Sermon for The Nativity of Our Lord--Christmas Eve, December 24, 2025

1 John 4:7-16 (The Nativity of Our Lord—Christmas Eve)

“Love Came Down at Christmas”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

December 24, 2025

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text is the Epistle Reading recorded in 1 John 4:

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸The one who does not love does not know God because God is love. ⁹In this the love of God was made known among us, because God has sent His only Son into the word so that we might live through Him. ¹⁰In this is love, not because we have loved God, but because He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. ¹³In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and He in God. ¹⁶And we have come to know and to believe the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

          In 1885, Christina Rossetti wrote a Christmas poem that was eventually set to music by different composers. It’s been in several hymnals over the years, including our previous hymnal, Lutheran Worship. The poem is called, “Love Came Down at Christmas.”

          Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, Love divine;

          Love was born at Christmas, Star and angels gave the sign.

          Worship we the God-head, Love incarnate, Love divine;

          Worship we our Jesus; But where-with for sacred sign?

          These words, I think, have their meaning because of our Epistle text on this Christmas Eve. Yet, I don’t know what “But where-with for sacred sign” means. I do know what “God is love” means because the God who is Himself love sent His One-of-a-Kind Son into the world as our Savior so that we might live through Him. Because of God’s love given to us in Jesus, we have the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting.

          St. John writes, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God because God is love.” This is quite a direct statement. We who are born of God by water and the Spirit in Baptism will love the Lord and our neighbor—it is one of the fruits of faith, a fruit of the Spirit (John 3:5; Gal. 5:22). But what about our failure to love? What about all those times in the years and days now past that we have not always loved God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loved our neighbors as ourselves? (Luke 10:27).

          Consider this. Each time we sin and break one of God’s Commandments, we are not loving Him as we ought because we are disobeying His will. If we have been lazy in our prayers, we have not loved God (Second Commandment). If we have been angry, stubborn, or disrespectful toward those in authority over us, we have not loved God (Fourth Commandment). If we have hated or hold grudges against another, we have not loved God (Fifth Commandment). Breaking any of the Lord’s Commandments shows our failure to fear, love, and trust in Him above all things (First Commandment).

          Our failures to love God result in our not always loving our neighbors, anyone to whom we can show love and mercy. If we have gossiped, listened to rumors, or taken pleasure in talking about the faults and mistakes of others, we have not loved them or the Lord (Eighth Commandment). If we have lost our tempers or injured our neighbors by thoughts, words, or deeds, we have not loved them or the Lord (Fifth Commandment). If we have failed to pay what we owe or return what we borrowed or have not respected other people’s property, we have not loved our neighbor or the Lord (Seventh Commandment).

          The stark reality of our sins is put before our eyes and hearts. We have lived as if God did not matter and as if we mattered most. Our Lord’s name we have not honored as we should; our worship and prayers have faltered. We have not let His love have its way with us, and so our love for others has failed. There are those whom we have hurt, and those whom we have failed to help. The weight of the Law bears heavy upon us as we read the words again, “The one who does not love does not know God because God is love.”

          Beloved in the Lord, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11 ESV). God loves you! That’s not just a meaningless phrase that gets tossed around by well-meaning people. God . . . loves  . . . you. We are sinners. We are fallen creatures. We deserve nothing but God’s wrath and punishment because of this. The one who doesn’t love doesn’t know God because God is love. How then do I know that God’s loves us? How can you be sure that God loves you?

          The answer is the Good News of great joy that we are receiving here again tonight. “In this is love, not because we have loved God, but because He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” The supreme act of God the Father’s love for you and me was His sending His Son into the world, while we were still sinners! (Rom. 5:8). He didn’t wait until somehow humanity had progressed to a certain point of goodness or righteousness. That would never have happened given our bondage to sin. So, God acted, just as He had promised in His holy Word. “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Is. 9:6 ESV).

          A child born; a son gifted to us—Jesus, the Son of God. Beloved, “Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15 ESV). God’s love for you and me, sinful as we are by nature, compelled Him to send His only Son in human flesh so that we might have eternal life through Him. Sin brings death. The forgiveness of sins brings eternal life, and that forgiveness comes only from Jesus, true God and true Man, who became for us “an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

          What is an atoning sacrifice? It is something that God has provided in His grace to bring us into His presence with the assurance that we are accepted by Him since He has removed the barrier that kept us at a distance, namely our sin and guilt. That atoning sacrifice is Jesus Himself. Jesus’ precious blood was shed for us. He was our substitute, dying for us on the cross so we might not see God as angry and wrathful, but as kind and loving. God is love, and He loved us this way, sending His Son to take upon Himself our sins and our guilt, giving to all who believe in Him through the gift of faith the forgiveness of sins.

          The reality of God’s love for us and the whole world is seen in His Son, Jesus, true God and true Man, our Lord, who has redeemed us lost and condemned people, purchased and won us from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death (Small Catechism). God’s anger has been turned away from you and from the entire world because of Jesus’ sacrifice. The Father is fully satisfied with Jesus’ sacrifice and now favors all creation with His love and forgiveness.

Love came down at Christmas in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of Mary in Bethlehem just as the Scriptures reveal to us. And this same Love—Jesus—was lifted up on a cross to reveal God the Father’s love for you and the whole world. Jesus the Son of God nailed to the cross is where all people can see with the eyes of faith the love of God. Consider this: “God loves sinners who are unworthy of his love, and indeed subject to his wrath. He loved us and sent his Son to rescue us, not because we are loveable, but because he is love. So the greatness of his love is seen in the costliness of his self-sacrifice for the [completely] undeserving.”[1]

That, Beloved, is real love, divine love, agapē, sacrificial love. And it is this love of Christ Jesus that empowers your life of faith toward God and in love toward others. God our Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world, and the greatest love we can now show to people is the love of Jesus that flows from His suffering, death, and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins, for the life of the world. “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” You who are born of God by Baptismal water and Word know God by faith in His Son Jesus through the power of the Spirit. You are able to love the Lord and to love your neighbors. No, you won’t do it perfectly this side of heaven. But rejoice that all your sins and failures to love are forgiven by Jesus. He washes you clean and restores you to God’s favor each and every time you fail. What’s more, God the Holy Spirit abides in you and so works to perfect His love in all of us. 1 John 3, “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. . . . And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us” (1 John 3:18, 23-24 ESV).

As children of God, at the same time sinner-saints, we receive the love of God in Christ in Baptism, Lord’s Supper, and the Gospel Word. We respond to His love and share the love of God in Christ Jesus with our neighbors. Remember the poem that I started the sermon with, “Love Came Down at Christmas”? Let me read to you the final verse:

Love shall be our token, Love be yours and love be mine,

Love to God and all men, Love for plea and gift and sign.

          God has revealed His boundless love for the world in the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. Through His cross and His resurrection, Jesus has rescued you and me from sin and death and brought us into life that has no end. As St. John declares, “We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” That saving love is now made known to all people through you—those who, by faith in Jesus, have been made children of God. And so we rejoice this Christmas, for “we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us” in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

     [1] John Stott, The Letters of John, quoted in Bruce G. Schuchard, 1-3 John, Concordia Commentary (St. Louis: Concordia, 2012), 450.