Advent: Daring Assertions of Love in an Insecure Age

To really understand the significance of the birth of Jesus, we must go back to Genesis, the book of beginnings. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” God hung the sun and the moon above the earth and dotted the sky with stars and caused the earth to sprout vegetation, plants, and fruit trees, each yielding seeds of their own kind. He created sea creatures, living creatures that move, and winged birds—each according to its kind.

God—Father, Son, and Spirit—formed Adam from the dust of the earth’s ground and Eve from Adam’s rib. Created in God’s image, male and female, for companionship with God, each other, and the world that now teemed with life. They all walked together in the cool of the beautiful garden that God had planted and watered.

Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed.

The only thing God withheld from their grasp was the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 3:17). The serpent, we soon learn, tempted Eve to doubt God’s instructions and led her to believe that one bite of the one forbidden fruit growing on one tree in God’s lush and abundant garden would in fact open her eyes and provide her with wisdom. Eve, enticed by the lie, could see that the tree was good for food—it delighted her eyes.

So, she took a bite.

Then Adam took a bite.

And … indeed, their eyes did open. They could see their nakedness and in shame they attempted to cover themselves and to hide from God. Their outright rebellion against their Creator’s one command set in motion tumultuous and cacophonous events. Adam and Eve’s choice resulted in their banishment from the garden. Ever since, humankind, having inherited this sinful nature, has defied the Creator—this reality is evidenced in part by the secularization, polarization, and violence we have considered in this season of Advent.

Importantly, God before closing the doors of the Eastern Gate behind Adam and Eve, promises redemption.

Only God can set things right.  

Which brings us to Christmas.

The Gospel of John spotlights the Word, whom we know to be Jesus and emphasizes the fact that this Word was in the beginning, was with God, and actually was and is God. He created the heavens and the earth, the living creatures in the sea and on the land, the sun and the moon, and humankind beginning with Adam and Eve.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:1–4).

In a wholly perplexing and mind-blowing way, Jesus, God’s Son and God’s Word, took on human flesh (theologians describe this as the “Incarnation”). He came to earth to live among us who are sometimes insecure, at times rebellious and raucous, often deceived and tempted because God intends for everyone to know their Creator.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth….  No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known (John 1:14, 18).

The God, our Creator, who became flesh and lives among us, pursues us, makes covenant promises with us. God promises to love us purely and without condition, fickle and factious though we are. Every single year Christmas reminds us of God’s unrelenting, unconditional, rich, steadfast, love that has been secured for us in the Word made flesh.

For God so loved the world—and you and me—that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

So, Christmas celebrates this miraculous, logic defying Incarnation and sets in motion the redeeming love God promised so long ago to Adam and Eve in the presence of the cursed serpent. Christmas reminds us that heaven came to earth as a baby, born of a virgin.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:9–10).

Jesus embodies the depth and breadth and length and height of God’s love for us. And in the weeks that follow Christmas, the pages of the church calendar will change again to prepare us for Easter and God’s triumph over sin and death, but until then, we rest secure in God’s love.