John 3.16 is the world’s most popular Bible verse. It is searched online two million times monthly the world over. Martin Luther called it “The heart of the Bible, the gospel in miniature.”
Love is an essential attribute of God. While we have only one English word for love, biblical Greek utilizes four words for love. The highest form of love, agape, describes the way God loves. God loves people unconditionally and sacrificially. God’s agape love is not based on human worth or merit but originates solely in the heart of God the giver. Some of us doubt whether God really loves us as we are. We feel somehow that we must earn God’s favor and deserve God’s approval, yet the Bible is adamant that we can do nothing to merit God’s love. In the words of C. S. Lewis, “God loves us, not because we are love but because God is love.”
In Prayers from the Cloud last year during Advent, I featured Christina Rossetti’s (1830-1894) carol “In the Bleak Midwinter.” As we prepare for Christ’s coming this Advent season, I’m drawn to another of her poems, “Love Came Down at Christmas.” It’s the most economical of her poems, only three simple stanzas of four lines each. Her poem underscores an essential character attribute of God: love, which introduces this eight-line poem and is referenced eleven times in this twelve-line poem. She begins with “Love came down at Christmas” and follows it two lines later with nearly identical words, “Love was born at Christmas.” “Star and angels” remind us of their role in heralding this sign of God’s love.
In the second verse, we worship the Trinity (also called the “Godhead”) for incarnating divine love. The poem closes with a question about how we can know the ongoing evidence of this love sign. Here is where the Holy Spirit comes into prominence in stanza three as the “token” or proof of God’s love. The Spirit sent from God the Father and Jesus the Son can show us how to live in love. We pray to live in divine love this Advent season: