Advent 2022: The candle of love
Read Mark 6:1–6.
Today is the third Sunday of Advent. We light the candle representing love.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud” (1 Corinthians 13:4). The love chapter is a lofty, impossible challenge to fulfill without the enabling of the God who is love (1 John 4:8). The man-made substitute for love is a futile, filthy bandage on the corpse of humanity dead in sin. The world mocks at the foolishness of the cross, but they, in turn, are also mocking the Great Physician who created man from the dust and whose power raises from the dead.
Mark 6:3 records that even when God himself became flesh to dwell among us, people took offense at him. We are unlovely and unlovable—the opposite of the love chapter—full of envy, pride, anger, and resentment. At that moment (while we were still sinners) Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Christ willingly out of obedience to his Father laid down his life for us. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). He first loved us, and now alive in him, we ought to love one another (1 John 4:11). That’s the awe by which we consider the Baby in the manger. The love of God incarnate, humbling himself—the righteous for the unrighteous—to bring us from death to life.
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave his Son to win;
His erring child he reconciled
And pardoned from his sin.
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
(“The Love of God” by Frederick M. Lehman, 1917)
Dear God, thank you for sending your Son to show us your love and to take the punishment for our sins. Thank you that during this third Sunday of Advent we remember the beauty of you becoming flesh and dwelling among us. May we enter this season in awe and gratitude for what you have done for us. Amen!
