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    Dec 07, 2014

    The Gift of Love

    Passage: Isaiah 53:3-5

    Speaker: Rev. Vivian McCarthy, Pastor

    Series: Not a Silent Night

    Category: Advent

    Keywords: christmas, love, mary

    Continuing the series based on Not a Silent Night, this week's message explores the gift of love.

    Fifty years ago, due to the extraordinary generosity of Pope John XXIII, a world-renowned masterpiece travelled from St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to East Flushing Meadows in New York City for the 1964 World’s Fair. I was a child, but I remember the excitement like it was yesterday.

    The Pietá by Michelangelo was carefully packed by Roman craftsmen in specially designed crates and loaded onto an Italian ship with all kinds of extra security measures designed to keep it safe, including in case of the ship’s foundering. Naturally, there was a special pavilion and setting for this masterpiece. Four hundred blue votive lights, arranged in 24 vertical strings on each side of the sculpture provided a dramatic presentation.

    Millions of people came to see the sculpture. Three moving walkways in graduated heights carried the visitors slowly through the viewing room, and those who wanted a longer look could use the highest, stable platform. It was an event that captured the minds and hearts of this country. I haven’t been able to come up with a comparison in today’s terms. In the words of our young people, it was __________.

    Mary is holding her ravaged son’s body, fresh from the cross. The look on her face – some call it sorrow, some say she’s praying, some defer to Michelangelo’s title and say that she looks on her dead son with pity. As with any great art, there is room for interpretation.

    No matter what, we can surely imagine that Mary was struggling to make sense of the cross – and we can wonder today with Adam Hamilton if, as she watched the Crucifixion, she was remembering the circumstances of this Child’s birth and if she remembered the day that she took the baby to the temple and met an old man who said to her, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” (Luke 2:33-35)

    This chapter in our Advent study was rich with meaning and connections. Hamilton probed the meaning of Jesus’ name, which I mentioned briefly last Sunday. Yeshua means “God saves.” Once again, I ask, how would a 14-year-old peasant girl understand what that meant, how it would shape her future and that of her son?

    The saving grace of Yeshua – Jesus – was carried out through a gift of love “so amazing, so divine” – wondrous love – tying the joy and hope of the birth of the Baby to his death on the cross.

    Listen for a moment to an excerpt from our study book. The section title is “Making Sense of the Suffering.”

    For Mary, the hideous cross only made sense in light of the events surrounding Christmas. About 33 years before, Simeon had said Mary‘s soul would be pierced. His words meant that somehow God had known Jesus would be crucified and had had a plan to use Jesus’ suffering. It explained Joseph’s dream and their son’s name meaning ‘God saves.’ Did Mary understand all this as she stood at the foot of the cross? I don’t believe she did. But did she ponder all these things? How could she not? The key to making sense of her son’s suffering and death lay in the words spoken about him before and just after his birth.

    We noted that Christmas and Easter are a package deal. So, too are Christmas and Calvary – Christmas and the cross….We celebrate Christmas with red poinsettias, reminding us of the blood that flowed and the sacrifice that was made that day on Calvary.

    Sacrifice. I’m sure you remember that the scriptures indicate in several places that Jesus intentionally made the sacrifice of his life for us. He lived in a time when animal sacrifices were normal – “sacrifices meant to make peace with God and to offering thanksgiving to God. It was symbolic, and it was a mechanism for them to confess, to atone for their sin, and to receive forgiveness and grace.”

    The gift of love that is the cross of Jesus acknowledges that human beings sin – but it is so much more. “The fact that Christ offered himself as a sacrifice on our behalf tells us that God longs to forgive us, redeem us, and restore us... the cross is God’s work to set you free and make you right with him.”

    The meal that we are about to share reminds us again and again of that gift of love. It is not a meal meant to commemorate death – it is a meal reminding us of the gift of love in Christ.

    Let’s turn once more to the text of the study guide:

    …to me, the cross makes the most sense when I recognize it more as poetry, as a divine drama meant to touch our hearts, move us to repentance, and lead us to acceptance of the truth that we are sinners and Jesus is our Savior. It is meant to lead us to accept a love and mercy that we don’t deserve and cannot afford. And it is meant to lead us to an assurance that he has, in the famous words of John Wesley, ‘taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.’”

    Read with me, from the words of Paul to the Romans in chapter 5:

    1Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

    Thanks be to God!