Big Love Christmas letter

A Blessed Christmas,

Each year we reflect on this story of the birth of Jesus.  It is obviously an important story for us.  Some people ask, “What does the story mean for us today?  What does Christmas mean for us today?  What does it mean for the world?”

For me, the question has turned out to be, “What has or what is God birthing in me?  How is Christ being birthed in me?  How is God, how is Chris, incarnating in me?  What of God, of Christ is manifesting in me and becoming flesh in my life?  And what am I, in collaboration with God, capable of accomplishing or achieving in my life.   Many things can be birthed in us – forgiveness, love, peace, justice, compassion, generosity, kindness, patience, joy, forbearance and not just in general, but particular – for particular situations, conditions and persons – for ourselves, for others and for the world.

I believe that God is building “Big Love” in my life.  God is creating me a capacity for “Big Love.”  I am learning to believe that with God in me that I am capable of manifesting that “Big Love” in my attitude, thinking, speech and actions.  How big is this “Big Love?”  How big is God?   Remember when as young children our parents would tell us how much they loved us?  They would stretch out their arms as far as they could and their smiles would stretch out just as far and say “This much!”  And when they asked us how much we loved them, we would stretch out our arms, smile and say back “This much!”  

I think that the point of the crucifixion story, as gory as it is, is to show us how much God loves us, stretching out his arms on the cross even in response to our own complicacy in his death, Jesus saying “This much!”  What greater love is that than when one lays down one’s life for his friends?  We have to remember that the cross is a symbol of much more than a symbol of death.  It is a symbol of God, as the second person of the Trinity, deciding to enter into the world of creation and be with us in every aspect of life: birth, learning, growing, sickness, healing, loss, recovery, struggle, achievement, suffering, joy, conflict, reconciliation, trials, vindication, death, resurrection and ascension.  God is with us in our life journey.

“Big Love” can be quite intimidating, even overwhelming.  How in the world do we love like God loves; how Jesus loves?  Certainly, with God’s help!  We are more capable than we believe.  But once we receive God’s “Big Love” and incorporate it into our lives to the extent that we can we realize that we are more capable than we think.  Our belief in ourselves increases to approximate God’s “Big Love” and we incorporate that love and act on that love more and more.  As God and God’s Love is bigger than we can imagine, there’s always more to incorporate and more to share.  But that’s the journey: growing in our capacity for “Big Love.”

My Christmas and New Year’s blessing to you is this:  “May God’s Big Love grow in you and in God’s Big Love!”  Merry Christmas ,Happy New Year and “Big Love” to you and yours!”   

In the Big Love of Christ,

+Pastor Will Baez +