A Community of Christ’s Love: Week 4 of Christmas Advent 2012

For this year’s Advent series, we will look at the themes of Advent, hope, peace, joy, love, and Christ, through the lens of community. This week let’s see how we can be a community of Christ’s love. (Since my thoughts this year are so close between the last two themes, love and Christ, I will combine them in one article.)

 

Christmas is love. Or, at least it should be. It is love that gave us Jesus’ birth. (John 3:16, Luke 1:38) It is by love that he lived, died as an atoning sacrifice for our sin, resurrected, and ascended. (Philippians 2:5-11, 1 John 3:16) Advent and Christmas are the remembering and celebrating this love.

 

To be clear, the definition of love that I am working with is that love is a giving of one’s self. God gave of himself by giving his son. Mary gave of herself by receiving Jesus as her son. Jesus gave of himself by living for God that he may die for us.

 

I believe that the church is the physical expression of Christ on the earth. As such, the church is to love as Christ loved, since it is his example we are to follow.

 

The beautiful thing about love is that it can only flow from love. We are only asked to do what Jesus himself has done for us. At Christmas we can receive the love of God in Jesus so that we can in turn love as Jesus loved.

 

May God’s love be yours as you love those around you this Christmas! Merry Christmas!

 

Grace and peace,

Brook

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