Welcome to week four of our conversation about Advent. Today we talk about love.
Advent, again, is the time leading up to Christmas and including the four preceding Sundays. There are several traditions tied to Advent: lighting of candles, Scripture readings and responses, specific prayers. While we haven’t done all of these things in the last four weeks, we’ve been able to take a look at what each week and the traditions signify.
Hope. Peace. Joy. Love. And next week we’ll finish with a conversation about Jesus as the Messiah.
We have had conversations around each of these themes not being destinations but being tools in the process of life and relationship with God. Wrestling with hope. Choosing peace. Learning perspectives of joy in light of hardship. And today talking about how love points to value, and choosing to see ourselves and others accordingly.
Take a moment and use a search engine to look up “love.”
What do you learn about love from the first ten things that show up in your search?
What is love?
Paul in 1 Corinthians gives some insights into love.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor 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 13:4-8
Maybe what you saw on Google and what you see in Paul’s writings are very similar. Maybe they are radically different
What are the similarities and differences between what Google says about love and what Paul said about love?
What do these similarities and differences point out about love?
One of the scariest revelations is that love is a choice, not just a feeling, and love can be something we don’t choose. And that, while most of us generally love our family and friends, there are moments where we literally don’t love them. Where we’ve literally chosen to do something that is unloving.
We sometimes have an easier time defining what something isn’t, and it can enable us to have more clarity in defining what something is.
What is love NOT?
What are some of the opposites of love?
Hatred. Indifference. Fear. These are just a few.
Love is not just doing a bunch of things, even good, Jesus-y things.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
So if love isn’t just doing a bunch of stuff, what is it? The next part of Paul’s writing gives us a little insight.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor 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 13:4-8
This is so beautiful! We all want this kind of love! But in our day-to-day living it’s hard to apply this kind of love through our actions to others. Why is that?
These pictures of love show the value of the loved. All of these things can’t happen if I don’t see value correctly and they aren’t contingent on someone else doing something correctly. They’re not things to earn.
These verses don’t end with “if they do a, b, and c” or “if they really deserve it, otherwise just don’t love them.”
Love is based on value.
Love comes from seeing our value and the value of others correctly and acting accordingly. This is much easier said than done, especially when our own actions or the actions people take against us seem to go against their inherent value.
What value does God place on people?
Value comes from God. The value of people we would see as the worst is the same as the value of the people we would see as the best. Action, or lack of action, cannot change the value God has placed on every person.
How does realizing that value is set by God affect how you view the people you would say are “the worst”?
Love embraces the person that you don’t want anything to do with. It could be someone else or it could even be yourself. Fear comes from not seeing your own value. Indifference comes from not seeing the value in others.
Joseph could have seen Mary as the worst. He could have taken a stance of indifference toward her. She was pregnant out of wedlock. The law of Moses said she should have been stoned to death. Yet Joseph saw her for her actual value and loved her in spite of it all. Then an angel came and made things right.
Mary’s could have acted in fear. “What, me? There’s no way I’m good enough to carry God in the flesh in my womb, let alone be this parent for Him when He’s born.” Yet, Mary sees her own value and says to the angel who tells her what’s going to happen, “I am the Lord’s servant.”
And the shepherds. Their fear could have driven them to anxiety and panic, and they could have avoided Jesus all together. Good thing the host of heaven showed up to say, “Don’t freak out, it’s really a good thing! And you’re invited!”
God’s love for humanity shows the immense value he places on us through sending Jesus to Earth.
The gospel, this story of love, is an amazing thing. It’s the narrative that God forgave me of everything I’ve ever done or will ever do, and through invitation to partnership and life in him called me to repent--which is really to submit to his thoughts, ways, ideas, and will and to change my thinking to be in line with what he says is true. And then to go and love people in view of God forgiving them of everything they’ve ever done wrong or will ever do wrong.
We can see our own value or the value of someone else incorrectly and it will greatly affect our ideas, our beliefs, our will, our actions and our decisions. And the inverse is also true: that when we see value correctly, it will affect everything.
When you correctly see value, how does that impact your ability to love yourself and others?
The Christmas story is the culmination of the story of God’s love for humanity--not just some feeling of love for humans, but literally being love.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:7-21
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor 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 13:4-8
We see this picture of love throughout the whole Christmas story. Jesus’ birth is the ultimate picture of God valuing humanity. Mary shows this important illustration of seeing our own value correctly and not disqualifying ourselves from love. Joseph shows this amazing picture of seeing value in Mary even when he might be seeing outward signs that things are not what he thought they were.
God sees value in each person. In you, in me, in the person that you don't get along with. Because He was the one to place that value in the first place.
What is your response to seeing that God values you?
What is your response to seeing that God values others?
Take It Deeper Questions
Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
What do you love most about the Christmas season? Least?
How does loving others traditionally fit into your Christmas traditions?
How do religious traditions traditionally fit into your Christmas traditions?
What are the essential ingredients to the love that Paul is talking about in these verses?
How are you challenged, encouraged, focused and/or confused by this text?
Bible Reading Plan
Luke 1
Luke 2
Isaiah 7:14
Isaiah 9:6
Isaiah 61:1
Micah 5:2
Hosea 11:1