Christmas Day 2013

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti Amen. +

Text: Hebrews 1:3
Theme: God, Christ, Love

Dear Worshippers of the Newborn King,

“God is love.”1 This is at once the most simple and the most complex truth that exists. It is also the most relevant truth. God is love. What does this mean? Christmas begins to give us a picture. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”2 Good Friday is the most vivid image. “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”3 Easter is the celebration of its truth. “Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ…and God raised us up with Christ.”4 Only in eternity will it be revealed completely to our senses. “Beloved, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”5

Pure love is completely non-reflexive, that is, it never focuses on itself, but always upon another. It is never self-directed. Even God’s love within the Trinity is not self-directed. The Father loves the Son and the Son the Father through the Spirit.
Because God’s pure love could not be self-contained, it flowed out to creation. Human beings especially, as beings created in God’s image, were the recipients of God’s love. His desire was to have that love freely returned. It lasted only for a while.
Our sin necessitated a new expression of God’s unconditional love. Jesus Christ in the flesh is that expression. Jesus Christ, love incarnate, is the centre of Christmas. He is love. In baptism we are embraced in His love. In communion we are nurtured with it.

The rest of this sermon is in its entirety a quotation of Holy Scripture on love, false and true. I invite you to listen afresh to these words of the Spirit, hearing His voice not in the form of obligatory verses peppered throughout a sermon, but as the life-giving declarations of God. “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world- the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does- comes not from the Father but from the world.”6 “The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished.”7 “The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and My people love it this way. But what will they do in the end?”8

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”9 “Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace.”10 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”11

“We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”12 “Dear children, let us love not with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”13 “This is love for God: to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”14

“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like Him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear”15

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”16 “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”17

“When the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”18 “This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might have life through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”19
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?”20 “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”21
Amen.

+ in nomine Jesu +

The Nativity of Our Lord
December 25, 2013
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt


11 John 4:16 2 John 3:16 3 Romans 5:8 4 Ephesians 2:4-6
5 1 John 3:2 6 1 John 2:15-16 7 Numbers 14:18 8 Jeremiah 5:31
9 2 Timothy 3:1-4 10 2 Timothy 2:22 11 Matthew 22:37-40 12 1 John 4:19-20
13 1 John 3:18 14 1 John 5:3-4 15 1 John 4:16-18 16 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
17 1 Corinthians 13:13
18 Titus 3:4-7 19 1 John 4:9-10 20 Romans 8:35 21 Romans 8:37-39