When God’s Love Became Tangible

Advent 2022 Series: Love

God is Weird

Christianity is a weird religion. Traditional ways of thinking about God in other religions tell us that God is either completely separate from this world, or that everything in this world is a part of God. Christianity, on the other hand, both agrees and disagrees with both of these claims. Christmas is the time Christians take to celebrate this weirdness. It is our belief that one day, thousands of years ago, the God who was completely separate from this world became a part of the world as Jesus Christ.

This is a completely radical shift from our understanding of who God is and how God operates. When we say God is separate from the world, we expect that He sends prophets and maybe does a miracle or two, but ultimately He remains unaffected by our every day. When we say God is a part of the world, we expect that God is some life-force, not a personal being we can relate to. How is it that we can say that God is both of these at the same time?

God is Incarnated

The gospels tell us the story of a God who Loves the world so much that He decided to no longer remain separate from the world, but to enter into it.

John 1:1–2, 10 (NRSV) — In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God… And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

Luke 2:10–12 (NRSV) — But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”

God, who is eternal and all-powerful, who cannot be controlled nor harmed, who is all-together different from us, decided to give up all that. At Christmas, we celebrate the God who became a baby. Babies are new to existence, weak, completely reliant, and easily harmed. God became a human being, just as we are, because of His Love for us. But why did God have to become a baby?

God is Love

The questions we raised can be wrapped up in one notion: God is Love. The whole of understanding God can be found in His Love.

1 John 3:16–18 (NRSV) — We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.

1 John 4:8–11 (NRSV) — 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. In 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. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.

John tells us in this letter that if someone is truly Loving, they sacrifice themselves for the other. Love is not something you express with your words, but with your actions. Christianity alone can satisfy the claim that God is Love. At Christmas, we celebrate that God has physically and materially entered into space, time, and history for us so that at Easter we celebrate that He would truly sacrifice Himself to reveal to us how much He Loves us.

God could have remained separate from us for all time, but He would not have been able to show us by His deeds that He is Love. True Love is shown in the cross, where God permanently took our suffering into Himself. God did not just become as we are. God did not just sacrifice Himself for us. God became as we are, sacrificed Himself for us, and permanently bears the marks of the crucifixion for all eternity.

Revelation 5:6 (NRSV) — Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, with seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

Our God is not one who merely had a cheap and short vacation on Earth to fix our problems. Our God is an awesome God of Love who permanently took our suffering onto Himself and will always bear the marks of the death He took for our sake. The cross was an expensive burden that He bore because He Loves us.

God is Active

This Christmas, take some time to reflect on the importance of God becoming a baby. Consider how this challenges our assumptions of who God is, and how much He must Love us. We do not follow a God who simply tells us that He Loves us, but we follow a God who actively showed us His Love materially in history. God became an infant because He Loves us.