God’s Love Displayed Through Christmas and Advent
Isolation and rejection are among the most powerful emotions teenagers experience. Realizing they weren’t invited to something or feeling like everyone’s happy except for them can move them into deep despair and sorrow. Why is that? Because at the root of these emotions is the feeling of being unloved. Maybe even the fear that not only are they unloved, but perhaps they are unlovable.
Christmas can amplify these emotions, highlighting the struggles they have been facing all year: parents fighting, friends having more money than they do, a crush dating someone else, etc. Amidst the twinkling lights and the carols, we wonder how to help these students. How can we show from Scripture the immense love of God as it’s displayed in the familiar Christmas story?
The Theme of Love
1 John 4:9 tells us that “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (ESV, emphasis added). Before there was a cross and an empty tomb, Jesus had to have been sent by the Father. In John 3:16, John tells his readers that “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only son…” It can be helpful for your students to see the deep truth that God’s love is not only found at Golgotha or on Easter morning; it is displayed in the sending of the Son by the Father. The Christmas story is God’s love for sinners on display in coming to the earth, the beginning of what He would accomplish through the cross and the empty tomb.
The entire Christmas story can be taught under the theme of love: God announces that He has sent salvation to His people. Why does God choose to appear to lowly examples like Mary and the shepherds to announce the birth to the Savior? Because of love. Why does He give the good news to Zechariah and Elizabeth that He honored their prayer for a son in John the Baptist? Because of love. Why does He tell Joseph and Mary and the wise men to flee from Herod’s wrath? Love. There are lots of deep subjects to point students to at Christmas time: fulfillment of prophecy, the incarnation, and the various characters and their backstories. These are all worthwhile to explore, but ultimately, they fall under the banner of God’s love. God sent Jesus to save His people because He loves them.
For example, let’s say you are teaching on the angels visiting the shepherds in Luke 2:8-20. Most would see this scene as more focused on joy or peace, because they bring “good tidings of great joy” and “peace among those with whom he is pleased.” But this does not mean the theme of love is absent from the text. Read in light of passages like 1 John 4:9, this entire scene is the love of God made manifest. Show your students that the entire Christmas story is really a demonstration of God’s love for His people. It is because of God’s love that Christ came to lie in the manger and ultimately be laid in a tomb.
This is not imposing something onto the text. Rather, it is framing the story of Christmas in light of what the Bible teaches about God and His motivation in sending Christ. From the beginning, the entire story of Jesus is a testimony to the love of God–a love that no one deserves, but that God joyfully lavishes upon those who believe.
The Effect of Love On Your Students
How would it change your students’ understanding of Christmas this season if they saw God’s love displayed? Demonstrating the extent to which God went to rescue us can encourage the hearts of students wrestling with loneliness and isolation. Reminding them that God considered them worth saving can lift up those with problems of self-worth. And showing how God’s love is particularly good news to the humble and lowly can sustain those who feel overlooked. In the midst of those strong emotions, remembering God’s love reveals to them that though they may feel alone, in Christ they never are. Christmas is the story that can help them see that even when they feel like others may have moved away from them, Christ drew close in the incarnation.
Seeing the love of God displayed in the Christmas story can also move your students to deeper worship, not from a place of trying to earn God’s love, but knowing that Christ came in love for them at Christmas. If they are able to meditate upon the love of Christ, their worship can come from a simple desire to please the One who was sent to save them, not from a sense of obligation.
Finally, I believe meditating on God’s love at Christmas will fuel love amongst your students. There is an old Christmas hymn named “Love Came Down at Christmas. The third verse says:
“Love shall be our token;
love be yours and love be mine;
love to God and others,
love for plea and gift and sign.”
This verse comes after extolling the greatness of God’s love in the Christmas story. The point is clear: having received the love of God in Christ, we now go and show Christlike love to others. Thinking back to the angels’ visitation to the shepherds: teaching on how God’s love was good news to those of low socio-economic standing might, by God’s grace, move your students to reach out to those in their schools and neighborhoods who are seen as outcasts and of low standing.
The Effect of Love On You
Finally, think of what teaching on God’s love would do for your own heart and soul. Christmas is a busy time for everybody, including pastors. For youth workers, we can get so busy planning the parties, preparing the lessons, going to student events, all while trying to honor our own family, that by the time we get to our Christmas Eve candlelight service, we feel as if the season has passed us by. Maybe we are even the ones feeling unloved, lonely, or overlooked.
God’s love can be the balm for weary souls like ours. By teaching on this theme during the advent season, as we work and prepare lessons and meditate upon this great and inexhaustible truth, may our own hearts and souls will be stirred to deeper love for Christ and obedience to His Word. May it sustain us during these times where we are in need of reminding that God’s gracious love is enough for us.
Christmas, for this reason, is a wonderful time. Yet it can also be painful for many, whether for you or your teenagers. Point them to the One in whom eternal love is found. Point them to the One whose love drove Him to leave the glory of heaven to come and rescue them, who demonstrated His love by dying for them.
Christmas is not merely a good story for us to remember, nor is it merely a set of theological positions. It is a story of a God who sent His Son into the world of darkness so that they might see a great light. It is a reminder of the greatest act of love.