by Rev. Gina Johnson
So it came to my attention last week that I didn't share with you all the next part of the story. And as soon as I mentioned that I didn't share it, I had three others say, yeah, we were wondering about that. So I thought we could pick up with our story.
So for those who have not been following our story, this is about Ella and her daughter, Lila. Ella is a single mom, and we've been journeying with her as she's been letting the weight of the world almost distract her from the holiday season of Christmas. Not only that, but just from the great gift she has in her daughter Lila and the relationship they have together.
The third week of Advent brought snow and a fresh blanket of white that covered the town with a peaceful hush. Inside their little home, Ella didn't feel very much peace, although she had been trying to focus on what had happened over the last two weeks to remind her that she is never alone. All of a sudden, Lila comes out of nowhere and says, “Mommy, Mommy, look outside. It's magic. Can we go outside and play?”
Ella hesitated. She looked at Lila with her eyes big and that smile on her face, and she said, “Oh, Lila, I have so much to do. Why don't you get ready and you can go play and Mommy will be there?”
But Lila knew how to pull out the big guns. She fell to her knees and looked up at Mommy and said, “Please, just for ten minutes, come and play with me.”
In that moment, Ella could not resist. “Okay, I'll do it. Let's grab our coats.”
And immediately they went outside. Once they were outside, they started to build a snowman. Ella stepped back for a minute and she looked upon Lila, and suddenly, all the things that were burdening her seemed to vanish. She looked at her daughter and thought, I cannot remember the last time I have felt joy flow so freely and it's always been right here in front of me. Just in that moment, the mailman came walking up and Ella ran over to the mailbox. She said, “Lila, come here, there's something in the mailbox.”
Lila reached in, grabbed it, and she handed it to her mother. Ella thought maybe it was something that Lila was doing to play a little joke on her, but there was writing on it that she didn't recognize. She opened up the envelope and it said, “You are loved. Never lose your hope, peace, joy, and love that you have within you. Merry Christmas.”
Immediately, Ella started to cry. Lila looked up to her and said, “Mommy, I told you, God is watching over us.”
Ella embraced Lila and in this little envelope, not only was there a note, but there was a gift card. Immediately they went to the grocery store and purchased all the things that they would need to turn their home into a little bakery so they could bake Christmas cookies and put together gingerbread houses. When they returned from the store, Lila was quick to turn on the music and as she danced around, she said, “You know what, Mommy? This is going to be the best Christmas ever.”
Ella hugged her so tightly and, in that moment, she realized love wasn't about having everything that they could possibly ever hope for, but it was about recognizing and cherishing all the blessings that have always been right in front of her. For the first time in these weeks, Ella felt the hope, the peace, the joy, but most importantly, the love. She grabbed her daughter and hugged her even tighter and said, “As long as I am wrapped in God's love, you will be wrapped in my love.”
This isn’t the story’s conclusion. You'll have read the next post for the conclusion.
So how often do we forget that we are always wrapped in God's love? This very beautiful, this very humble, this very unconditional, given-for-all sort of love.
Today we are going to look at that ultimate gift of love and what does it mean? What is God's love? So let's start off by reading our scripture today. This comes from Luke chapter 2 verses 1 through 7.
In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn a son.
She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them.
The first point that I want to bring up this morning is that God's love is humble. Have you ever thought of a time where perhaps you had to be taken out of your comfort zone to do something for someone else? You know, we can make it a really simple example.
Have you ever had that moment where you were sitting on your couch, sitting in a chair maybe, and you look over and you see children playing on the floor? I know multiple times as my kids were growing up, they would say, do you want to come play? And there was all sorts of things we could play. We could play ponies, we could play barbies, we could play calico critters. I mean, you named it.
It's funny because as cute and adorable as it always is and always was, sometimes there's that moment of like “I do not want to play on the floor and make voices for 20 different animals right now. That is not my cup of tea.” You know? Or I remember when I was a teenager and I was candy striping.
You guys know what candy striping is. And I remember thinking, this is going to be great. I'm going to get to meet these old people and I'm going to get to like do their hair and paint their nails.
And the first thing I had to do was go strip some dirty bedsheets from some older man's room. And I was like, “Yeah. Maybe not.”
Of course we did it. How often do we have to leave the comfort that we're used to in order to extend and do something for someone else? How many of us have sat beside a friend or a loved one in a hospital room? How many of us have sat beside a friend or a loved one who just lost someone? And maybe we're searching for the right words to say. We don't even know what posture to hold.
Are we allowed to smile? Do we not? And all we feel is that discomfort. But we humble ourselves. We recognize that we are not above any of these situations. And the best thing that we could offer in this is our humble presence.
And that takes us to that part of the scripture. She gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger. The arrival of Jesus speaks volume, absolute volume to the humility of our God. This was not flashy. This was not gaudy. There were not lights and bells and whistles and parades going on. This was a baby born in a stable, without all the bells and whistles, but with the hay, with the animals, with whatever exposure to the outside elements.
This tells us that God's love is not only humble, but God's love is approachable for everyone. And the moment that we can recognize that God's love is not something that is for the rich, but not for the poor. Or maybe it's for the young, but not for the old. Or maybe it's for the black and the white, but not for the Hispanic and the Asian. Maybe it's for this group, but not this group. God's love doesn't even get caught up in any of those things that we choose to split hairs over.
The things that we choose to get on soapboxes and be proud about, God's love doesn't even look into because it's not congruent with God's love. It's not in alignment with God's love.
God's love is humble. He chose the birth of his son to be in a place of simplicity. A humility that can only be found in such a setting.
And when you look upon the manger, when you see the creche and you see that picture of Joseph and Mary, the stable boy and the animals, recognize that this is a picture of love in humility. It’s the way we should always be giving our love: with confidence, but also with humility, with passion, but also with grace.
God's love is humble. And sometimes we think that we need to reach a certain status in order to feel that love, in order to be accepted by that love, but that's not the case. You come as you are, and if you're truly wise, you recognize that you aren't coming anywhere to receive God's love, that God's love is within you.
And the moment that you humble yourself and turn inward, you will see that God's love is there. And the setting doesn't matter. And how old you are or where you come from doesn't matter.
You may say, “I'm feeling broken,” and God's love says, “No, but you are whole.” You may say, “I'm not enough,” and God's love says, “You are more than enough.” You may say, “After everything I've been through, I just can't see me. I just can't understand. Where do I go from here? What do I have left to give?” And God's love reminds you in that space of humility that you are more than enough. You are seen. You are heard. You are loved. You are cherished. You are the image and the representation of God.
It's very easy to make God's love something out of reach, to stick Jesus back on that cross and to bow down and worship Him with a false humility. But how about we bring Jesus right beside us and humbly recognize that there is no condition or cost to that love.
God's love is humble. I want to turn to Romans 5:8 for just a moment. It says, But God demonstrates His love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God's love is unconditional. That line, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And those of you who have heard me say time and time again, I see sin as those areas where we choose to view separation as the main thing in our life, where we choose to see ourselves less than and disconnected from God's love.
While we were caught up in the illusion as if we were separated from God, going our own way, doing our own thing, presuming that we are not good enough for God, that we have not reached the right rung on the ladder for God, we think, “Gosh, we don't deserve this.” While we were still stuck in that false illusion, claiming that God's love is something far from us, something that we have to merit, something that we have to earn, we are reminded that while we were in that, Christ died for our sins, so He could demonstrate that death cannot hold us, that death is not a thing, that the eternal love and life that God gives us goes on forever.
It doesn't matter whether or not you think you are good enough, whether you have reached a certain level of education, financial status, collected the right number of friends on social media, none of that matters. God's love is unconditional and that means you don't have to earn it, that it's given to you freely.
I think the challenge for me in all this isn't questioning is God's love unconditional? It's can I love others the way God loves me? It's really easy to say I love you and I love you with unconditional love until it's tested.
How many times do we say “I love you” but we finish that sentence in our mind. So our words are saying “I love you,” but if you do this or this or this my love for you is going to waver. I love you now that you've done this and this and this. You know we weren't getting along and I didn't really like you in that moment but I still loved you even though as soon as I left you I started slandering your name, gossiping, saying the most hateful things about you.
What does unconditional love look like? Have you ever had someone give you a gift and you might be like you know I don't deserve this. You shouldn't have. Or you ever given a gift to someone who just refused it. “No no you didn't have to do that. No this is too much.”
