Love Came Down Let’s Pass It Around

Advent Season, Hannukah, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, 12 Days of Christmas, St. Stephan’s Day

December is rich with meaning and it’s spelled LOVE. This isn’t the warm, mushy,squishy, wishy washy love. The love that God actually gave to you and me must have much greater substance than that. Give any one of us a bad day and we can do serious damage to the mushy squishy love. The love God gave, gives and will continue to give to us can and has withstood the tests of evil, death, nastiness, hate, loss, grief, anger, threat, indifference, life, chaos, and so much more, imaginable and unimaginable.

So, what does this love look like? Where have we witnessed it? When have we shared it with others?

God’s love, agape, works to overturn the injustices we tend to normalize.

• Asking why doesn’t he stop abusing her (rather than why doesn’t she leave) AND then getting the answer and working to force him and others like him to stop.
• Running a food bank and setting it up to respect the people who use it.
• Creating a community where there truly is housing that people of all income levels can afford.

These are not easy things to do. Most of us can’t even agree on what’s appropriate. Agape love is messy, it’s risky and has cost. Agape does, agape gets up, rolls up it’s sleeves and gets to work for the good of all. Agape love respects each person as one of God’s very own beloved. Agape love understands each person as one of inherent worth and continues regardless of any resistance. Agape is also something that we participate in as God’s very own beloved. If we truly believe in God and have a living relationship with God then we are continually called or urged by God to live out this life giving love.

I’ve seen this love when a couple adopted a teenage girl, almost ready to age out of the system. They did this for her benefit and yes, they loved her with familial love too.

After Irma, many families have been homeless. There was a lady who reached out to another lady and her little girl who were living in their car because their home was gone. The three of them are now living together until the woman and her daughter can get back on their feet.

What examples of agape have you seen?