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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Christmas Day—December 25, 2014

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

For the Advent and Christmas seasons this year, we are having a sermon series on “The Twelve Blessings of Christmas.”  The first nine of these blessings are from St. Paul’s list in Galatians of the fruits of the Spirit:  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”  This morning we are looking at the first two fruits of the Spirit, love and joy.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is LOVE.”  It is probably no accident that God arranged world history in such a way that the New Testament would be written in Greek.  A list of the world’s greatest philosophers begins with the Greeks, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.  The Greeks laid the philosophical foundations of our culture, and the Greek language is the language of philosophy, uniquely suited to communicate to humanity the profound teachings of the New Testament.

A prime example is the word “love.”  While in English we have just one word for this emotion, Greek has four distinct words for different types and aspects of love:  Erao, Phileo, Stergo, and Agape.

Erao is sexual love, from which we get “erotic.”  The word Erao does not occur in the New Testament, but that does not mean that sexual love is wrong or sinful.  WITHIN THE MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIP of man and woman as husband and wife sexual love is a part of God’s plan, a good gift and a blessing from God.  Genesis reports, “male and female he created them,” and then just a few verses later says, “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”

Phileo and Stergo are the Greek words for brotherly love, friendship, and fondness.  These are the words we would use on those bumper stickers with a heart, where we proclaim “I Love” various things.  Phileo and Stergo don’t occur very much in the New Testament.  One example is in Romans, where Paul says, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.”

What these first three categories of love, Erao, Phileo and Stergo, have in common is that they represent love motivated by self-interest: “What’s in it for me?”  Love that you show either because others have earned it and deserve it from you, or because you expect, by showing such love, to get something back which benefits you.

St. Paul says in Colossians, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.”  We have done nothing to earn or deserve God’s love.  Because of our sin, we instead deserve only God’s wrath and damnation.  As St. Paul says in Romans, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men.”

But, the Good News is Greek has a fourth word for love, the word used most of to describe love in the New Testament: Agape.  Agape is a word we don’t really have an equivalent for in English.  It means first of all an UNdeserved love; a love which you have not earned nor have a right to expect; a love which is given to you, not because of who YOU are or what you have done, but because of who the one loving you is, because showing love is that person’s very nature.  St. John expresses this aspect of Agape when he says: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us . . .  for God is love.”

We humans have a tendency to “love the lovable,” to show our love to those who earn it in some way.  But, even though your sins deserve not his love but his wrath and anger, because “God IS love,” because underserved love, Agape, is his very nature, he shows to you love.

Agape is undeserved love, and it is also self-sacrificial love, love which shows itself in action, giving up oneself for the sake of others.  St. John tells us the action God took to show his Agape, his self-sacrificial love toward us: “This is how God showed his love for us: He sent his only-begotten Son into the world that we may live through him. . .  he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”  St. Paul puts it this way in Romans: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

At the Last Supper, Jesus said: “This is my commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.”  We respond to God’s Agape, God’s undeserved, self-sacrificial, forgiving love toward us, by showing Agape, undeserved, self-sacrificial, forgiving love, toward others.  As St. John says: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, JOY.”  Recently a woman wrote to Dear Abby, “There is an annoying woman in my office who insists on telling people to ‘smile.’  She expects everyone to go around with permanent grins on their faces for no reason.”  Some people think that’s what Christian joy means, going around with a permanent grin for no reason.

But, Christian joy, and our Christmas joy, is not just putting on a plastic smile and pretending everything’s great.  St. Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”  If all Christianity means is that we gloss over our troubles with a thin veneer of phony happiness, we are to be pitied more than all men.

St. Paul says in Philippians, “Rejoice IN THE LORD always.”  Christian joy is joy “in the Lord,” on account of all that the Lord has done for you.  All the earthly blessings he bestows upon you, but especially his spiritual blessings of forgiveness, salvation, eternal life in Jesus Christ.  As Isaiah says, “Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”  Rejoice and be glad, for your sins are all forgiven on account of his Son.

St. Paul says in Romans that this Good News of salvation in Christ, and the hope of eternal life, gives us JOY, even in the midst of this life’s struggles: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we REJOICE in the hope of the glory of God.”

The angel proclaimed to the shepherds, “Fear not, for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great JOY, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”  THAT is the reason for our Christian joy, and our Christmas joy.  “Good tidings of great JOY, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born . . . a Savior.”

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come!”

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