Isaiah 7.10-14; Luke 1.46-55
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No not just for some, but for everyone.
The Advent Road … the journey to Bethlehem.
It begins with hope,
aims for peace,
embraces joy,
ends with love …
I was once asked, “Why do we spend all this time preparing for the birth of Christ. He’s already been born.”
True enough … but even the best dancers rehearse the basic steps.
The finest pianists warm up before a concert.
Opera singers do voice exercises and sing the scales.
We rehearse the basics here every Sunday …
We are people of hope, because the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
We are people of peace … Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
We are people of joy … Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy; and I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God.
And it all takes us to love … you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. … You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No not just for some, but for everyone.
How do I love my neighbor?
How do I love my nation?
How do I love the world?
How do I love those close to me?
How do I love myself?
We’re a school of faith and life … a school from which we never graduate … a school of constant learning, experience, and practice.
A unique school -
Like any school anywhere, we have a curriculum …
Our very own STEM curriculum:
S for Shepherd
T for Teacher
E for Example
M for Mediator
We have:
The stories of our faith …
Moses and the Prophets.
The life of Jesus.
Generations of Christians who’ve gone before us … a cloud of witnesses.
From them, we learn …
We rehearse, we practice.
We think, we pray, and we live our lives.
We observe, judge, weigh up, decide and act.
Every Sunday, we practice what it means to follow Christ, to love God with all that we are, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves … to prepare ourselves for the week ahead.
We’re a work in progress …
Even as I speak, God’s people discover fresh ways of living the life of faith
books are written …
theology evolves;
ethics are revised;
preachers preach,
and people scratch their heads … and, btw, head-scratching is a good spiritual practice,
evidence of engagement with the great truths of our faith …
to think long enough, hard enough, deep enough, to scratch our heads is a good thing …
and if we haven’t scratched our heads lately,
chances are we’re not growing very much …
because the love of God is always a stretching exercise …
to love God, to love one another, to love ourselves, is most always a matter of scratching our heads, trying to figure it out … a work in progress.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach …
Dr. Scott Peck wrote:
“… in attempting to examine love we will be attempting to toy with mystery…. Love is too large, too deep ever to be truly understood or measured or limited within the framework of words.”
What is love? Here are some words from the Bible:
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful …
Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor …
Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Perfect love casts our fear … we love because God first loved us…
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son …
Dear Friends,
Love comes in all shapes and sizes …
The social worker laboring day in and day out in the tough parts of town, to save a few families and give the kids a chance.
The attorney defending the rights and dignity of people who would otherwise have no voice in the justice system.
Teachers in our rural schools … who love books and love ideas, and inspire the children to think beyond their farms and families …
Cops on the beat who defend the people and honor their oath of service.
A mother struggling with two or three jobs to pay the bills for her children …
The artist who gives to the world through pencil, pen, and paint …
A 5-star chef who creates menus for a soup kitchen …
The journalist who sifts through the dumpster to find the evidence …
Grammas and grampas, uncles and aunts, who wipe away the tears of the young and make them feel 10 feet tall.
The poet, the dancer, the writer and the actor - who portray life, who tell the truth of the human journey … who bring to life the power of honor and dignity, tears and loss, kindness, loyalty and compassion … courage and truth.
People who love … they love what they do, they love to help others, they love the mysteries of the universe … they love when they can’t … they love when it hurts … it’s hardly ever easy, and it’s always worth the effort.
At the end of the Advent Road - Love … at the end of the Advent Road - Bethlehem … and the child, born of Mary.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No not just for some, but for everyone.
Hallelujah and Amen!
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