Resolved: To Love One Another

A brand new year is upon us and it’s time once again for New Year’s resolutions.  Here is a resolution thought for the Christian Church at large for 2012—how about we resolve to love one another, even those who don’t believe.

Paul very eloquently writes of love in his first letter to the church at Corinth, “Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails” (4:4-8).  Love was a hallmark of the early Christian church.  It was said of the early Christians, “How they love one another.”  Over 30 years ago a song was written that picked up on that very trademark—“They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love”.  The refrain went like this:  “And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love They will know we are Christians by our love“.  Verses of the song said things like this—“we’ll work with each other, we will work side by side . . . And we'll guard each one's dignity and save each one's pride . . . We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand”.  And all the while the world will know “that we are Christians by our love”. 

But I’m not so sure the world knows Christians by their love anymore.  It would seem Christians are known by their rudeness, their hatred, their bigotry, their pushiness, and their outright grumpiness and grinchiness.  We seem to have forgotten our manners, showing courtesy to others, and practicing being polite.  And what makes me think this way?  A few things.  We are in the middle of Christmas and as usual Christians are lamenting and belly-aching about Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas, Winter Break vs. Christmas Break and other attempts at secularizing Christmas.  Some Christians go out of their way to force Merry Christmas on people for the sole purpose of making their point and their showing disregard for anyone who would tamper with Christmas.  For a season that is supposed to be filled with Comfort and Joy, Christians don’t seem to be showing much.

Actually, secularizing Christmas isn’t anything new.  Irving Berlin’s Christmas classic, Holiday Inn came out in 1942.  The 40’s and 50’s was a time of church growth; a time when even people who didn’t go to church were Biblically literate.  It was a time of morals and values and nobody ever dreamed of taking Christ out of Christmas.  And yet this holiday Christmas classic movie and its songs are so devoid of Christian faith and the gospel.  Its A Wonderful Life came out in 1946.  While its’ story line involves an angel, that’s about as religious as the movie gets.  The storyline still revolves around what we are able to accomplish.  No gospel there, no Christ in Christmas there.  And yet I don’t see anybody raising a ruckus about these movies and the songs that are in them.  Christians love watching these movies because they are wholesome classics.  White Christmas came out in 1954, and it too had nothing to do with Christmas being about Christ, but I don’t hear of any Christians complaining about it.  The world has always secularized Christmas.  It’s only of late that Christians (some Christians) feel overly compelled to do something about it.

I can’t help but wonder if this drive to keep Christ in Christmas isn’t a distraction from what Christ has called us to give top priority—the Great Commission.  And I can’t help but wonder if that isn’t exactly what Satan wants us to be distracted with.  He has always been the most subtle of all creatures. In the garden he twisted God’s word into a half-truth just enough to make it sound okay.  And Adam and Eve became distracted and in their attempt to gain godliness, they lost it.  And the real tragedy?  They possessed Godliness in the first place!  The religious leaders of Israel were distracted, too.  They were all about outward appearances and the precise keeping of rites, rituals, ceremonies, and holy days.  In fact, there was much consternation on the part of the religious leaders to see Jesus not worry about that stuff as much as they did.  They felt that by defending the letter of the law they were defending the faith.  But the very faith they thought they were defending they had thrown away.  They had become distracted with the letter of the law and forgotten about the spirit of the law, that when the Christ came, they didn’t recognize him!  Jesus focused on what he came here to do—save the world from the peril of its’ sin.

Keeping Christ in Christmas is certainly important for us Christians.  It is the whole reason for our celebrating it in the first place.  But first and foremost God has called us to make disciples by baptizing them and teaching them.  We are to always be about the gospel, for it and it alone is the power of God for salvation (Rom 1:16).  Let’s not become distracted from that by battles over other things that would also detract from our proclaiming the Gospel.  If all the world sees of Christians is a bunch of grumpy, hate-filled people, they certainly aren’t going to be receptive to hearing about God’s love for them being so great that he sent his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer and die for the sin of the world, thereby winning for us the victory over sin, death, and the devil.  If we must defend Christmas, at least let us do so with love—not just for Jesus but for all mankind.  As Jesus died for us, so he lovingly died for them.

AE