Luke 2:1-20
The text listed above doesn't even mention the word "love," but it is my intent to show you the love of God in the midst of the inconvenience, the discomfort, and the mind-boggling events that Luke testifies to having transpired.
We may even smash a couple Christmas myths. You know, like Santa Claus coming down your chimney, leaving gifts, eating your cookies and then going to the next house. The truth is: Santa doesn't eat all those cookies, he shares them with his reindeer. So when I was young I started making the cookies with horse feed. Not only was it good for the reindeer, it also prevented my father from getting into the cookies before Santa had a chance to get some. It helps to know the truth! You make better decisions when you know the truth.
Allow me to tell you the truth about love. I mean real love, true love, perfect love, God's love.
God is love. Christ is God in the flesh, so Christ is love. God loved Mary. God even loved Joe (Joseph).
God's love for Mary and Joe might be difficult to see in this text since their world was a mess. I mean, there they were, in the center of God's will...
- Mary was "highly favored"
- A census was announced, so they were required to travel to Bethlehem because of a government mandate (they had to meet the deadline for open enrolment)
- Mary was pregnant, making it a very inconvenient time for a journey
- There was no Christmas music to listen to, Christmas music wasn't even invented yet
- Joe's 'sweet ride' didn't even have a radio. The only thing to listen to was donkey noises and they probably heard them in stereo. It was the original Dolby Digital Surround Sound. Donkey be like: "Watch me whip, whip, watch me neigh-neigh"
They arrive in Bethlehem and are faced with the inconvenience of the Holiday Inn being full (it was originally called the Christmas Inn but the P.C. crowd made them change it). The only space available was the parking garage.
If God loved Mary, if God loved Joseph, if God loved His own Son that was about to be born, you would think that it wouldn't be too much to ask for God to miracle a cancellation and an available room, or better yet a waiver from this senseless census. But what we see instead is inconvenience.
Inconvenience and discomfort (for those times when inconvenience just isn't enough). Jesus' conception was miraculous, but the pregnancy and the birth transpired like all others.
Traveling in the middle of the desert, can you imagine poor Joseph? Mary says, "I need a pickle, now!" Joseph's like, "Where am I going to get a pickle?" Mary says, "...and make sure it's Kosher."
Then, at the end of their journey we have the pains of childbirth and the discomfort of giving birth in a stable. The Child was wrapped in swaddling cloths (that's code words for rags) and laid in a bed of hay, or I should I say, trough. There wasn't much comfort.
You would think that if God loved Mary, Joseph and His own Son that was about to be born He could miracle in some creature comforts... like an epidural.
Inconvenience and discomfort are not often associated with love, and then in addition we come across the word "terrified." Now there's a "love word" if I've ever heard one! That is, if you are a member of the Addams Family. "Love terrifies," who'd have thought?
Well, if you are a lowly shepherd, or even an exalted earthly king, if the glory of God shows up there is no way not to be terrified. The only way the Almighty God could prevent us from being terrified is either to completely hide himself, or, I don't know, take on human flesh and become like one of us. Then he could communicate with us on our level and reveal his plan to remedy our broken relationship.
... but back to our story ...
In the peace and stillness of the evening... the shepherds hanging out... trying to scrape out a living... listening to sheep-herder Billy-Bob reduntantly recount his heroic tales of fearlessly fending off the carnivorous creatures that cover the countryside with carnage... those shepherds were probably baptized in boredom.
Then suddenly, out of no where, an angel appears (and it wasn't the glory of an angel that shone all around them, but the glory of God) and they were terrified. A voice resounds unlike any they had ever heard before. Then an entire battalion of angels appear, praising God and proclaiming, "Peace on earth."
Luke records that after the angels departed the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
When they did go, they went fast, but I wonder how long, once the dark of night returned and the angels departed, did they stand there with the sheep-herding mouths gaped wide open, looking at each other with eyes as big as albino grapefruit, trying to figure out if what just happened was real?
Big, tough sheep-herder Billy-Bob probably recommended some fresh attire before they went into town. They were terrified. Who'd have thought that love could be like that? How unexpected. Why appear to shepherds? Why not announce it to those taking the census? (They were the ones counting... "Christ is born in Bethlehem"). The shepherds were an unlikely lot to choose.
To be honest (and I like to be honest), this whole Christmas account is very unreasonable. If you require proof it is found in this Bible passage:
These final verses describe the townspeople as being "amazed." You are not normally amazed at the ordinary, you are amazed at the unordinary. We are amazed at the unexpected. And the one person who was at the center of the entire Christmas account is Mary...
She was informed, at first, by an angel. Then she received additional insight from her cousin, Elizabeth. Surely, her fiance, Joe, spoke to Mary about the angel appearing to him in a dream. Of all the folks involved she was the most informed, and yet, what process do we find her performing towards the close of our passage? Pondering. She pauses to think about all that is transpiring. She tries to bring reason into what appears so unreasonable.
If God loved Mary, and Joseph, and baby Jesus, and the shepherds, and the town folk, why would all these events unfold in such an unreasonable way? Why the confusion? Why all the unexpected visions and appearances and circumstances? Why the uncomfortable and inconvenient happenings? Where is the love of God? What kind of love is this?
