“For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (CSB – Read the chapter)‬‬

When the apostle Paul was trying to capture the overwhelming significance of the spiritual gift of love and its foundational importance for the other gifts Jesus gives His church for its proper health and functioning, He penned these famous words: ”Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love — but the greatest of these is love.“ Love is indeed the greatest, and as we celebrate one last gift of Advent together today, love is appropriately where we land.

Nicodemus had to be in a terribly uncomfortable position. The Pharisees as a group were convinced Jesus was the single greatest threat to the Jewish way of life in existence. At least they would be. Before the halfway point of His ministry they would be so driven to see the stain of His blasphemy eliminated that they would resort to working with the hated Herodians to find a way to put Him to death. And yet the things He said were so intriguing. Not His claims to divinity or His obvious calls for a way to connect with God that went beyond the Law, of course, but the rest of it was. And Nicodemus was a scholar. He wanted to learn. Yet what fruitful learning was there to be had from a demoniac?

But he had to know more. So, he went to Jesus under the cover of darkness. Jesus knew the Pharisees hated Him, but much to His credit, He was willing to forego a night of sleep to have a conversation with this one who was curious. As the conversation wound this way and that, Nicodemus wasn’t sure if he was glad for Jesus’ willingness or not. Jesus was saying things about God that stretched his prodigious capacity for understanding to its limit and beyond.

He felt like he was a primary student in a graduate-level seminar. It was like he was trying to discern the identity of some foreign object in the dark. Without his sense of sight he could do little more than grope his way along blindly, trying to make sense of what he could lay his hands on.

Jesus talked about a new way of relating with God. He described an entirely new relationship. This new relationship was only going to come when a person was “born again.” Yet what did this mean? Nicodemus was doing his best to keep up, but the waters of this flood of new information kept rising to his chin and threatening to go higher.

But then Jesus said something that he could understand. He said that God loved us. The Law spoke frequently of God’s incredible capacity for love. Even where the words weren’t explicit, His covenantal love practically dripped from the pages. But Jesus said this love God had was even greater than that.

For starters, God’s love wasn’t exclusive like he had always been taught. Everyone knew that God loved only the Jews. But Jesus said it was bigger than that. God loved the whole world. Everyone was the object of His love. And this bigger-than-he-imagined love wasn’t merely covenantal, it was familial. His love for us wasn’t just a religious obligation. It was much more intimate than that.

God’s love for everyone was like the love a father had for his children, for his only son, in fact. Nicodemus had children. He could remember holding his son for the first time. He remembered the love that fairly well burst from his heart. That child was his whole world in that moment. He would have taken on empires to keep him safe from harm.

Yet this wasn’t so radical of a thought. The Law spoke of Israel as God’s child and expressed in effusive terms the love He had for them. But what Jesus said next took things to a whole other level. He spoke of another Son God had. This Son was not a whole nation of people, but one child. It was His “only begotten Son.” Nicodemus and his wife had more than one son thanks to God’s abundant blessing, but he could imagine having only one and the depth of love that child would receive from them.

As great was the love God naturally has for His Son, His love for us was greater still. It was so great that He was willing to give His Son up for us. He was willing for His Son to die so that we might live. Not even this, though, was the extent of what God had in store for us. It wasn’t just that we had the opportunity for life because of God’s laying down His Son for us. We had the opportunity for eternal life. God was inviting us into the life of His Son, our lives in exchange for His. All it would require is for us to believe in Him.

“For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

The reverberations of this declaration of God’s great love for us that left Nicodemus’ head spinning have echoed down through history in ways that still transform hearts and minds today. They can transform your life too if you will let them. The baby whose birth we will celebrate with joy and gladness in just five days’ time was God’s greatest gift of love. We give gifts in celebration of Christmas as a reflection of God’s first and greatest gift to us.

As you make your final preparations for Christmas, would you pause long enough to make sure you have received this greatest of all gifts? Don’t let this present go unopened. God loves you so much that He was willing for His only Son to be put to death in order to pay the price for your sins. Now, because of that, if you are willing to put your faith in Him—that He really is who He said He is and that He really did what He said He did—you too can enjoy the life that is truly life; the life of His eternal kingdom. As the day arrives, may you receive Him, receive Jesus, for who He is and have the very merriest of Christmases.