That's what we often tend to do with God's love. Even when we don't say the words, even though we may not refuse God's love with our words, the way that we carry ourselves, the way we let our situations define us, the way we give in to the thoughts in our mind and put all these things in front of God, then we start to question whether or not we deserve God's love. But God's love is not conditional on where you're at along your walk.
God's love is always right there with you. It's within you. It's actually what you are.
If you were to be anything in the representation of God, you are his love. You are that essence of love. God doesn't love us because of who we are. God loves us because of who God is. God loves us because he fully accepts us with no condition around that.
Are you all able to do that? Are you all able to look at people and recognize where they are is based on where they have come to in their journey, their level of awareness, their experiences. And do you get to withhold your love or give them more love based on where they're at? Because if that's how God treated us, wow.
Think about all those times that a prayer has been answered. Think about all those times that you found that random, miraculous blessing. But if God did any of those actions based on what we did, would we see those things? Well, if you're going with conditional love, the answer is no. But because God's love is not conditional, then we know the more that we lean into God, the more that we turn into that part of us that is empowered by God, we recognize God's love is unconditional.
And the last part that I want to give attention to is God's love is meant to be shared. It says in John 13:34, a new command I give you, love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another.
You know, for the first time this weekend, I went to the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, and there's so much personal meaning to that place for me, just because when I was young, the first Bible that my dad ever gave me was a Precious Moments Bible. And there's so many other little pieces along the way.
But as the young lady, doing a great job with her animated expressions, was telling the story of Sam Butcher, telling about the work he did, she was telling about one of his first pieces. And if you all are familiar with Precious Moments, you'll have to try to picture it in your mind, but it's a little boy and it's a little girl, and they're sitting on a tree stump back-to-back. And that figurine is called “love one another.”
And that's exactly it. Those two sweet, innocent children sitting on this stump back-to-back, no division, no separation, no barriers, just sitting there together in the stillness and in the peace. They didn't have to run through a list of questions before they sat on that stump.
They didn't have to determine whether the other one was worthy to sit beside them or not. They just came as they were, as they are, and they sat there. You know, love that God gives us is not something for us to keep to ourselves.
Once we receive it, if we truly receive it, it's going to overflow within us. It's going to rise up in us. And how can you have that demonstration of love in your life and not want to give it to others? How can you have all of these blessings, all of this love poured into you and not want to share it with others? If we call ourselves believers, if we call ourselves followers of Christ, then we will reflect God with our actions, with our words, with our love for one another.
We will reflect God by clearing off that spot on that tree stump and sitting there waiting and inviting someone to come and sit beside us that we can love. You have to ask yourself in this season, who is it that's calling out for your love? If your love is humble and your love is unconditional, who is that person that you are being called to give a little extra love to? Love one another as I have loved you is what we've been told.
If you think about a candle in a dark room, the minute you light that candle, it's amazing that one little flame can fill that entire room. And I know I've made mention of that before, but you'll even see it. On Christmas Eve, why do we turn down all the lights and light candles? Because we know that that light is a representation of the light of the world that we have from Jesus. The light of the world that is in each and every one of us.
When you think about that candle and you think about that command, love one another as I have loved you, think about this: where are you going to let your flame shine? Where are you going to make that space? Where are you going to go the extra effort to love one another as God has loved us?
Imagine that someone is handing you a perfectly wrapped gift. I mean, it's beautiful. The color, the ribbon, the twirls, and you're holding it in your hand and the ribbon, the way it reflects, it’s glittering and it makes your eyes sparkle as you look at it. What are you going to say? Are you going to say, “Well, this is too good for me. I don't deserve this.” Or are you going to set it over here and say, “Yeah, maybe I'll open that later. Maybe when I'm in the mood for it.”
You know, we go through all these little silly analogies hoping to bring these points home. But if this is the gift of God's love that you hold in your hand, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to sit there and question, are you worthy of it? Are you going to set it aside and open it later? Or are you going to tear that paper off and recognize that that love is for you from God and for you to take out into the world and share it with everyone in all the days that we are here.
A new command I give you, love one another as I have loved you. God's love is humble. God's love is unconditional. God's love is who we are.
Please pray with me. God, we give you thanks for this opportunity to gather, to sing to you, to lift up our prayers, to feel your ever-present spirit. God, may the words of this message speak your truth. May we feel and receive in our very place of need that comforting assurance that comes only from you. We give this time to you. We give our lives to you. It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
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