We are so apt to miss it. That is, God's love. We are so apt to let it remain unnoticed. We are likely to go through life, thinking about everything else. Dealing with everything else (work, family, leisure, both joys and pains... just life) and never pause to think about God's love. Things inconvenient and things uncomfortable and things unexpected and things unreasonable always seem to possess center stage and we miss God's love.
God's love can be like a flash light. If you use it in a bright room it is hardly noticeable and you are apt to miss it. But it really shines, and is most noticeable and most appreciated and proven when it is darkness that surrounds you.
The world will tell you that love is convenient. That your marriage is a contract of mutual convenience. There's a fairy tale of "happily ever after" and a life of comfort and ease, when all of life's events are reasonable and just make sense. And that can happen. And love can be present. But love is really only proven when it withstands the inconvenience, when it endures discomfort, when it does the unexpected and when it defies all reason. That's when you really see love. That's when love shines the brightest. That's when love proves itself. Love can be there in the good times, but it is in the midst of the darkness that love is apt to be seen.
...And God knew that we would be so distracted, so easily caught up in the events of life that we would not be able to see His love. Can I tell you? God's love is amazing. God loves you, and His love is not based on convenience or comfort or the expected or even the reasonable. His love shines and proves itself, not through these things, but through difficulty.
The Christmas story is about an eternal, perfect God leaving heaven and coming to earth. How inconvenient. We couldn't ascend to heaven (that would be convenient for Him, if we showed up at His house, but we couldn't) so God came here.
The Bible describes Christ as "a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief." He had no where to lay His head. He was born in a manger to a poor girl and was hated and hunted from day one. His ministry was plagued with inconvenience and still He gave, still He loved, and that's when true love is proven. That's when it shines the brightest so that you may recognize it is not a fair-weather love, it is an unconditional love.
What comfort is there in crucifixion? What comfort in lashes (in flesh being torn)? What comfort in a crown of thorns or in being despised and hated? And He was crucified for what? For bringing healing? For bringing sight? For bringing life? For announcing God's favor and offering His friendship?
How many hours did He bleed, this Lamb of God counted for the slaughter? What comfort is found in taking upon Himself the sins of the world? And what about the Father in heaven, who announced His great pleasure and love for the Son of God, then turning His back on Him when He was at His lowest?
But God's love shines brightest in discomfort. It is proven genuine and true and faithful through the most agonizing of deaths.
"Let Him save Himself if He is the Son of God!" That's what would be expected. If He is a god, He can rescue Himself from the agony of pain we have enforced upon Him. But love does the unexpected. Love doesn't save itself, it saves others!
No brighter has love ever shone than when Jesus Christ endured the cross, remaining nailed to it until "it" was "finished."
Love triumphs.
They weren't expecting that either. But the grave couldn't hold Him. Jesus Christ is not dead, but alive. Seen and touched by those closest to Him. Most of whom suffered terrible and premature deaths, being unwilling to recant what they knew they had seen. They didn't die for a lie, they were murdered for the truth. No one expected love to triumph over the grave, but it has!
If you place God's love in the darkest, vilest, most pungent prison it will not only shine in the midst of the horror, it will break free and rescue every single one who has reached out and grabbed a hold of it.
God's love is unreasonable. Choosing poor, insignificant Mary was unreasonable. Birth in a manger was unreasonable. Bethlehem and Nazareth and Egypt were unreasonable. Mary pondered and the people were amazed because all of these things were unreasonable. But in fact, these things are quite reasonable, and making cookies with horse fodder is quite reasonable compared to this:
God loves me! Now that's unreasonable. Who am I? What good have I done? Why did the holy, perfect Son of God leave a holy, perfect place like heaven to ransom me? That is unreasonable. That is unthinkable. That was my cross, my sin, my death, my shame, my deserved Christmas gift, but Jesus gave Himself for me. How unreasonable... but God's love is like that.
Oh, what a wondrous thought, what love divine, in inconvenience and discomfort, the most unexpected love lavished on the must unreasonable recipient, and I love Him!
And God loves you! Can you see it in this account? Do you see His love?
I know your life is busy and full of troubles and you are apt to miss it. But in all the darkness there has appeared a great light. God wants you to know Him, and He made a way through great inconvenience on His part, through unparalleled discomfort, and His love can bring unexpected results for the most unreasonable of souls... yours.
He didn't do it through the terror of His glory appearing, but through a Child born in Bethlehem some two thousand years ago.
Christ is the way of restoration to a right relationship with God.
You can wait for a more convenient time to call upon Him. But love doesn't require convenience.
You can wait until you are more comfortable with the idea, but love doesn't require comfort.
You can try and reason things out first, and that's fine, just understand you'll never fully grasp this amazing love and chances are you will close your browser window and return to the distractions of life and once again miss the love of God.
If you wait for convenience, if you wait for comfort, if you wait for a more reasonable time and an expected time, your love for God would not be proven.
Love is proven in inconvenience. It shines in the midst of discomfort. It does the unexpected and is anything but reasonable.
Maybe today your testimony will be, "It was in the midst of the inconvenience and discomfort and the unexpected twists and turns of life that I found the most amazing love. It shone brightly in the presence of the darkness and I'll never be the same."
