December 2, 2007 begins the new church year and the 1st Sunday in Advent with the following three readings assigned: Isaiah 2:1-5 (Mountain of the Lord); Romans 13:8-14 (Love fulfills the Law) and Matthew 2:1-11 (Wise Men to Bethlehem)or Matthew 24:36-44 (Judgment Day hour). The text for the sermon is Romans 13:10, “Love does no harm to the neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

It is our custom to point out that every theological passage in the Bible can be understood in two ways–the wrong way and the right way. The wrong way is the way of the Theologian of Glory who desires to be in authority in contrast to the right way of the Theologian of the Cross who bows to the authority of Jesus Christ. The two theologians understand love differently.

Ask the world about love and it will speak of married couples falling out of love which means a divorce. No such concept of love is found in God Who loved you prior to your being converted (John 3:16). God’s love is not dependent on something in us but rather is part of His nature. In contrast to the world that considers love to be an emotion, God’s love is an attitude that does not wane or disappear on the basis of his objects of love being so unloving.

In every other religion of the world, the goal is to appease or placate a god that is not in love with you so that it might begin to love you and choose you to be saved. In Christianity, God already loves you. There is no need to appease His wrath by merit but only to recognize that because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s love pours out toward us in forgiveness, peace and eternal life.

While a superficial reading of the text might lead one to conclude that a loving action takes place when one does no harm to a neighbor, such a conclusion has it backwards. For love is not defined by how we treat the neighbor but rather whether or not our actions are in line with God’s Will (the commandments as verse 9 clarifies). If one obeys God’s will, then by definition whatever one does is an act of love. Love, therefore, is not some nice thing we do that results in our keeping the commandments but rather the opposite. Keeping the commandments is in reality the only way that the true God defines love.

Every action of Jesus was therefore, by definition, an act of love whether it was feeding the 5,000 who still didn’t get it or chasing out the money changers from the temple with a whip. But the greatest act of love was His death for you. Indeed, those determined steps to Jerusalem and the cross resulted in the Father expressing His love towards His Son with the words, “This is My beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased!”