Love is one of those words that loses meaning far too quickly. We love wives and we love video games. To top it off, it sounds like a weak word. What’s the opposite of a badass? …A really loving person?

We don’t give power to love in our cultural consciousness as we should. We give power to money, things, ideas, people, memories, cultures – but love is not on the list. Even Christians, who profess a loving God, push for aligning power-structures and power-words with their faith (reason, prosperity, safety, fear) rather than champion love.

Love is a God who humbles himself to the level of his creation.
Love is a God who places himself in a marginalized group.
Love is a God who proclaims his own entrance into the world by including the excluded.
Love is a God who dies for those who hate him.
Love is a God who died for you.
Love is a God who gives us hope for peace and joy.
Love is a God seeking to bring everyone and everything home at all costs.

This is why Christmas is about Love.

WK

She was his girl; he was her boyfriend
She be his wife; take him as her husband
A surprise on the way, any day, any day
One healthy little giggling dribbling baby boy
The wise men came three made their way
To shower him with love
While he lay in the hay
Shower him with love love love
Love love love
Love love is all around
Not very much of his childhood was known
Kept his mother Mary worried
Always out on his own
He met another Mary for a reasonable fee, less than
Reputable as known to be

Father up above, why in all this anger do you fill
Me up with love
Fill me love love love
Love love love
Love love
And the blood of our children all around

WK

I feel odd talking about this time in life because I’ll end up talking about kittens, Rice Krispies, Care Bears, and babies to get my point across. That warm feeling that is far too rare in life is the only other way to describe these times of the year. The closest thing I can reason why these times are felt and remembered this way has to do with people, however briefly, in complete reconciliation with each other. If only for a few hours, 10-30 people around me become drama-free and seem to rise to a different level of human interaction and intimacy. As I begin to think it about, I miss it.

Part of God becoming man was to reconcile everyone to everything, or at least to start. God wants us to love to him, love each other, and love the world around us. That is the vision of the future that I caught in those times. C.S Lewis equates joy to that idea – he called it sensucht, a funny-sounding german word for that indescribable feeling of longing that isn’t necessarily bad, but a good longing. Feel me?

Lewis goes further to say that joy isn’t the end state, but the journey to the state. The joy of those Christmas memories is that it is a glimpse along the journey towards what the New Creation. And when that comes, we will have untainted knowledge and relationship with God, pursuing the greatest understanding of a fully unknowable God. That is the greatest joy.

And that, to me, is Christmas.

WK

The Good Shepherd, dated mid-3rd Century

The King has come.

The King, who came through a young, obedient girl. The King, who came under the care of a socially-scorned couple. The King, who came from the town of the old king, under the oppression of many evil kings. The King, who brought outcast shepherds and foreign powers to witness your birth and life. The King, for which  the very angels sang out in celebration upon the Earth. The King, who in very nature God, in communion with God and by the power of God, became lowly man.

The King, who would take in all that is God’s nation on Earth, and make it what it was to be. The King, who would show love to the unloved, justice to the oppressed, freedom to the captive, and hope to the hopeless.

The King, who would take on the sin of all humanity, so that we may be saved. The King, who on the Third Day rose again and defeated Death. The King, whose kingdom is now, but not yet. The King, whose new creation will herald renewed, complete, and everlasting communion with God.

The King, who will return soon.

Merry Christmas,

WK

In the 1st Century, The Jews had been in exile for nearly 600 years, and were wondering what God was up to, letting them toil under foreign oppressive evils for so long. They were constantly trying to remind themselves that God was still their god, and that his Messiah would come as promised. It was messy, since many ‘Messiahs’ came along and inspired many for awhile, only to fail miserably, like the Maccabees.

This song is a true advent song: It is all about the waiting and the hope for Israel and the World. Rejoice is reflective here, it’s a command: despite trial and oppression we need to rejoice in the coming of God’s Messiah.  Once more, this song illustrates how Jesus is the Emmanuel, the Messiah, and the Saviour, not just in the freeing of Israel the people, but of all people from Death.

In this day before the joy of the Incarnation of God, Emmanuel (God is with us), let us remember our need to rejoice out of obedience and not feeling, as we wait for the Second Coming of our Emmanuel, to help usher in a new creation and the fullness of his Kingdom.

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times did’st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

WK