Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

“My little children” (1 John 2:1)

 

 

“I love it when there is snow for Christmas.” “I send out love and good wishes to all my followers on social media.” “I wish my family would show some love me.” “God loves you.” There is a whole lot of talk about love at this time of year. If it were Valentine’s Day, we would have a certain idea about what is indicated by that little four letter word. If it was your Wedding Anniversary, you would know what your spouse was talking about. If it was the first time you held your newborn child in your arms and said, “I love you,” then you would know what the word is referring to.

 

But this is, Christmas and there are whole lot of other words that might be easier to define in their use at this time: Peace, Hope, Joy, Season’s Greetings, Blessings of the Season, We Wish You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. The Epistle reading for Christmas skips all of those words and goes right to “love”: the love of God for us and our love for one another.

 

Of course St. John did not write this passage specifically for the celebration of Christmas, but simply so that Christians would remember to love one another. For that is the outward sign of what defines a Christian, that he loves his brothers and sisters. But how is that specifically Christian? Everyone talks about love and how we should love everyone. The answer is the same for why this reading from St. John’s first Epistle is read on Christmas Eve.

 

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:7-11).

 

We ought to love one another because God has loved us. And His love for us was revealed when He sent His Son into the world. That is the tie-in with Christmas. God sent His Son into the world. And that is what makes Christmas more about love than Birthdays and Valentine’s Day, and even Wedding Anniversaries. For the definition of what love is, comes from God to us. It does not have its foundation in our love for other people, not for our children, not for our spouse, not even our love for God.

 

God is love and so all true love is based on the love that comes from Him. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” There’s a word that you don’t see on too many Christmas cards or outlined with Christmas lights on a front yard in your neighbourhood. Of all the words spelled out in lights along the Niagara Parkway, I bet you won’t find “propitiation.” The world does not think of love in that term. And that is why we must remember that love originates with God and the true definition and description of love comes from Him to us.

 

Yes, God sent His Son. We get that. Everyone loves the news of the birth of a baby. We especially love the details that go along with the account of the birth of Jesus: the tension of the pregnancy before the wedding and what was to be done about it, then Joseph’s gallant decision to preserve Mary from shame, the angel’s sudden intervention to set things on the right path, and the humble, gentle birth as the Son of God comes into the world in such a lowly manner. Don’t you just love it?

 

Is that what St. John is getting at? Are we are to love the original Christmas event? And love other people as they love the celebration along with us? We love to come to church and to gather by candlelight and to sing the carols and be with our church family for an hour or so. I love it. I don’t know what I would do without it.

 

But we haven’t yet gotten to that mysterious word, “propitiation.” Propitiation is not how the angel proposed that Joseph should take Mary to be his wife. Propitiation is not how Mary was propped up on the donkey for the journey to Bethlehem, if that is indeed how they travelled. Propitiation is not our word of appreciation to all those who played their part so well (“Props to you all!”). That would be the way we tend to use the word ‘love’ as in ‘loving’ the Christmas story or the service or the hymns.

 

The propitiation that is at the heart of God’s love manifest in sending His Son does not take place along with the Christmas event, but thirty-some years later when the baby Jesus is all grown up. It does not take place when He is laid in a manger, but when He is hung upon a cross. Yes, Mary is still there witnessing the same great love of God.

 

And also at the foot of the cross was St. John, who wrote to us about this love: this love of God in sending His only Son to suffer and die, to be the proper sacrifice for the sins of the world, to be the one fitting payment for all of the sins that you have ever done, thought, spoken, or even in what you failed to do that you should have—like failing to love one another with the kind of love that God manifested to us when He sent His Son for the exact purpose of giving His life in our place, so that we might not die in our sins but live forever.

 

This is the love that St. John is writing about. It is the love that comes from God’s love for you when He sent His Son to be your Saviour, to pay for your sins against others and for your sins against Him. That is the kind of love that he is imploring us to have for one another. And so, you can perhaps see how this kind of love is the outward sign of what defines a Christian. Our belief that God sent His Son to be the fitting sacrifice for our sins is displayed as we show that kind of love to others.

 

There should be a distinction between how Christians are to love one another and every other kind of love that is spoken of in our world today. But how do we do this? Is it possible that I will have the opportunity to go to jail for you, or be sentenced to death in order that you might go free for some horrible crime that you committed, more specifically a crime that you committed against me. Well, that wouldn’t work too well, because I have my own sins to account for and so my life isn’t worth so much as to ransom anyone else.

 

But St. John tells us not to throw in the towel and give up on a proper love for our neighbour. He says that we already know how to have this love for one another, and that is, simply by keeping the commandments. In the same letter, which speaks of this kind of love from beginning to end, it is written, “whoever keeps [God’s] word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in Him: whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked” (2:5-6). Jesus walked according to the commandments and so we should live like that.

 

We should honour our parents and help those who are in need. We should not steal but come to the defence of those who are falsely accused. We should be content with what the Lord has given to us and not be consumed with desire for the things that we do not have. It is as simple as that and as difficult as that. For we know how many times we have failed even at these primary commandments of God.

 

But because He loved us, we ought to love one another. Because He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, we are forgiven for all of those failures and we have renewed opportunities to do those things we know that we should. Love is not merely loving the fact that Jesus’ death wipes the slate clean, but love is living in that clean slate of sinlessness each and every day.

 

The Small Catechism has taught us that this is what being God’s baptized child is all about. “The old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires and that a new man daily emerge and arise to live before God in holiness and righteousness” (Small Catechism. Baptism. 4). Being God’s child through Holy Baptism means that you are forgiven in order that you might live forgiven. In this same letter, St. John points out this effect of our Baptism: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” (3:1)

 

So the kind of sacrifice that we are to make in order to show love for one another is to sacrifice our selfish desire to be mean and cruel or to be lazy and not help one another where we can. We are to crucify that sinful part of us and rise again with Jesus to live a new life whereby we willing do what it takes to help those in need, to be faithful to our spouse, to honour our parents, and to be so content with what we have that we are willing to share it with others, without making a TikTok video about it.

 

“By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (3:16-18). And so, “this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He has commanded us” (3:23).

 

When the love of God for us, in sending His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, is the basic definition of love, then our love for others is a confession of this love that we have from Him. It reminds us that we are forgiven through the love of God in Christ Jesus. It also then, becomes a reminder for those who receive our love, that it points to something much greater than ourselves. We are not doing this because we love them like we love hot chocolate on a cold winter’s night. We love them because God first loved us and He loves them, too. He sent His Son to be their Saviour.

 

“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome” (5:1-3)

 

 

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21).