Advent and Love – What Does This Mean?

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

You have been hearing sermons about words that surround Advent. In our first week, you heard a sermon based around the word hope. We have hope in the same Lord who came born of the Virgin Mary, who comes now in Word and Sacrament, to come again at the last to take us to be with Him in the New Heavens and New Earth. In our second sermon we discussed the word peace. Peace that comes from knowing Christ has come to reconcile us to His Father. Last week we turned to the word joy and its verbal form Rejoice! And even the midst of our present sufferings we can rejoice in the Lord, knowing that Christ our Savior has come and has saved us from sin and everlasting death and will take away our sufferings at the end. Today we turn our attention to the fourth candle: the candle that has been attached to the word love.

The love of a father for a son is strong. Especially when the father has only one. Abraham and Isaac foreshadow the blessed giving of the only begotten Son of God to be the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. I could have used John 3 as the gospel lesson for this day, as it fits extremely nicely too. God the Father loved the world in this way that He gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish by have eternal life. Love. The giving of the Son to be your Savior is a display of the loving character of your God.

In the testing of Abraham, we also see the first commandment come into play. Are you willing to give up the thing which you hold most dear to be in conformity with the Word of the Lord? How far are you willing to go? Offering up your son is not something that God demands very often, but as the author to the Hebrews puts it: “By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named. He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” It was done in faith of God keeping his promise that through Isaac the nations of the world be blessed.

Abraham shows his fear, love, and trust in God, in other words his faith by following the word of the Lord. Yes, Abraham loves his son, but He loves the heavenly Father more, trusting in the promise made to him about Isaac and future offspring.

But back to the main point of the event. It was picture of what God the heavenly Father and his Son would do. We have no record of Isaac fighting his father before being bound and put on the altar. Neither do we see the only begotten arguing with His Father about coming down to earth to save His creation from eternal death and hell. But rather we see the Son in lock step with His Father’s will. The great Lenten hymn A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth written by Paul Gerhardt puts words to Christ’s actions:

Yes, Father, yes most willingly I’ll bear what You command Me.
My will conforms to Your decree, I’ll do what You have asked Me.
O wondrous Love, what have You done!
The Father offers up His Son,
Desiring our Salvation.
O Love, how strong You are to save!
You lay the One into the grave,
Who built the earth’s foundation. (LSB 438, Stanza 3)

And that conversation began all the way back at the fall of Adam and Eve. That you might be saved. God spared Abraham from offering up his son, His son’s blood was not spilled, but rather God gave Abraham a substitute in the ram stuck in the thicket behind him. A ram in a thicket, which if you look at the way it has been artistically rendered in the early centuries, even by the Jews in their synagogues, the ram was effectively hanging vertically from a tree.

A ram took the place of Isaac. The Lamb of God, His only begotten Son, took your place. Christ conformed to the will of Father, and made His Father’s will His own, and willingly laid down His life for you, becoming man being born of the Virgin Mary. This is love. This is the Love of God on display for you.

See this love in the incarnation and birth of the Son of God, coming to earth to be your substitute at the cross. To be the once and for all perfect sacrifice for sin. But do not lose sight of the purpose of Christ’s birth. He came to be with you, that is true, but He died on the cross and rose, that you might be saved and be with Him forevermore.

Our hymn for today 360, “All My Heart Again Rejoices,” also tells us to remember that we are at a loss if we do not see Christmas in light of Easter, and Easter in light of Christmas. You need God becoming man for Easter to matter. And you need Christ making full atonement for sin for Christmas to matter. This is Christ, your Savior showing you the fullness of his love for you. He gives up his body and pours out his blood for you at the cross. The very God-Man, does this solely out of love for you and love for His Father.

“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. 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. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought love one another.” You are loved by God. Your sins have been taken away from you. You are forgiven. Be at peace in God your Savior, knowing that Christ shed his blood for you. You are welcomed into the presence your heavenly Father for Christ’s sake. Know then also that you are not the only one. But rather Christ also loves your neighbor, even the people you can’t get along with. You cannot and must not see them other than someone for whom Christ died.

This love is more than words but includes actions. Be kind to one another. Speak well of each other. Build one another up by encouraging one another in the faith of Christ. Pray for your enemies. Rejoice in the blessings that God has granted to your neighbor, and do not covet what has been given to them but not to you. Rejoice in the salvation given to you and your neighbor, and see the salvation Christ has given you in love as the source for the love you show to one another.

Be filled with the love of Christ. It is interesting that when Jesus was born, he was placed into a manger, a feeding box for animals. Now, the Lord Christ bids you come to him to feed on Him, eating and drinking His body and blood, which He, out of His love for you, gives to you to eat and to drink for your salvation and strengthening of faith. Gather to where you are fed, come you, His saints, that you might love one another. The Love of God is poured out for you here.

The fourth candle of the Advent wreath is associated with the word love. God’s love for you is made manifest by making good on the promise of your salvation. His only begotten Son became a man and willingly laid down his life for you, his friend, at the cross. In this you know love. And by this love, let us then love one another.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO