All You Need Is Love

Does anyone know what season we are in as the church? Advent is a word that is often aligned with the idea of arrival, the arrival of a person. And so for four weeks before Christmas church communities around the globe wait, anticipate, and celebrate the arrival of Jesus.
Traditionally in this season of Advent church communities celebrate four themes, hope, peace, joy and love. Sound familiar? Matt, the teaching pastor here at Blue Oaks, over the last three weeks has been moving us to reflect on, and find ways to pursue or be filled with hope, with peace and with joy as we wait for and anticipate the celebration of Jesus’s birth. The final part of Advent, is the theme of love, and so that is what we are going to talk about today, love.
But don’t you worry this isn’t some mushy valentines day sort of love, that is also good, just not for today. Today rather we are going to dive into stories of God’s love and how this love reshapes future existence. Advent is, after all, a time that balances the present reality with future hope.
As Theologian Fleming Rutledge writes “Advent is the season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all in this world. Advent begins in the dark and moves toward the light.” Or, advent is a season that doesn’t shy away from life, instead advent and its themes invite us to reflect on something more. Something more than now.
And so today we are going to do just that. We are going to be invited into more love. More of God. Moving towards something.
My hope for us today is that we would fall into the story of the Christmas season, that we would not only be reminded of the story we celebrate in two days but that we would also locate ourselves in that story, that our new year would be a year where we know that we are loved.
So, let’s jump in, as always let’s pray.
I assume we are all a little tired, and so there’s no better way for our minds to wander into the story of Christmas than by hearing a story or in this case three stories, two
stories about Christmas and one about something a little after Christmas. So friends, here are a few stories..
He huddled around the fire, something he did most nights. The logs crackled and the embers began to take on that warm glow. As the wind gently moved around him, he could pick up the slight scents of the field. Fire and wood, grass and grain, and of course the slight odor coming from his flock, or was the smell coming from his friends, he never really knew. They laughed, as they did most nights, about the antics of the day. That one sheep who always seemed to stray, his friend who took a tumble, their wrong directions they received from a local. And as they laughed his stomach growled gnawing with hunger as their weekly rations dwindled. And as the stories of the day waned they spoke of one thing, of home.
It was out there in the distance, home. And as he strained his eyes towards the city, nestled below, he could barely make out some of its glittering lights. A pit in his stomach welled up and it travelled into his throat, and while his friends began to laugh at another joke he tried to focus so that he wouldn’t cry.
He missed home. He missed his mothers warmth, the way she would dance around their table as she served the family food. He missed his siblings’ stories, the way they would paint grand narratives of life during shabbat. And he missed working alongside his father, the way they would build huge structures together, solving life’s problems one nail at a time.
He wondered if any of the lights he could see in the distance were theirs. Would they be thinking of him tonight? …. But he couldn’t think about it too long.
He tried to distract himself but he couldn’t. The thought pawed at his brain and his heart ached. He never thought
the distance would be an issue, he had lived away before, but this was different. He knew he couldn’t go back, not after what he had done. Sure he imagined his family probably still loved him, but he couldn’t face asking them that question. He had made the mistake, his actions were his own, this was the life he had to live.Surrounded by people he never felt more lonely, an odd feeling to be surrounded by others but alone. He longed for change, for forgiveness, to return, but why spend time thinking about, hoping for, something that was impossible?
Around a different fire, a few weeks later, an explorer sat around in the early morning hours. This fire was only dust, a remnant of something that had burned for most of the night. He had spent the darkest part of the evening, a long stretch of night, staring at the stars, something that he had been trained to do, and his body was weary with the morning light. He could hear the others shuffling around, the sound of tarp rustling in the early morning stillness. That was the signal to start the process himself.
Over his years of exploring he had grown used to the constant movement; he couldn’t remember the last time he was in the same spot for multiple nights. The thing he once longed for as a youth, continuous movement, was wearing him down. His body was tired, sore from bad sleep and new cities, and his mind was exhausted.
He thought the new places, the new people, the requests from royalty would be exciting. A traveler praised by many, being known and admired, who wouldn’t want that? But as his body ached so did his brain. The gifts, the banquets, the notoriety, it wasn’t what he thought it would be, it wasn’t the promise he was sold. Constant movement, constant shuffling, nothing permanent or real. It left him empty, wanting more but not knowing how to get it. It was a lie, he thought as he rolled up his mat, and tucked away the sweet perfume bottles, but it was all he had.
