Read: Mark 10:42-52
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” {{more: continue …}}
During the second Sunday of Advent we light another purple candle. The virtues of Jesus, Hope, Love, Joy and Peace are our focus during these Sundays in Advent. This week’s focus of my “Notes” is on Love.If there is a central theme to Christmas, it is love. Even those who don?t attach Christian significance to the holiday think of preparing special surprises, meals, giving gifts, and special moments, feed the hungry?all because they want to show love.
Advent is about a love that does battle. While we ponder what to buy, God is buying something back?something that has been stolen. While we shop at the mall or online or small boutiques, God shops the slave markets, and ?the streets and lanes of the city? ?O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel,? we sing.
?Ransom?. If someone is kidnapped, the perpetrator demands a payment to release the prisoner. Every person and every thing belongs to God, but evil has brutally claimed and chained, plundered and pillaged. In that sense, we?ve all known slavery, because we are slaves to sin.
Jesus paid the price of sin and separation from God. He came, not to be served as a king, but to serve as a ransom on behalf of love. He did this because He loves us. He is the one, the only One, whose life was perfect enough to buy back the many, which closed the gap between God and us.
Love conquers all, love lifts us up, love overcomes hate.“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” ( 1 Corinthians 13).
“I don’t know how, but I know WHO!”
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