaven to you.”
- What is the cause of division, hatred and conflict?
- Where, and when, did this originate?
- What might God taking on the form of an embryo and being born as an infant, fully human, just as we are, mean for the dignity and value of human beings? How should we view all people?
- How does God define love in 1 Corinthians 13?
- As you reflect on that passage, what aspects of love are you challenged to grow in?
- How are these aspects seen in Jesus’ own life?
- “Love one another as I have loved you”. How are these confronting words? How are they comforting words?
- How would Jesus ultimately show his love to the world?
- How might having personal access to the God of all, by calling on his name, change how we think about God as far away and disinterested in us?
- What worries you or presents difficulties in your life at the moment? How does having God with us as Immanuel in the Person of Christ bring comfort and courage?
