⁷Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. ¹³By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

¹⁴And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. ¹⁶So we have known and believe the love that God has in us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.

¹⁷Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. ¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. ¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. ²¹The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. 

Love is the fourth word of Advent.  It is not the final word, but it is close.  We light this candle for love.  William Tyndale wrote in 1531 regarding the passage that was just read, “John singeth his old song again.”  This is the third time in this short letter that the apostle wrote in depth about love and its essential place in the Christian life.  He seemed so focused on it that we have to read it carefully.  In this passage alone John used the word love in one form or another 29 times!  One commentator wrote that this passage is “like a diamond turned round and round for different angles of light to flash upon it.” 

I had to miss last Sunday’s Live Nativity, always one of my favorite Advent events.  I did get several reports of the experience from eye witnesses.  One of the reports was that there was an angel whose face beamed with the love of Jesus.  Another report was that the miniature donkey jumped up on the bale of hay and tried to get a look inside the manger.  I wish I had been there.  As I wrote that line my heart seemed to ask, “Did you mean you wished you had been at least week’s Live Nativity or in Bethlehem on that night long ago?”  Of course, the answer is ‘yes’!  If I had been there I would have looked for love in the manger.  Today, only days away from the night of nights I invite you to make your way to Bethlehem and look for love in the manger.  This passage with all of its reference to love seems to reflect three brilliant truths about love: love is eternal, love is internal, and love is fraternal.
 

Love Is Eternal

There is a great deal made about the Greek language having three words for love: eros, philios, and agape, but the New Testament really spends most of its time with agape.  I like the distinction that one commentator made about these three.  He wrote that eros is all take, philia is give and take, and agape is all give.  Agape does not get a lot of press outside of the New Testament, but it gets plenty of ink in the New Testament, especially with the apostle John, appropriately nicknamed, “the Beloved Disciple”.  John was quite clear that love has its origin in the divine sphere.  He makes three quick assertions – love comes from God, God is love, and God’s love was revealed when God sent his only Son.  John Stott wrote, “Love is based on God’s eternal nature.  ‘God is love’ is the most comprehensive and sublime of all biblical affirmations of God’s being and it is repeated here twice” (in verses 8 and 16).  Our love then is at its best when it is a reflection of and a response to God’s love.

Robert Munsch wrote a best selling book in 1986 entitled, I’ll Love You Forever.  It has sold nearly 8 million copies, most of them to my wife, who loves to give them to new moms.  The story is about a mother who rocks her little boy throughout his life singing the same song, “I’ll love you forever.  I’ll like you for always.  As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”  I don’t have the time to tell you the whole story, but every time I read this book or hear this song, I hear it sung to a different tune, by a divine voice.  “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living my child you’ll be.”

Our love is at its best when it is a reflection of and a response to God’s 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.”  I wonder if that miniature donkey ever got a good look inside the manger.  I wonder if those who were there on that night of nights saw the eternal love of God wrapped in swaddling clothes.  Look for love in the manger.  Love is eternal.
 

Love Is Internal

Did you catch the wonderful statement in verse 12? “If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.”  Now here is the amazing thing, about which John Stott wrote, “We must not stagger at the majesty of this conclusion.  God’s love which originates in himself, and was manifested in his Son, is made complete in his people.”  What that means is that God’s love was made clearly visible in the manger and now continues to be made visible by us when we respond to the love that is in us.  Our acts of love make the invisible God seen. 

John then launched into the wonderful teaching of God’s Spirit abiding in us.  This helps us to overcome blindness that prevents us from believing and selfishness that prevents us from loving.  Love is placed inside of us along with the capacity and inclination to love, through the presence of the Holy Spirit. 

Love then becomes the test of God’s Spirit abiding in us.  Augustine wrote, “Ask your own heart.  If it is full of love, you have the Spirit.”  Charles Wesley wrote about this love and the majesty of its taking residence in our heart.  He wrote:

Love divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heaven to earth come down;

Fix in us thy humble dwelling; All thy faithful mercies crown!

