Just for the record, I don’t claim to know how all this works. Also for the record, I am suspicious of anyone who does claim to know how this works. Jude 1: 8-9 reads:
“In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’“
Just as Jude defers to God’s judgment in disputes with the devil, I’m prone to defer to God’s judgment if there is any mystery about something in the Scriptures. What is very clear is Peter’s understanding of why we are chosen.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
How has the Father loved Jesus? After all, it was the Father who arranged for Jesus to be born a human. It was the Father who sent his son as an emissary to an ungrateful nation. It was the Father who told Jesus he needed to die on the cross. Is that love?
Well… yes. It is the deepest kind of love.
We believe that God and Jesus are one. In some sense, God Himself came down and became part of His creation. That I do not fully understand how this is possible is not important. What is important is that God sees His creation for what it is: Broken and needing redemption.
Some cities have laws that regulate who owns garbage and when. For example, when the garbage goes into the bin, the garbage company technically owns it. Whatever you put in there no longer belongs to you. In a sense that is what happened to humanity. We collectively jumped into the garbage bin of sin and ownership was transferred to “Satan’s Garbage Collection Service.” (Motto – “When we burn trash it burns forever!”) To reclaim His creation from the garbage, God had to pay a terrible price. He had to die on the cross.
How did the Father love Jesus? He resurrected him from the dead. How does Jesus love us? He does the same thing his Father did for him: He resurrects us from the dead. What a wonderful love! What a wonderful place to remain.
What do you find yourself doing for love? For some that might seem like a funny question. For others, I suspect that doing things “for love” is second nature.
The kind of love Jesus is talking about is “agapaō” in Greek. It is not family love or romantic love. Agapaō is deep respect, a caring, a desire to honor and obey.
Jesus wants us to care about what He wants for us just as He cares for us.
Do we care? Then let’s keep his commands! Now, what was it he wanted us to do?
Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
The Greek word translated as “loved” in this verse is “agapaō.” Unlike English where we use the word, “love” for a variety of purposes, agapaō has a very specific meaning. The Strong’s Concordance defines this word as, “to love (in a social or moral sense).” This is not a possessive love, or a casual love, or even an emotional love. Agapaō is caring for someone who is not worth caring for. Agapaō is being patient with someone who doesn’t understand what you are trying to tell them. Agapaō is valuing a relationship in spite of the million obstacles that tend to come between people. Differences in opinions, beliefs, moods, wants, needs, and yes, even smell all conspire to frustrate love.
Then the Jews said, ”See how he loved him!” But some of them said, ”Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.
Sometimes a guy just can’t do anything right. Jesus demonstrates compassion towards Mary and the loss of her brother and while some people see, “…how he loved him!” Other people seem to complain; couldn’t he have kept this man from dying? Yet even the complaints move Jesus because they speak of faith in what he could have done.
What does he mean by saying, “one?” A quick look in Strong’s Concordance suggests that the English translation here is every bit as clear and oblique as the Greek. One means one. It can mean ‘one’ as in one thing, or it can mean ‘one’ as in whole, or complete.
“I and the Father are one.”
In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, in the second chapter and the twenty-fourth verse God says, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” What does that mean, “one flesh?” Is that the same kind of thing that Jesus is talking about or different? It is mentioned again and again in the New Testament as an example of oneness.
This month we are preparing for Christmas by focusing on the events leading up to the birth of Jesus as they are recorded in the Gospels. So far we have focussed on the Gospel of Luke, but today we take a detour and look at the Gospel of Matthew’s account of how Jesus’ adoptive father took the news.
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Matthew 1: 18-25
Something I had never thought about until this year is the fact that Jesus had an adoptive earthly father. Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus, and yet he accepted him as his own son on the say-so of an angel in a dream. (My guess is that if an angel visits a person in a dream, the experience is much more than just a dream!) And while this would have been a challenge for Joseph as a father, it would also have had some impact on Jesus as the son. In Luke 2: 41-52 we see that Jesus is aware that Joseph is not his actual father so we know he was aware of the facts about his birth.
