Richard Armstrong in his book, Make Your Life Worthwhile, tells the story of a man in Wales who sought to win the affection of a certain lady for 42 years before she finally said “Yes.” The couple, both 74, eventually became “Mr. and Mrs.” But it wasn’t without significant patience and effort on the part of the gentleman suitor.
For
42 years, the persistent, but rather shy man slipped a weekly love letter under
his neighbor's door. But she continually refused to speak and mend the spat
that had parted them many years before. After writing 2,184 love letters
without ever getting a spoken or written answer, the single-hearted old man
eventually summoned up enough courage to present himself in person. He knocked
on the door of the reluctant lady's house and asked for her hand. To his
delight and surprise, she accepted.[1]
One
has to wonder at God's attitude toward Israel. Over the centuries, He pursued
this obstinate group of people with very little encouragement. Certainly there were
individuals like Abraham, Moses and David who walked with Him, but for the most
part His efforts have been rebuffed. Hardly would one generation wake up to
their need for the Lord before the next would thumb their noses at Him again.
Finally,
when there was no other way, God wrapped up His message in human flesh and came
in person. What a revelation of God’s love in the incarnation! This message of
unrequited love delivered to the world’s doorstep is at the heart of the
Christmas narrative.
In
the most beloved Bible verse of all-time, Jesus revealed the motivation for His
advent, “For God so loved the world, that
he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have
eternal life” (John 3:16). The greatest gift ever given was bestowed upon the
least deserving. Why? Because it was inspired by agape love.
Think
of the risk involved in such an endeavor. Every time you love someone a piece
of your heart is offered. Your love could be rejected and spurned. Indeed that
did happen in the case of the Christ child, “for He came to his own, and his
own people did not receive him” (John 1:11).
C.S.
Lewis once remarked, “There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be
vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If
you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one,
not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little
luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of
your selfishness.”[2]
Another
risk is that the beloved will not fully appreciate the value of the gift. This
was also the case in the birth of Christ. Jesus was so highly undervalued that
there was not a single open room in which the Messiah could be lodged (Luke
2:7). The religious leaders at the Temple had no idea that their long-awaited
Messiah had been born in Bethlehem by the time that the magi arrived from their
journey. And when Herod found out about the birth of the King, he tried to have
him killed (Matt. 2:1-18).
This
well-known verse elevates Jesus to thin-air loftiness by crowning him with the
most regal of all title, “His only Son.” In the Greek the word in focus here is
monogenes, which literally means “one-of-a-kind.”
This is a word that John would use multiple times in his writing to underscore
the uniqueness of Christ (John 1:14, 1:18, 3:18; 1 John 4:9).
Let’s
face it, when God gave us Christ He gave us something extremely rare and of immeasurable
worth. There is only one Jesus and God the Father was generous enough to share Him,
even though the Father knew we wouldn’t grasp the significance of His gift. In
God’s Christmas gift we see someone of incredible value and incredible
vulnerability.
I
think Max Lucado spelled it out better than I ever could, “Our finest love is a
preschool watercolor to God’s Rembrandt, a vacant-lot dandelion next to His
garden rose. His love stands sequoia strong; our best attempts bend like
weeping willows . . . Look at the round belly of the pregnant peasant girl in
Bethlehem. God is in there; the same God who can balance the universe on the
tip of His finger floats in Mary’s womb. Why? Love. Peek through the Nazareth woodshop
window. See the lanky lad sweeping sawdust from the floor? He once blew
stardust into the night sky. Why swap the heavens for a carpentry shop? One answer:
love. Love explains why He came and why He endured.”[3]
Take
the manger of Christmas and combine it with the Messiah of the Cross and you
have an unmistakable message written in red from God saying, “I love you.” -DM
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