Advent Season Devotional: December 15, 2014

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Advent Devotion: Scandalous Love

Week Three

 

 

Advent Devotion on Scandalous Love

 

 

We are people of the manger. As Christians we have heard the baby cry, the angels sing and shepherds rejoice. We know that God was born on Christmas day!

In the very act of God coming to be among us in the person of Jesus Christ, we have the greatest example of love we could hope to find. God took on humanity with all its perishability, challenges and rewards. God heard the cry of God’s people and responded by stepping fully into the experience of the suffering. This is the message of the manger – love for the sake of others.

This is not the first time we have heard the message that we are love for good of all of God’s people. In fact, we have heard it so often that we are faithfully willing to purchase gifts for the impoverished, food for the hungry and animals for the world. All good efforts to be sure; but, is this what the miracle of the manger calls us to do?

If God was willing to listen to humanity’s cries of pain, suffering and oppression, we are too.


 

If God was willing to step fully into our suffering to bring change, we are too.


 

If God was willing to love us in spite of all that was “wrong” with us, we are too.


 

God has asked us all to love as God does. This week we will focus on four major attributes of a scandalous lover of God’s people – Compassion, Commitment, Fearlessness, Patience.

Prayer: God of all. Help me to open myself to how much you love me in outrageous abundance. May I be forever changed because of the power of your compassion for me.

 

Day One: Compassion

Scandalous love refers to the outrageous, uninhibited, grace-filled compassion God has for all of God’s people.  God’s scandalous story of love began in creation as we were formed in God’s image and given one another to share our lives together.

Scandalous love is awakened as we embrace our human brotherhood and sisterhood.

God created all and God loves all. The gift of the season is our common humanity. God gave us one another to experience connection, sacrifice, forgiveness, and love.  We are truly blessed to be one of many and one in the same.

Daily Prayer Meditation: “For God so loved humanity that God sent God’s only son so that all who might believe may come to know love.” John 3:16 [paraphrase]

 

Day Two: Commitment

Scandalous love is rooted in action. God heard the cry of God’s people in Israel and sent Moses. God heard the cry of the world and sent God’s son. God is a God of compassion but the power of God’s love is only made manifest through action.   

Scandalous love is actualized through listening and acting.

God loves and God acts. The gift we can offer this season is to listen without prejudice, bias and fore drawn conclusions about the person to whom we are called to hear.  With our ears and hearts wide open, we become receptive to our common humanity and find ways to respond to offer or herald  healing, hope, justice and peace.

Daily Prayer Meditation: “For God so loved humanity that God sent God’s only son so that all who might believe may come to know love.” John 3:16 [paraphrase]

 

Day Three: Fearlessness

Scandalous love is fearless. Jesus challenged the social mores, religious rules, and societal laws that obstructed love. When we healed on the Sabbath; when he dined with the outcast; when he touched the unclean, Jesus was fearless so the forgotten people of his time could know love was accessible.

 

Scandalous love is realized through courage.

 

God loves all so all can know love.  Our world today has as many cultural, religious and political obstructions to love as Jesus’ day. Courage to challenge these obstructions for our brothers and sisters can be found in the confidence that God has and will always love us.

 

Daily Prayer Meditation: “For God so loved humanity that God sent God’s only son so that all who might believe may come to know love.” John 3:16 [paraphrase]

 

Day Four: Patient

Scandalous love is patient. Jesus healed those who wanted wholeness, instructed those who wanted wisdom and redeemed those who wanted salvation. Jesus required nothing of the ones to receive his gifts but to experience the power that was God.

 

Scandalous love is comprehendible  through the experience of love.

 

God loves so all may believe in love. Love is a very abstract but very real gift of God. For many, love is beyond their ability to conceive and the manger is just a myth. As we work for Christ to be real for so many, we must allow God to do the work of faith and we are to do the work of love. We offer the hand of fellowship, the heart of hope, the feet of justice and the will of peace and God will bring the redemption of love.

 

Daily Prayer Meditation: “For God so loved humanity that God sent God’s only son so that all who might believe may come to know love.” John 3:16 [paraphrase]

 

The manger may be described as meek and mild but the love born that day was powerful and bold. God has heard the cry of the people and God has sent us.