He was here, in the monotonous movement of life, packing up his things for the next city. They had noticed something strange a few nights back, and their employer
told them to go investigate, maybe this time something interesting would actually happen.
Would the star lead them to a real answer, to something that would be worth it? Would the journey finally yield something satisfactory? He laughed, what a silly thought. Oftentimes the expeditions wouldn’t yield anything of importance. They would travel to another place, and find answers that weren’t worth searching for. People would be amazed by their musings, by their words, but it was fleeting. Half truths, a lavish banquet, another night staring at the stars. Nothing ever really satisfying, nothing really interesting, nothing permanent or real, just more longing for something of worth. But what he did was who he was, it was who they all were, and what do you do with that?
Many years after the shepherd’s fire dwindled, many years after the explorer’s fire burned, she sat in the heat of the day. It felt like she was sitting in the middle of last night’s fire, the staunch heat sat and seeped into her bones. It reminded her of growing up outside of the city, on her
family’s farm. They never harvested when the day was hot like it was this day, they left the pruning and picking to cooler days. Instead, on days like today, her and her family would sit in the shade of the trees. As a child she would run around, finding fallen fruits, and bring them to her parents.
They would carefully open each one, the blooming sweetness hitting her nose before she would eat it. The perfect antidote to the sweltering heat, little morsels of goodness. It was a familiar taste that she would hunt out once she moved into the busier city. As she gathered with friends, and later her own family, the little reminders of her childhood would pop up bringing her back to that time.
She hadn’t had those in so long, not since the sickness swept in, not since the bleeding started. The sickness was surprising, one minute she was surrounded by her family and then, they were gone. Her town lost so many that year. And then after a few harvest seasons, it started. A few drops here and there, overwork or exhaustion maybe.
But then it became heavier, more drops morphed into a steady stream. The sporadic nature turned into a daily occurance. No one could explain it, no doctor she traveled to had a cure, twelve years the bleeding wouldn’t stop.
It felt like she had lost almost everything, almost every coin, almost every loved one. And so she sat, in the heat of the day, as she had for years, the slow and sticky seeping of blood now her ever present companion. How would it all end?
What are these stories…who are these people? For some of you the stories may sound familiar, if you grew up in the church you have probably heard these stories. The shepherd, the explorer, are a part of the Christmas story we read in the Gospels. Luke 2 tells us the story of the Shepherds who lived in fields outside of the city walls; some scholars say their proximity could mean that the flocks they looked after would have been the sheep used in temple sacrifices. Some scholars hint at the fact that Shepherds were not always known as the most law
abiding citizens. But in the Christmas story in Luke, the Shepherds are the first group of people who are invited by the agnels to see Jesus.
And then the Magi, or some of you may have heard them called the Wise Men, our explorer. The Gospel of Matthew tells us their story; the Magi find Jesus after he is born, not in the manger. Directed by King Herod to go find Jesus, the Magi wander to Bethlehem and bring with them treasures to give to baby Jesus. Gold, frankincense and myr, gifts for kings, gifts for gods, and gifts for death. They refute their orders, and head back out in a different path.
The final story, the woman who was bleeding. Her story is one that we find in Matthew Mark and Luke. In all three gospels her story of healing is nestled between stories of other healings, this unnamed woman has little details to her story. We do know that she was bleeding for 12 years, we can assume based on ritual purity laws that her sickness made her a societal outcast and even if it didn’t, we can assume life was challenging because of her
sickness and the length of time. And yet, she was healed, a story of healing nestled in stories of other healings.
The shepherds, the magi, the women, the stories I told you aren’t 100% biblical, we actually have very little detail about any of these groups or people. And yet we can imagine who they were, we know that they were real people, who existed. We don’t know every detail but we can imagine their story, their struggles, their joys. And even if we don’t have every single detail written down, we know who they are.
They are the isolated, the outcast, the wandering, the sick.
Their stories are merely a few that we find in the Bible, these archetypes of people. The isolated, the outcast, the wandering, the sick. We have more stories too…the adulterer, the impulsive, the repeater, the liar, the cheater, the hurt, the wounded, the broken.
A very uplifting pre-Christmas sermon, right!
But here is what is important, the Christmas story and the story in the totality of the Bible is a story of love. Of God’s love. God’s love for these people, God’s story of love for us. And so today we are going to explore a few truths about this love from God.
The first truth is this, God loves you.
And some of us may laugh at that, right, because that is perhaps the most elementary thing to say. The most basic lesson we learn in preschool Sunday school, that God loves us. But in its simplicity we often overlook what that really means, we overlook the reality and the invitation of God’s love, we miss the way that this truth can shape who we are and what we do and how we ive. We are people loved by God, The people in these stories, yes, loved by God. You, me, Jordan, that annoying family member you most definitely do not want to see in two days, loved by God.
If you grew up in church you probably know this truth that God loves you, in fact one of the earliest verses we memorize tells us that God loves us and loves us fully, and this verse is..John 3:16.
The gospel of John opens with the existence of God and the incarnation of Jesus. The Gospel continues to reveal the identity of Jesus through signs and healing, through death and resurrection, through acts of love.
And in the third chapter of the gospel of John, Jesus talks to a Pharisee named Nicodemus.
In John 3, Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. A theologian Miguel Echevarria notes that the darkness resonates deeper, that Nicdeomus was also carrying within him a darkened spiritual state. He is in need of light, of love, whom John has already identified as Jesus.
So Nicodemus wanders to Jesus, no fire light around him, and Jesus unpacks his questions about what it means to
be born and enter the kingdom of God. And then, John writes one of the answers to Nicodemus’ question, in this we find the verse we all memorised as little kids, the verse about God’s love and the action of this love.
Say it with me if you know it…
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
And then also verse 17…For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
God loved, the world. Miguel says in John 3, Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus is the first of three encounters with people in need of the Messiah. Each meeting shows that God does not discriminate based on whether someone is a member of the ruling elite, like Nicodemus, a foreigner, a Samaritan woman, or the child
of political royalty. All must experience the transforming power of Jesus.
Or, in more simple words, the book of John tells us that every person is in need of Jesus and the love of Jesus. Each encounter shows us that God loves, loves us all no matter who we are or where we are have a deep need for God’s love, and an opportunity to experience love. God loves the world.
And so because God loved the world, he did what? He gave.
That is what we celebrate in two days, love’s action. God loves the world, God loves the things he created, and so he gave, he sent, Jesus.
Their is this quote that I love, and I can’t exactly remember what book it is in or who wrote it, but oh well.
The author wrote, love unexpressed is love incomplete.
Love unexpressed, is love incomplete. There are arguably many ways to express love, we all have participated in many. The love languages highlight a few of the ways to express love, by vocalising it, but showing it, by buying something to represent it, expressions of love. And without these expressions our giving of love would be incomplete because love unexpressed is love incomplete. In the book The Love Prescription John Gottman echoes this idea by saying that love is a practice, more than a feeling it is an action. Gottman then spends the rest of the book, and subsequent books, writing down data based actions that help keep relationships healthy.
Things like asking questions so that you stay curious about your partner. Expressing admiration and fondness and gratitude. Turning towards each other when things are tough. Actions that counter the negative.
Gottman uses a ratio for these types of expressions of love, he says that when there is conflict or something
negative it takes 5 positive interactions to balance the scales. When you aren’t in a heated conflict, Gottman writes that you’ll need at a minimum twenty positive interactions for each negative one. He doesn’t give a Christmas ratio but I imagine we can all fathom the number of positives needed to counterbalance Christmas negatives. A lot of expressions and actions of love to have a healthy, complete relationship.
Love unexpressed is love incomplete.
But we have an expression, God loved the world and he gave. And then Jesus loved.
Because God loved, Jesus loves. Throughout John, we find Jesus loving, not merely at his birth and death but Jesus loving throughout the gospel, expressing love, displaying love, inviting others to mirror this love. A favorite verse of mine is found here, at the beginning of John 13. John 13 marks what some scholars call the book of exaltation, it’s the part of John’s Gospel that concretely
emphasizes Jesus’ messianic truth, the proclamation, death and resurrection of Jesus. And this part of exaltation starts with Jesus, in knowledge of what is to come, loving his disciples.
John writes, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
God loves and gave, Jesus loved and then he died and was resurrected, salvation a completed act. God is love, fully expressed and complete. Jesus is love, and loves till the end.
And that love is for us, for you.
Truth 1 God loves you, and that brings us to truth two, God knows you.