Jesus, Thou art all compassion, Pure unbounded love Thou art;

Visit us with Thy salvation; Enter every trembling heart.

Love is not only from God, it is in you – in us.  This assurance also takes away our fear.  We cannot approach God in love and hide from God in fear at the same time.  The New English Bible translates the phrase in verse 18, “There is no room for fear in love.”  Love is internal and that indwelling allows us to approach God with the boldness of the beloved.

God’s desire for us is love not fear.  He has revealed himself so beautifully in a manger and then has come to dwell in us.  Look for love in the manger.  Love is eternal.  Love is internal.
 

Love Is Fraternal

It is impossible for us to be recipients of God’s love and not love our neighbors, especially our brothers and sisters in the faith.  John became so bold as to declare that if we say that we love God, but we hate our brothers and sisters, we are liars.  It is impossible.  We see our brothers and sisters all the time, we can’t see God.  We have opportunities to manifest our love to our brothers and sisters all the time.  If we cannot be faithful in this abundantly available and rather clear task, how can we claim to have a love for God? I. Howard Marshall wrote, “It is impossible to make a clear separation between these three modes or manifestations of love – continuing to live as objects of God’s love, continuing to love God, and continuing to love our brothers and sisters.”

Last weekend I made a rather quick trip back to Ohio and Indiana to see my family.  My mom has been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus and is one treatment away from being finished with radiation.  She has gone through one round of chemotherapy, which did not go so well.  When they scrapped the second round, I decided that I needed to see her.  My mission was to promote healing, not just physical healing but family healing.  I have a brother who had not seen mom for about eight years, until last week.  Two things stick in my mind from that visit.  One was my brother’s job.  He packages dry ice and one of the things he does for fun is make water bottle bombs.  He takes a bottle of water and puts lots of dry ice pellets in it.  He screws the cap on tight, puts it in the yard, and runs like crazy.  The dry ice quickly expands into a gas and the bottle eventually explodes from the pressure.  It sounds dangerous, but kind of cool too.  The other image came at the end of our visit when my brother hugged my mom, said “I love you”, and kissed her on top of her head.  Somehow I think those images are connected, especially as I read this scripture. How can we have the love of God placed in us and screw the cap on tightly refusing to let that love be expressed by us?  We could fair no better than that water bottle.

Saint Jerome, one of the Church Fathers from the late 4^th Century conveyed the tradition of John the Apostle so old and feeble that he had to be carried to the church.  He was too weak to preach and so he would simply exhort his followers, “Little children, love one another.”  His hearers asked him why he repeated the same message over and over again.  He said, “Because it is the Lord’s command, and if only this be done, it is enough.”   Look for love in the manger.  As you see the incarnate God placed in that humble cradle, look for the depths of love and listen for the commandment, “Love one another.” Love is fraternal.

Christina Rossetti was a fascinating person of the 19^th Century.  She was born into a family of artists and poets and became an accomplished poet herself.  Her works include, In the Bleak Midwinter and Love Came Down at Christmas.  Both of these beautiful texts take us to the manger where we can see love lavishly bestowed.  As Sterling and Ed come to offer us this song, I invite you to look for love in the manger.

Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine;
love was born at Christmas: star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead, love incarnate, love divine;
worship we our Jesus, but wherewith the sacred sign?

Love shall be our token; love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men, love for plea and gift and sign.

Stott said, “No one who has seen God’s immeasurable and unmerited love displayed there can go back to a life of selfishness…The same love that drives out fear, drives out hatred.”

This Christmas I encourage you to look for love in the manger.  Love is eternal – it comes from God, God is love, and God demonstrated his love when he sent his only Son.  Love is internal – when we truly experience God’s love and are filled with God’s Spirit love is there. Love is fraternal – we cannot help but express love to one another with God’s love inside of us.  This week look for love in the manger.  Amen.