Let’s Talk About Love on Christmas

I know. I know. We’re in December and it’s not the fourteenth of February. The “love month” is a few months away. But I find it no better time to talk about love than during the Christmas season, when we celebrate the birth of Christ. I believe this to be, because Jesus Christ himself is the true embodiment of love (1 John 4:8). So, let’s talk about love!

Christmas and Love

Growing up, I don’t recall making the connection between Christmas and love. Or should I say, the connection between Christmas and true love. The only reference point of love of course, was the over commercialized version of love. You know, the mistletoe, fairy-tale ending kind of love displayed in the Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies. Boy meets girl. Girl dismisses boy. Somewhere down the line, girl realizes the right guy was there all along. Yada yada yada…you get the point.

Sidenote: I secretly wanted that cheesy romantic love at one point. My hopeless romantic heart used to scream, Mistletoe me!

Don’t worry…I know better now.

Needless to say, there are those of us who feel left out with only this type of love hyped during the Christmas season. After all, romantic love is idolized as the ultimate human experience. If there’s nothing brewing in that area of a person’s life, it’s often frowned upon.

For some of us, the Christmas season can feel somewhat exclusive. And for this reason, I’m so glad the true love of Christmas extends an invitation for all who are willing to receive. Hence, we can’t adequately talk about Christmas without the talk about love.

What Love Looks Like

If you want to know what the love of God looks like, 1 John 4:9 reveals this by saying,

 “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” –  1 John 4:9 (ESV)

The birth of Christ was the literal manifestation of God’s love. God’s love was made visible for humanity to see as Jesus entered the world to live the life we couldn’t live, die the death we should have died, and raised back up so that we may have life through Christ.

As we all know, sacrifice is attached to love. And as believers, we esteem Christ’s sacrifice of His own life as significant, and rightfully so. But might I add that His entrance into this world was both sacrificial and of significance as well?

It is a disservice to take the birth of Christ lightly. We can’t fully understand the depth of God’s love for us when we do not grasp the significance of Jesus’ birth.

Jesus, God the Son came into the world in a specific form and manner. He did not come in as a mighty warrior asserting authority but instead, He took on human flesh and entered in as…a baby. Yes, a baby.

Really think about that.

God the Son, the King of kings, made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness (Philippians 2:6-8). The God through whom all things were made humbled Himself to become a human and dwell among those and that in which He created. And not to just dwell amongst those He created, but the King of kings came into the world to serve those He created.

Now that’s a sacrifice!

Love Shows Up

Bearing in mind Christ’s deity, the fact that Christ Jesus even showed up to fulfill the promise I touched on in my last writing How Our Expectation Rooted in Hope is Important, was pure love.

To this day, through the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ continues to show up for His people. Though no longer here on earth in bodily form, time and time again He renders love in ways unimaginable. Such as, in the form of comfort in times of feeling alone and forgotten. In the form of peace, when all hell has broken loose. And in the form of joy for strength.

Someday, He will show up as promised to make His return. But on that day, He’s not coming in the form of a baby. He’s coming as the King of kings in victory and glory!

This Christmas, be sure to talk about and exalt the true love of Christmas. Not the one displayed underneath the mistletoe but the One that was displayed beneath the Bethlehem star.