Looking Ahead to December 21, 2025 -- Advent 4

 

The Scripture readings this week are:

• 1 John 4:7-12, 16-19
• John 1:1-14

The Sermon title is The Christmas Dream: Embodied Love

Early Thoughts: What was that first word? The one that was with God from the beginning...what was it it? What is it?

Theologically speaking, when John talks about the Word, the Word which becomes flesh and dwells or abides among us, we see the 2nd person of the Trinity, Jesus, the one we call Christ. John is telling us that Jesus (the 2nd person of the Trinity to use an understanding that would be codified in the 4th-5th century) has been co-existent with God (the 1st person of the Trinity) since the beginning. Indeed nothing was created without this Word.

But what if we have to say it was an actual word, a part of speech?

I posit that the creating word which has been with and been part of  God since the beginning is in fact Love. After all the passage from 1 John (likely written by a different person than the Gospel of John but someone who shares a similar theology) names that "Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him." If God is love then it makes sense to me the that Word is also love, love becomes flesh and dwells (or abides) among us. This is the Christmas story, this is the mystery of the Incarnation.

What does it do to see Jesus as Love with flesh on? What does it to our understanding of the world if we say that nothing was created without Love?

I think it makes a world of difference. If we claim to follow the one who is Love Enfleshed, the very embodiment of Love it has to change how we interact with each other. If we claim that all that is created was created through Love then it has to impact how we interact with all of creation.

Part of my Christmas Dream is that, as Christina Rossetti once wrote, Love shall be our token/Love shall be yours and love be mine/Love to God and to all men [sic]/Love for plea and gift and sign. It is my dream that when we meet Love with skin on laying in a manger we will be changed. As we follow the one who commands us to Love each other as we have first been loved (John 13:34) we change the world.

Love is free and wild in the world. Our job is not to try and tame or restrict it. Our calling is to dance with it, joining with wild abandon. Love has been in the world from the beginning, humanity had trouble understanding it so Love took on human form and dwelt/abided among us. Love then defeated the power of death and continues to dwell/abide among us. May we feel free to join in the dance.
--Gord