The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas (8 page)

If God can transfigure the greatest evil into the greatest Gift, then He intends to turn whatever you’re experiencing now into a gift.
You cannot be undone.

Somewhere, Advent can storm and howl. And the world robed for Christmas can spin on.

You, there on the edge, whispering it, defiant through the torn places: “All is grace.”

Just as Joseph forgave his brothers, think of one person you can forgive today. Write down that person’s name on a piece of paper. Then write out your thanks to God for taking that evil and making it good, for His promise that no matter what is done to you, He will not let you be undone.

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes . . . and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.

DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

When have you seen God take what was torn and turn it into a gift?

What evils are you experiencing now that you need God to transform into something good?

In what areas of your life do you feel like you’re coming unraveled? What would it feel like to have your heavenly Father slip a robe of righteousness over your shoulders?

[The Lord said,] “Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!”

DEUTERONOMY 5:29 (NIV)

Moses summoned all Israel and said:

Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them. . . .

I stood between the LORD and you to declare to you the word of the LORD. . . . And he said:

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. . . .

“You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God. . . .

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. . . .

“Honor your father and your mother. . . .

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet. . . .”

These are the commandments the LORD proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness; and he added nothing more. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me. . . .

[The Lord said,] “Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!”

DEUTERONOMY 5:1, 5-22, 29 (NIV)

Love comes surely.

Like Advent and the Child, like night and the stars.

Like the gift of the Ten Commandments written with His very finger, this covenant to love.

They say that it came as a legal code, those Ten Commandments —but it is more. That it came as the inauguration of
shalom
, of the Kingdom —but it is more. Maybe this is the truest —that it comes as this whisper of His heart, your God entreating you to love.

Jewish weddings required a
chuppah
, a canopy covering, and your God comes down on Mount Sinai and gives the mountain a canopy of cloud. Jewish weddings required a
mikveh
so the bride could purify herself before the wedding, and your God gives the people before Mount Sinai time to purify themselves. And Jewish weddings required a
ketubah
, a contract for the loving, and your God gives these Ten Commandments for the living out of love.

The Ten Commandments are more than God saying, “Here is My Law for you” —they are God saying, “Here is My love for you.”

Here, I take you to be Mine, to be My treasured possession —have no other gods, no other lovers that woo you, that take your attention or affection, but Me.

Here, I give you My name, my very name to make you mine —do not use it in vain.

Here, I long to spend time with you, holy time for you and Me —set apart the Sabbath day as holy time for you and Me.

Here, I love you, bride —be united, not coveting or lying or stealing or murdering or cheating one another, but honoring and loving and living out of our love.

And three times the Israelites say yes, this we will do —we do, we do, we do.

God gives His people this gift, these two tablets of stone with His handwritten commitment to love, and He aches. “Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands.”
Oh, that their hearts . . .
Oh, that
 —this expression of unfulfilled longing in the Hebrew. God longs: “Oh, that your heart would obey me not because of Law, but because of love.” God knows how we say I do —but don’t. God longs that our hearts would be inclined to be in wonder and in awe of Me, enraptured by Me —that is what fear means in the original Hebrew. God knows how we say we wonder and we worship —but we don’t.

God knows we wander, and He woos again and again, all through the commandments: “I am the Lord
Your
God, the Lord
Your
God, the Lord
Your
God.”
You are mine. Make me Yours.

Am I Yours?

God gives the Ten Commandments as more than Law —He gives them as a true commitment to love. God gives the Law —because He wants there to be love.

He gives his plea: “Oh, that you would obey Me —that’s you giving Me love, and that’s Me giving you love because this commandment to relationship fulfills your longings and your love and your being.”

The Ten Commandments are a command to relationship.

To love vertically, to love horizontally, to love relationship —and it’s not a suggestion.

Oh, that.

God’s unfulfilled longing spills through time.

Till a voice echoes over Jerusalem: “O that at this time thou hadst known —yes even thou —what makes peace possible!” (Luke 19:42, WEY).

Jesus.

Jesus, the Love who seven days later went to the Cross to fulfill the unfulfilled, to pay the price for our broken love like we never could, to love God for His unbroken love like we never have.

Jesus, the Love who hangs on a Tree, who cries out our yes to the covenant: “My God, my God.” Yes, You are
mine. I am Yours. Yes, You are the Lord my God, the Lord my God, the Lord my God. Jesus, the Love who doesn’t just die the death we deserved to die; He lives the love we’ve desired to live.

God gives the commandments to us —and God gives God to keep the commandments for us. God gives us the commitment of love at the top of Sinai, and He staggeringly keeps our commitment to love at the top of Calvary.

Who needs more than being loved to death?

“Love is the greatest thing God can give us, for himself is love,” writes seventeenth-century theologian Jeremy Taylor. “And [love] is the greatest thing we can give to God, for it will also give ourselves. . . . The apostle calls [love] the bond of perfection. It is the old, and it is the new, and it is the great commandment, and it is all the commandments, for it is the fulfilling of the law.”
[12]

God gives God —and Jesus fulfills all the Law, all our love.

Stars will come in the night sky, shimmer somewhere. Advent will keep coming, this love story that never stops coming. Love like this could make us wonder. Somewhere, carols play.

They say that to this day Jews dance when the Ten Commandments are recited. Wooing love that makes the feet and the lights dance and the beloved weep.