Love Incarnate

we have known and believe the love that God has for us.  God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. . . the commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.  1 john 4: 16, 21

a few weeks ago, my wife and i met some relatives in northern kentucky to tour the ark encounter.  as we approached the ark, we were amazed by its enormity.  it is, according to the official brochure, the largest freestanding timber frame structure in the world.  during our tour of the various levels of displays, i began to wonder what important lessons could be learned from the story of noah and the ark.  one is that God can use flawed people like noah to accomplish great things.  another is that it is our responsibility to see that God's work of creation is preserved, rather than exploiting it for our own wealth and comfort.

as christmas approaches, i think about the messages contained in the christmas stories in matthew's and luke's gospels.  like the residents of bethlehem that mary and joseph encountered, do we turn a blind eye to the countless homeless around us?  should we be proclaiming God's message of peace and good will to a warring, intolerant world just as the heavenly host proclaimed that message to the poorest of the poor, the "shepherds abiding in the field keeping watch over their flock by night?"  we watch as millions are forced to flee their homes to live in strange lands and are reminded of the flight of joseph, mary, and the infant jesus to egypt to escape a tyrant in their own homeland.

each christmas we are called to remember that the birth of a child to a young woman accompanied by an impoverished carpenter in a manger in a small village in an obscure backwater of the vast roman empire was the turning point of history.  the message of christmas didn't occur in the roman seat of power.  the proclamation of peace and good will didn't come to the wealthy living in opulence.  God uses the humblest of vessels to contain the most profound truths, and christmas calls on us to examine the seemingly unimportant to discover what God may have in store for us, calling on us to remember that, as christina rosetti wrote in 1865, love came down at christmas,/love all lovely, love divine;/love was born at christmas;/star and angels gave the sign.  love shall be our token;/love be yours and love be mine;/love to God and others,/love for plea and gift and sign.  shalom.