We can’t talk about God’s love without talking about how God knows us, they are intertwined. God loves you, the entire you. Part of experiencing God’s love is experiencing
and knowing and understanding that God loves you, the whole you, the real you. And so part of knowing and living into truth one is accepting and living into truth two. God loves you, God knows you.
When talking about strengthening couples so that their relationships last, John Gottman writes about being known by a partner and here is what he says…our enduring vulnerabilities are often the root cause of those qualities that our partners might not love so much about us.
Ouch. Our enduring vulnerabilities, the things we aren’t great at covering up around people we love, those things can be the things our partners might not love so much about us. These enduring vulnerabilities are traits, temperaments, or experiences that can inhibit people and couples from successful relationships. Don’t worry I will not make you turn to your friend or spouse and ask about what an enduring vulnerability is for you, but we can
probably all name one of ours and certainly name 5-6 about our partners.
Maybe you struggle to make decisions and so you have half projects lying around the house, maybe your anxiety is really high and so you set unrealistic cleaning expectations, maybe you worry your not enough and so you seek constant validation, maybe you have some family trauma you aren’t willing to unpack and so you heap on criticism and shame because of your own insecurities. Maybe you don’t always listen well.
These enduring vulnerabilities prompt people in relationships to work hard at understanding each other and the stories so that when moments of frustration or annoyance or pain pop up that there can have an empathetic response, but in order for that to happen a person needs to be fully known, and then the other person needs to be able to extend grace and love in the frustration. And let’s be clear, Gottman isn’t saying that abusive behavior is the same as enduring vulnerabilities,
what he is talking about is the minor issues that seem to consistently nag at us when we are in relationships. The cycle of knowing and forgiving is a cycle that is Not always easy for it all to be done.
But where we fail as humans, we find success in God. Because not only does God fully know us, fully know our enduring vulnerabilities, but God also responds to our enduring struggles.
Like stories of struggle and redemption, like the stories above, we have countless stories in the Bible of God fully knowing people. In the story of Hagar, a story that Lisa Harrington, one of the pastors here preached on, we see the story of a mistreated pregnant slave, fleeing into the wilderness. In Genesis 16 an angel of the Lord appears to Hagar, and in the interaction she says this, “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” El Roi, the God who sees me. The God who knows my pain and my struggle, who in Genesis 16 has given me a path forward. A God who sees, a God who
knows, a God who directs forward, who moves, who invites.
El Roi, the God who sees and knows me. I don’t know about you, but that feels heavy because I don’t want God to see me, there are things that I wish God didn’t see or know. And the great news is, that we are not alone in that desire.
Early in the Biblical literature we see and reflect on the truth that God knows, even when we try to hide. In Genesis 3 we read a story of two people, named Adam and Eve. They sit in the presence of beauty, their life is free from disease, free from harm, some would say it is the perfect work life balance. But… they wander. They wander and then they eat and then we read in 3:7 that something changed and that they began to know. They knew that they were exposed, naked, and they probably felt a lot of things and so they tried to do something physically to hide those feelings. They sewed together
clothes, a physical garment that both marked their change of circumstances while also covering an internal chaos.
They were naked and they labored to cover it up. And we don’t exactly know what happened in between but I can imagine that they must have anxiously waited for God to show up. Day slowly turned to evening in Genesis 3, and maybe they thought he didn’t see. Maybe we got away with it. Have you ever had that hope? Maybe that mistake, that misstep, that betrayal, maybe God didn’t see it. Maybe God doesn’t know.
But as they sat there, as the light began to fade from the day, they heard a sound. They heard him as the leaves rustled with the wind, as the animals they just named ran away, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze. And then, they hid. Genesis 3 says they hid from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
They hid in the familiar, in the places they often found safety and sustenance in. They hid.
Here is what Genesis 3:9 says.
But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’
God, the creator of the universe, the alpha and omega, that God. God who is omniscient meaning knowing everything, omnipresent meaning every where, omnipotent meaning powerful in ways our brains can’t comprehend, that God asks the people who he created, where are you?
AJ Swoboda was on our campus recently and he reflected on this verse and he said something along the lines of, maybe the question wasn’t about where they were, maybe it was about where they were. Maybe it wasn’t God asking about the physical location, maybe it was God asking
where Adam and Eve sat in their pain, in their brokenness, in their wandering. Where are you?
