Scripture References: Luke 2:1-20
Love Came Down – Continued
Jesus came while the world slept. And the world awoke the next morning, wiped the drowsiness from its eyes, and went about its work, not knowing that our planet had been invaded.
It was a strange invasion. There were no ships, no troops, no instruments of war, no clashing of arms.
It didn’t look like an invasion, it all seemed so weak by comparison. There was a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, who may have whimpered during that first Christmas night. Watching lovingly over the baby was His mother, a very young Galilean peasant maiden, and standing beside the mother, with a careful eye on the child, was a brawny carpenter from Nazareth. They certainly didn’t conjure up the look of an invading army.
Yet, have we not learned that often things that look weak are strong while things that look strong are really weak? We tend to associate strength with big, bulky, noisy things. Therefore, real strength often eludes us. Let us not be deceived by the apparent weakness of the Christ child. He was and still is, strong.
There was a poem turned into a Christmas card with a reflection on the life of Jesus, titled “One Solitary Life.” The meditation ended like this:
“All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned have not affected the life of men on this earth as much as that one solitary life.”
When I was worship minister in Tucson, Arizona, back in the mid-eighties, we used to sing a song with the refrain that proclaimed: “Love came down at Christmas.” It was the right statement and sentiment at the right time. Love did come down at Christmas.
Love isn’t weak, love is strong. Maybe it is the only thing that is really strong. “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Love is the extension of God in our world.
Power that doesn’t feel sure of itself will always come with pomp and ceremony, will always parade and strut. But love, knowing itself to be strong, dares come in what appears to be weak, in a thing as frail and fragile as a baby.
Jesus Christ had invaded our world for two reasons. He had come to free us, and He had come to win us.
He Came To Free Us
Christ even now has come to free us because we as a people, mankind as a whole, is in bondage. We are bound by forces as real as chains about our ankles and cuffs about our wrists. There are walls as thick as prison walls, doors as heavy as prison doors, and bars as strong as prison bars that hold us in. Who doesn’t know what it is to be trapped, imprisoned, enslaved?
There is a strange irrationality about us. Given freedom we choose bondage, offered light we choose darkness, and with life before us we choose the way of death. Jesus said: “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).
We rush into the arms of powers that do not love us, that do not care for us, which will enslave us, and some day destroy us if allowed too. Yet, we keep on leaping into those very arms.
Is there somebody who can snap those chains and break those cuffs? Is there somebody who can crash through those thick walls, carry away those heavy doors, and bear away those strong bars? Is there somebody who can rescue us from those strong arms that would crush us, who can wrench us from those alien hands that possess us, and give us back to the One to whom we belong? Yes, there is. Jesus Christ can. He said: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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