Unconditionally Loved - Merry & Bright

No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I AM AN APPROVAL ADDICT in recovery (with frequent relapses). Too often, I find myself striving to earn the approval and love of people and, if I am honest, attempting to gain the approval and love of God.

My desire for approval impacts my life in curious, complicated ways, often leaving me sad, frustrated, regretful, and sometimes resentful.

During Advent, it looks like trying to be Julie, the Hostess with the Mostest, all the time and in every circumstance. I fret over everyone’s feelings, even in situations beyond my control. I desperately want everyone to be filled with joy. I tend to count it as a personal failure when those around me experience disappointment, frustration, anger, or sadness, especially during the run-up to Christmas morning.

As an employee and volunteer, it looks like saying yes as a first instinct and then quietly struggling furiously to learn all the skills necessary to do that task I should not have said yes to. I learn new skills but learn them the hard way, often at the expense of time and energy that rightfully belong to people I love.

As a mom, it is the temptation to use my children as my report cards, tying my mothering identity directly to their successes and failures rather than understanding that great mothers can raise children who make terrible decisions and inadequate mothers can raise exceptional children. While I am called to be the best mother I can be, my children are individuals with free will, and I can neither take all the credit for their hard work and successes nor take all the responsibility for their mistakes.

As a wife, it is periodically forgetting that I am only 50 percent of the relationship and that both the good moments and the bad moments almost always belong, in part, to both my husband and me.

And, as a woman who loves and follows Jesus, I find myself trying to prove that I am worthy of his love, that my prayers are worth considering, and that I have somehow “earned” either the blessings or the hardships that come my way.

While attempting to live amicably and peaceably among others is a worthy goal, being addicted to the approval of others has unhealthy, warped repercussions when taken too far—for our own souls but also for those we love.

One of my favorite parts (I have several!) of the Advent story took place long before the actual birth of our Savior in a manger. We find it in Matthew 1:1-17, where Jesus Christ’s human ancestry is recorded, going back forty-two generations to Abraham. (We see a similar recounting in Luke 3:23-38, tracing seventy-seven generations back to Adam and Eve.)

What is remarkable about Matthew’s genealogy is the intentional inclusion of women, rather than the lineage running solely through the male ancestors as is done in Luke’s version. In addition to the shock of naming women in the lineage in a patriarchal society, these women’s backgrounds and histories should have precluded them from being in Jesus’ lineage in the first place and should have prevented them from being singled out by Matthew in the second place! Let’s take a closer look at two of these women, Rahab and Ruth.

We find the story of Rahab primarily in Joshua 2:1-24. Rahab, a Canaanite living in Jericho, was likely both an innkeeper and a prostitute. As an innkeeper, she met and hid two Israelite spies sent to scout the city before the Israelites attacked Jericho, and she ultimately assisted with their daring escape. As she helped them, she acknowledged the sovereignty of God and his favor upon his people. She pledged allegiance to him, asking that she and her family be spared during the subsequent invasion. Not only was God faithful to spare Rahab and her entire family, but it’s revealed in Matthew’s lineage of Jesus Christ that eventually, Rahab married Salmon (a direct ancestor of Jesus), and they had a son named Boaz (see Matthew 1:5).

Like Rahab, Ruth was a foreigner from an enemy people group, as we see in the Old Testament book named for her. As a Moabite, she would have worshiped other gods and had cultural traditions that were detested by God. Additionally, as a childless widow, she accompanied Naomi, her widowed mother-in-law, from the land of Moab back to Naomi’s homeland of Israel. It is hard to imagine a status lower than the labels attached to Ruth: Moabite, widow, childless, poor. Yet we witness Ruth pledging her allegiance to both God and Naomi (see Ruth 1:16-18), and we see God’s unconditional love for both women woven throughout their return to Israel and on through the courtship and eventual marriage of Ruth to Boaz. Yes, Rahab’s son Boaz became Ruth’s husband!

Of course, there are other specifically named “unworthy” ancestors in the lineage of Jesus, both male and female, including King David, who was an adulterer and murderer (see 2 Samuel 11). If that is not enough to convince you of God’s unconditional love, consider that the church’s early leaders also fell short of “earning” the love of God. Peter, a disciple of Jesus, denied knowing Jesus three times before the rooster crowed after Jesus’ arrest in the garden of Gethsemane (see Matthew 26:69-75). Paul, the author of thirteen books in the New Testament, was once Saul, a fierce persecutor of the early church, until he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus (see Acts 9:1-19).

These are but a few stories of unworthy men and women loved by God and called to serve him. Scripture is filled with unworthy, imperfect people, all loved by God, and all used by God to accomplish his will.

If Jesus’ ancestry, as well as the individuals he commissioned to carry on his work after the Crucifixion, included such a motley crew of low-status, sinful individuals, is there not a place for you and me to embrace the unconditional love of God? And can we embrace that love this Advent season without striving?

My friend, the answer to that rhetorical question is an unequivocal, resounding yes! As we create Christmas magic for our loved ones, as we navigate disappointments due to sky-high expectations, as we make last-minute pivots for all the reasons that make December tricky, we can rest securely in the knowledge of God’s unfathomable, unconditional, unsurpassable love, regardless of what we accomplish (or do not).

I invite you into an Advent filled to the brim with merry and bright, remembering that there is nothing that can separate you from the love of the one who holds you in the palm of his hand, who knows the number of hairs on your head, and who sent his one and only beloved Son as the most precious gift of all.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the reminder that not only are we loved, but there is no distance we can travel, nothing we can do (or not do) to diminish your unconditional love for us. Gently nudge us when we are tempted into striving to earn your love rather than reveling in the understanding that your love is a gift freely given, unearned, and unearnable. Amen.