An all powerful, all knowing, all present God knew where they were, and he knew where they were. And he invited them to reveal their whole self to him at that moment. God saw them, and he saw them, and he knew. And he invited them out of their hiding.
And yes Adam and Eve’s future forward meant that they had some course correction from God. They were physically moved out of the place they once called home, out of the garden, they were given new burdens and new tasks. Because sometimes our redirection can cause a little tension, it can move us out of forests of safety into a new place, but the movement always brings something new. In the Biblical text the storyline of Adam and Eve brings along other storylines, storylines that pit stop at Christmas and then the death and resurrection, to the fullness of salvation. God loved and God knew and yes there was correction and new steps but there was also
new life. New hope, new fullness, new love. God loves and God knows, and God invites things into the light for redemption and salvation and a new identity.
From Adam and Eve, to the Shepherds, to us sitting here today, stories of God’s love, of God’s knowledge of us, stories of healing and hope and peace, invitations to find our rest in the completed love of God.
Truth one, God loves you and truth two, God knows you.
So, truth three. A short truth for us. God loves you, God knows you, God offers more.
In each of these stories there is a redemption ark. The shepherds are visited by angels, they are called into the city, they see Jesus. They see Jesus. And then we read that they go out and tell people about what they just encountered. The Magi are told by Herod to go do something, they find a star and then they find a house and then they meet Jesus. And as they leave they choose a
literal different path. The woman, bleeding for 12 years, moves through an enormous crowd, reaches out to Jesus and is healed. God loves, God knows, God invites into something different. Whole love, fully expressed, an invitation to more. Our enduring vulnerabilities and all, made new in our acceptance of, experience of the love of God.
So, where are you?
Some of us today may be stiff arming God’s love. When I was here at Blue Oaks I spent a lot of time with our students and some of them were really into improv and comedy. Luke Yamashita I’m looking at you. And theirs this idea in improv called yes and. It’s this idea of taking what another improv character gives you, the yes, and then expanding on it, the and.
Some of us are yes and right now. We are filling up this measuring stick with hundreds of reasons why God shouldnt or doesn’t love us. I did this, yes and then I did
that. I am this and yes. We are hiding in a yes and darkness. The yes and works in improv but it doesn’t work here. And so if you find yourself there today, heaping on proposed reasons why God doesn’t love you, let this be an invitation to know that God loves you, God sees you, God knows you, every yes and reason, and just like the shepherds and the magi he is inviting you today to a new stage in your journey. Like the women he is offering something healing. He is offering the transformation that comes with being loved.
Some of us aren’t sitting there, maybe we are sitting in a different world. Maybe we feel more like Adam and Eve. Where are you?
Maybe you sit being both comforted and confronted by being loved and known by God. You hold the truth of love but maybe the Spirit is stirring in you to a space of confession or surrender. A leader that I work with calls this his shoebox in the attic. We have cleaned the house, refurbished most of the rooms, but there’s a box of
something we can’t turn over. A box we can’t surrender. A box we are trying to hide. And if you find yourself there, today is an invitation to sit in the truth that God loves you and God knows it, already. God loves and God knows, so surrender.
And maybe you don’t conveniently fit into either of these categories, that’s okay too. Maybe your invitation today is something different, maybe your invitation is to bring this love you have received to the people you are going to be having Christmas with like the Shepherds who after receiving and seeing love incarnate brought the message to those around them, maybe your invitation is to share. And if that’s you, I would love to hear your answer to the question, where are you? And I would love to hear what your invitation is from God today.
We could talk about a lot of things when it comes to love. We can talk about how love is manifested in community, we can talk about our response then to God’s love, we can talk about different ideas of this or that. We could talk
about a whole lot but for today, all we are going to reflect on is God’s love for us.
And we do that because if we miss it, if we separate ourselves from it, we miss out not only on the final Advent theme but we also miss out on a part of the Christmas celebration. An incomplete, not fully experienced, acceptance of parietal love is not what God has for us. Rather God offers us full love, fully expressed, fully open to being experienced. To be loved and known.
So here is your invitation, before the chaos of Christmas descends, to meet with God. In this silly little building that I remember sitting around a table and dreaming of. Here is your invitation today, an invitation to experience and celebrate and respond to the love of God, in its fullness. So as the band comes back to lead us in song I encourage you to spend some time with the Spirit, see where and if God is prodding or pushing, and then may you boldly enter his presence as one who is loved.