[An old pastor once said to his confirmands, "If I can make you understand this one Word of the Bible, then what I've taught is enough." One might say: Well, this man also narrowed down the confirmation material! Well, I think he was right. For if one truly understands, knows and believes only this one Word of the Bible, it is sufficient for him both for life on earth and for eternity. That is why, on this Christmas Day, I would like to speak again about this Word, which all men know and yet must always know again. So let us try to immerse ourselves in it.So Jesus declares that God loves this world! Yes, yes, we already know this very well, because we have learned it, we have heard it many times and we have said it many times ourselves. But do we really believe it, are we convinced of it in such a way that we can convince others who doubt it?! Is it not the case that when we look around us in this world: we find this love of God a little incomprehensible, or perhaps our faith in him has been shaken. The love of God for this world has become a dry fact in us, a fact that every good Christian ought to confess, but it is no longer an experiential reality, a gospel that we can rejoice in and take comfort in today. For the suffering is so blatant, the injustice so blatant, the lies, the trouble, the misery so oppressive in this world, that all talk of the love of God, of the good God, seems like empty phrases in the face of empirical facts. Try explaining God's love, for example, to one of the many, many couples who have never had such a sad Christmas, because one of their children was killed by an exploding bullet on Üllői út, his beautiful young head smashed beyond recognition, and the other was carried off by a terrible storm to an unknown stranger. There is hardly a family that does not miss someone, that is not terrified for someone - and there are many families that cried through Christmas Eve yesterday. What does a man in distress under the threat of a cruel world see, how much does he see that God loves this world?
Try talking about God's love to the man whose house was shot up. Maybe, if he were honest, he would say to him: 'Well, well, that's very nice, but I'm cold because I have paper taped up the window! And in his eyes, the memory of the horror of what he'd been through would still be there, and he might complain silently: God loves the world... and the attic falls on it?! The churches are full of Christmas carols - yes, the churches, but in hearts throughout the land, does not the bitter lamentation with which the prophet Jeremiah once wept over the ruins of destroyed Jerusalem cry louder?
God so loved this world... But what does this love look like when there is so much despair, sadness, wickedness, lies, cruelty in this world, when this world is drifting towards a new catastrophe which no mortal wants, and which we all hasten by our own sin? Is it true that God loves this world? How can I know that? How can I remain in this certainty in the midst of all the troubling circumstances?!
Well, Brothers and Sisters, in order to have some idea of God's love, we must first understand something else from the Word. It is that there is no one, no one in this world who is worthy of God's love, who is worthy, who has any claim to it. Only we humans tend to distinguish between good and bad people - kind, loving souls and hateful, evil souls. The Bible, however, is silent on the subject; God's Word speaks unmistakably that mankind is under God's wrath and judgment for sin, that we are all, with our little children, sons of wrath. Let me mention just two of the many: "The Lord is the true God, the living God, and the everlasting King; the earth trembles at his wrath..." (Jer 10,10) Or as the Apostle Paul says: "But you, according to your hardness and unrepentant heart, store up for yourself wrath for the day of wrath and the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God." (Rom 2,5) Let us therefore be very careful, for anyone who takes God for granted, without further ado, as love, is playing with fire, and mocks God's wrath just as Voltaire once mockingly said: 'God will forgive us our sins, for that is his calling!'
Well, that is not so! So much so, that even when the Bible speaks of salvation, the gospel of God from the heart, it says: "He who does not obey the Son (Jesus Christ) will not see life, but the wrath of God will remain on him!" (John 3:36) Let us beware, then, because from history, where uplifting and devastating events are so closely intertwined, or from our own life experiences, where good and bad are so intertwined: we will never be convinced that God truly loves this world! And much sooner, that God is judging this world and ourselves!
So then, does God not love this world? Yes! God's love was made manifest by sending His only begotten Son into this world! So, that God does love this world under judgment: we can only know this from the fact that Jesus Christ was born, that God became man, that He gave Himself, His life, into this world. Without faith in Jesus Christ, we can only discover the workings of the devil, or at most the wrath of God, in the world. Without faith in Jesus Christ, all of life with its joys and sorrows, its lows and highs, its injustices and cruelties, remains meaningless to us! If they did not believe in Jesus Christ, they would despair at the meaninglessness of life! He who has no need of Jesus, who does not claim Him, who rejects Him as the only revelation of God's love for this world: he is under continual judgment, for him hell is today - just as eternal life can be today for him who believes in Jesus Christ. But we know about the Christmas message, and therefore we know about the love of God, which is not limited to a few sympathetic people, but is so great that it speaks to the whole world.
