Advent Conspiracy ~ Love All

After telling the terrified shepherds to fear not, the message of the angels was, I bring you good news of great that will be for all the people. All the people. The gift that God was giving to the world wasn’t just for the chosen people of Israel; it was for everyone. God’s loves all. In John 3:16 it says, for God so loved the world (not a few but all), God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, and in giving Jesus to Mary and Joseph on that night in Bethlehem and then surrounding Jesus with the shepherds and then later on with the Magi, God was making a statement to the world. God not only says but God shows us in the Nativity that he really does love all. God loves the world and everyone in it from the least to the greatest, from the north to the south, God loves all, and that’s the messages we see clearly see in every manger scene there is because in every one of them we see gathered at the feet of Jesus – the world.

It all starts with Mary and Joseph. Mary and Joseph are two faithful children of Israel, they each come from the line of David and they are called righteous and holy, and it is because they are righteous that God chose them to be the parents of Jesus, but Mary and Joseph are also poor and that tells us that the love of God wasn’t just for some it was for everyone. You see, at the time Jesus was born, the understanding was that if you were rich you were blessed and loved by God, and if you were poor, then there was something wrong with you - you were not as highly favored. But when the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and says, Greetings favored one, the Lord is with you, we begin to see that God really does love all. Mary and Joseph were highly favored by God and by choosing this poor couple God was making a statement that his love and grace were for all people, but God’s statement doesn’t end with Mary and Joseph because gathered at the manger were also some shepherds.

Of all the people that the angels could have gone to that night to proclaimed that the Messiah had come and God’s love had entered into the world in some new way – God chose shepherds. This time God didn’t choose the righteous but the unrighteous, the outcast. At this time in history, shepherds did not have a good reputation among the people of Israel. Their job working with the sheep made the ceremonial unclean, which meant that they could not worship in the Temple. Living on the hillsides of Bethlehem meant they were separated from the community for long periods of time so there were often seen as social outcasts, and they were known for not always telling the truth. In fact, in a court of law, shepherds were not allowed to give testimony because it was believed that they just could not be counted on to tell the truth.

I am always struck by the irony of this situation. The first people to hear and then tell the news of God coming to this world in human form, the first people to see and share the good news of the Savior’s birth were not the religious leaders that people would have trusted and believed, but shepherds, notorious liars that no one trusted and no one believed. This tells us something about God – it tells us that God not only has a wonderful sense of humor, but more importantly that God loves everyone. God loves the outcast and the poor as much as God loves the leaders and teachers and the rich. God’s love is deep and wide, and God’s love reaches all people.

Now if the story ended there we might think that God only loved his chosen people, the people of Israel. Mary and Joseph were Jewish, the shepherds were most likely Jewish; so we might read this and think that God only came to love and save His chosen people, but the story of the Nativity doesn’t end there. In the gospel of Matthew we hear about the Magi or the Wisemen who journey from the East. These were not Jewish men, they were foreigners living in a land far away, and yet through the star God placed in the sky, God revealed to them that the King of the Jews – His Son the Savior, had been born. The Magi were not only foreigners, but they were also wealthy; we know they had riches because they gave expensive gifts to Jesus, but we also know they had some resources because it would have taken some financial resources to make their long journey.

So what we see here is that God didn’t just come for the poor, God didn’t just come for the righteous people of Israel, and God didn’t just come for those on the outside of society – the Nativity, the birth of Jesus and the people who first worshipped and welcomed him are rich and poor, old and young, those on the inside of society and those on the outside, Jew and Gentile. This says something to us; it says that God’s love is for all people and the people of all nations. God didn’t just come to his own, God didn’t just come to those who were faithful and already members of a church – God came for all. God loves all.

God loves every person around the world, rich, poor, black white, Muslim, Jew, oppressed and free, atheist and alienated – God loves everyone with a depth of love that we can not begin to understand, but for a moment let’s not think about all the people around the world that God loves, let’s just think about one person, ourselves. When we say that God loves all it also means that God loves us. It means that God loves me and you. No matter who we are today, or what we have done or where we are in life – God loves us with more power and grace than we can possibly imagine. Too many of us go through life thinking that we are not worthy of God’s love and grace, or we think that there is no possible way God could care about me or want to be part of my life and yet nothing - nothing - could be further from the truth. God loves all and so the first thing this means is that God loves us.

Even the message of the angels makes that clear. After they angels say they have good news of great joy for all the people, their next message is, for unto YOU is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. God came to love and save you and me. God’s love for us not only means that God came to save us, it means that God has a purpose and plan for our lives. It means that God cares about what we are going through and that God will give us the strength and the patience and the power to go through all that we have to in life. God’s love doesn’t mean that everything will be perfect and we will have no problems, but it does mean that God is always with us to offer help and support, and if we will open ourselves up – it also means the people of God will always be with us to offer love and support.

So if there is only message you hear this season, let it be this, God loves you. Jesus came as a child in Bethlehem for you. He came to walk with you, and talk with you in life. He came to offer you grace and peace and power for your life. So allow the child of Bethlehem to reach out and touch your heart and life and bring you the healing, the peace or the purpose you are looking for.

When we say God loves all – it does mean first and foremost that God loves you and me, but it also means that God loves the entire world and every single person in this world. There is simply no person beyond the reach of God’s love and grace. God loves and cares for all and so the call for us as followers of Jesus is to also love all. Do we love all people: rich, poor, black, white, Muslim, Jew, democrat, republican, oppressed, free, atheist, alienated, lost or rebellious? Do we love them all? And what does it mean to love them all? Does it just mean we think nice thoughts about them and wish them well? In James 2:16 it says, If one of you says to a brother or sister in need, “Go, I wish you well, keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? What good is it indeed? That is not love. Love is not a feeling or well meaning words, love is action. While John 3:16 says, God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life, 1 John 3:17 says, How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

Love has to be put into action. Love has to reach out and help someone, it can’t just be something we say or think about – it has to be something we do and the first thing we need to do is reach out to those who are lost and lonely around us and offer them friendship and support. Isn’t that what God did? God put his love into action by sending us Jesus who reached out to build a relationship with those around him and that relationship brought grace and peace. Jesus came and reached out to build a relationship with us and that relationship brings us life and so we have to love people in such a way that relationships are established and strengthened. This means our love for others needs to be seen in how we forgive one another, and how we place the needs and hopes and dreams of others before our own. That’s the first step in loving all, but it is not the last step.

Loving all also means helping those in need around the world. Loving those who are cold and hungry isn’t saying, Go, I wish you well, keep warm and well fed,” and then doing nothing to help them, Many times love calls for us to offer food and clothing and medicine and clean water. As followers of Jesus, we are called to give our resources to those who are physically in need and that call comes from Jesus who said, we are go feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those who are sick and oppressed. All through his life Jesus made it clear that we are to care for the needs of those around us.

Look at Mark 6:35-37

Everyone could see the need of the people – they were hungry, so Jesus said – you feed them. The disciples wanted to send the people away so they could take care of themselves. They said to Jesus, look we simply can’t feed them all and Jesus said, Yes you can – you feed them. I think God is still telling us that we can meet the needs of people around us and around the world. I think God is still telling us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, provide homes for the homeless, water for the thirsty and to care for those who are sick and hurting and lonely.

Now the good news is that we will feed the hungry here on Christmas Day and we won’t just offer them food, we will also offer them relationship. Some people say that the people who deliver our Christmas dinners are the only people they will see on Christmas Day, if that doesn’t move you to sign up to help deliver meals, nothing will. Some people will spend the day alone without even a phone from family or friends, so we are clearly offering more than food, we are offering the love of God, but the question that has returned to my mind this week is this; while we are feeding the hungry here, what about those who are hungry all across Africa who won’t have churches to go to share in a Christmas dinner, who will feed them?. There will be several church dinners in our community on Christmas Day, but who will be feeding the children of Uganda and the orphans of the Sudan? Who will feed the families who have no place to go on Christmas Day and every other day of the year because they are refugees fleeing from famine or disease or war? How is God calling us to feed them or provide them with water, or medicine, or safety and love? You see, the question is not if God is calling us to love them in practical ways that how will help them, Jesus said pretty clearly – you feed them – you take care of them, so the question is how will we - love all?

What can we do? The answer is a lot, we can do a lot to help those in need both here and around the world, we have so many resources to offer. We have time, money, faith, prayers, and physical labor, we have a lot to offer, so the deeper question, the question that cuts to our heart is this, what will we chose to do? This Christmas, how will we love all? What choices will we make today and in the year ahead to spend less and give more and love all. If we are going to enter into this Christmas story, then like God who sent Jesus to Mary, Joseph, shepherds and Wisemen, then we need to figure out how today and everyday how to love all.