The Christmas Gospel

"In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation of our sins."

- 1 John 4:10

"Unreciprocated love is the Gospel."

- Alex Ayris

Have you ever gone out of your way to be a friend to somebody who just would not reciprocate the friendship? Have you ever given a gift to someone who never even thought to get you something? Have you ever loved and served someone who did not love or serve you back? These things have "the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ" written all over them. As my friend and Beeson classmate Alex once said, "Unreciprocated love is the gospel."

Christmas should remind us that when we were yet sinners and enemies of God, he entered into our messed up world in the person of Jesus Christ, took on our messed up flesh, died and rose again to redeem a people for himself. The LORD's promise from the beginning was that he would be our God and we would be his people (Ex. 29:45; Jer. 31:33; Ezk. 37:23; Rev. 21:3). Christmas reminds us that God stops at nothing to fulfill that promise. Even when we don't love him, he loves us and sacrificed himself for us (1 John 4:10). He did this knowing we would never love him the way he loves us. Yet he poured out himself unto death, and he pours out his Holy Spirit on his people. The true knowledge of Christ's victorious and vicarious sacrifice for us, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit that we are God's children (Rom. 8:15-16), enable us to love him, however imperfectly, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

I think about the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Lk. 20:9-18). Time after time in the Old Testament, the word of the LORD came through the prophets and was rejected. When the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14) as the full and final revelation of God to his people, he was rejected as well. He knew that he would be (Isaiah 52:13-53:12). As the hymnist writes, "Man of sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came, ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah! What a Savior!"

This is what makes Christmas great. The God we rejected and continue to reject on our own continues to love his people. He has removed every obstacle (namely, our sin and hearts of stone) from him lavishly pouring out his love upon us.

And so we love him, or try to love him. I resonate with Elizabeth Clephane, who wrote one of my favorite hymns: "If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now." There are particular moments when I feel I really love Jesus, but I'm not sure I've ever really loved Jesus as I ought I, with all my heart and soul and mind and strength. I'm not saying that to be self-effacing. I, Matt Owens, do not love the Lord as I should. I, the seminary student, dos not really dwell upon the gospel everyday as I should.

Fortunately, there is one who has loved the Lord with all his heart and soul and mind and strength, and lived his life accordingly. All of this was done on my behalf. So, in Christ, I have loved God with all my heart and soul and mind and strength. Christ loved the Father perfectly on my behalf. This is why Christ coming was necessary. So, on this Christmas Day, may we think about such things and love and serve the God who first and always loved us. And may we extend this grace to our neighbors and families and co-workers. Keep pouring out your love and service and friendship to the ones who don't deserve it, to the ones who don't appreciate it, and to the ones who don't reciprocate it. For in doing so, you are being like Jesus and reflecting the salvation he gives his people. Christmas is unreciprocated love, and it is necessary, and it is beautiful.