The great good news of Christmas is precisely that God's saving grace has been revealed to all people, both those whom we would call good, decent, honest Christian people and those whom we would call evil, pagan, God-denying. In this world, which, with its evil, its cruelty, its injustice, its destructive wars, always draws only His wrathful judgment, His saving love has nevertheless appeared. God's goodness, hitherto hidden in His heart, hidden in His divine heart, far from heaven, appeared at Christmas as a newborn, tiny child on this earth groaning under the curse. This divine goodness, this divine love, now lies in the stable of Bethlehem, in the manger, and then hangs stretched out on the cross of Golgotha. And this divine love made flesh now looks at you again, it speaks to all men, to you too: I have taken the wrath of God upon myself in your place, I have paid the price of redemption for your sins, believe in me, accept me, they will be redeemed. God forgives, accepts, takes back His child!
See then the love of God in this, that God needs you - just as you are, fallen and ugly, useless and dirty, undeserving and unworthy, deserving of wrath and under judgment, yet needed by the mighty God! There are many who need you in earthly life, but only as long as you are alive, as long as you have vitality, as long as you can work. If you have become helpless, if you have hurt the world around you, if you have grown old: very few people need you anymore. And if you are dead: no one needs you anymore! They rush to get you out of the way. Well, God has a greater and more universal claim on you than anyone else; he needs you even when everyone has abandoned you: in life and in death! Moreover, He needs you in life, so that you may be all His in death! He needs you so much, He loves you so much that He gave His only begotten Son, if only you would not perish for Him, if you would not perish in His wrath, if you would not perish in this cruel, demonic, condemned world, if you would not perish from humanity, from strength, from goodness, from the soul, if you would not perish in death, so that you might have eternal life!
He asks nothing but that you believe in him. Whoever says, "I believe in Jesus Christ," must also believe that at that moment God's redeeming love flows into him, at that moment God himself moves into his heart, Jesus enters into his life. If you believe in Christ: whatever happens outside, whatever demonic world surrounds you, there inside, in the depths of your heart, a precious, blessed voice says, murmurs: you are my Son, do not be afraid, I have redeemed you, I love you forever! And that is enough to make you rejoice, to see the world differently, to dare to take on life, to love the world!
Yes: to love this world, this rebellious world, this world groaning under the wrath of God, which God loved so much that He gave His only begotten Son for it! Do you know what is the surest sign that you truly believe in Christ? It's that the divine love you have received in Christ continues to move your hands, your heart, your actions toward others. A believer once said, "I have not begged God for mercy in this oppressed world for a long time, because the Lord once rebuked me for it, and this is what he said: I have already shown mercy to this wretched world, now it's your turn! Yes, God has already had mercy on this world 2000 years ago, now it is our turn to let the world know it! Every good word, every good deed, every expression of love for our neighbour is a sign that God's love has been made flesh on earth. The most credible proof of God is not a convincing argument, but a good deed done in God's name, which radiates something of Christ! This is what makes the world see that there is a God, and it is what reassures the cold, sad, grieving man that, behold, God loves him too! The love that is passed on in word and deed helps us to bear the present hard fate and gives us encouragement for the future.
Christmas is called the feast of love. Well, let it be so! Let us not shut ourselves up in ourselves, in our own troubles, but let us reach out to one another, realising around us the life-giving miracle of love helping one another. In the last two months, through much blood and suffering, something has been born: the knowledge and certainty of our national unity. The Hungarian people has become like one big family! Let us not allow our community to become lost, grey and fragmented again, but let us deepen it even more. Let this Christmas be a proof of our national unity in action, by each of us giving a small but concrete sign of helping love to another person in need. Let this be done in the name of Christ and according to the law of Christ, that is, without the right hand knowing what the left hand is doing. The value of the gift is not the point, but the living expression of our Hungarian national unity, and its deepening and sanctification in the love of Christ! Instead of Christmas tree candles, we must now light the flame of Christian love for our neighbour in as many places as possible!
But not only today, on Christmas Day! Calvin and Beza abolished Christmas. They said: every day is a holiday, every day is Christmas, every day the world is the object of God's love for Christ. Every day the Christian man must prove to the world this love of God.
A believer once said, "My prayers are always answered by God. Every morning I ask God to bring someone my way whom I can help, whom I can serve with the gospel. And never a day has gone by that I have not met someone like that! It is always a celebration when you bring joy to someone with your love in the name of Christ. It is a feast for him, and for you! On earth and in heaven! Merry Christmas! A celebration of love!
Amen
Date: 25 December 1956 Christmas Day
Lesson
Lk 2,1-20