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During this time of year, many of you will, or will have already, seen one or two, if not more, films about Christmas. Many of these films will espouse some sort of lesson on “the true meaning of Christmas”. Most of those meanings will have something to do with showing love to our families or to others in our lives.
But we rarely focus on the most important love of all: the love God has for us. We rarely, in this time of year, focus on the depths of how God shows that love to and for us.
Today is known by many names. It is Christmas, literally the Christ Mass. It is the Feast of the Nativity, the birth.
We could also call it the Feast of the Incarnation, for it is when God became incarnate as a human being.
That word “incarnate” is an interesting one. It literally means “into flesh” or perhaps it would be better to say “made flesh”.
The word even has that fleshy feel to it. “Carnate”. It has a gritty and dirty sound to it.
We often look down on anything to do with the flesh. It makes us uncomfortable to talk about it. We talk of trying to control or bridle it. Sometimes we mock it. Honestly, we often speak of it like it is a bad thing.
But God didn’t see it that way. Though we might look down on the flesh, God didn’t. God chose to become a fleshy human. He chose to become a being who would even use mud and spit to heal a blind man’s eyes. He chose to be born in the mess of a cave filled with animals and strangers. He chose to become a person like each of us by being born into this world. God was even willing to die, to become a corpse, in order to be with us, to save us, and to bring us back to Him.
God didn’t fear the messiness of this human life. God instead embraced it in all of its fullness, even unto death itself.
That is the fullness of God’s love for us. Though we might look down on it and see becoming “in-fleshed” as God debasing Himself, God did not look at it that way. God was willing to get down in the mud and dirt of it all just so that we could be one with Him again.
The depth of God’s love was to become incarnate and eventually die for us. That is true and self-sacrificial love. That love that God had for us is the true meaning of Christmas. It is why we are all here today.
Make no mistake, this is a counter-cultural thing we do here today just as God’s love for us is counter-cultural as well. It is not the norm that we as humans would show our love to God by being present with Him in this place on this morning. That is, we might say, what Christmas Eve is for. What you are doing is an amazing act of love for God, but of course what else can we give to the God who loves us so much He became incarnate for us and, in doing so, gave us everything?