Reckless Love at Christmas

Do you know what I love about Christmas? Well, I can list quite a few things: the music, the advent celebrations with the local church, giving gifts to each other out of love, and just getting to be with friends and family over the season. However, I also know that Christmas can be very stressful (I currently work part-time in the retail and wholesale industry, so I can attest to that); it can also be depressing with the loss of loved ones over the years. But I want to focus more on why Christmas is significant to me.

As many people know, Christmas is when Christians celebrate how Jesus first came to the earth as a baby so that he would later reconcile us with God. We celebrate the fact that he came to live a sinless life and became the perfect sacrifice as payment for our sins so that he can give us eternal life, something that we don’t deserve, but is offered to us by his grace and mercy. Can you mention how reckless that is?

I know what you’re going to say: “Alex, what do you mean by ‘reckless’?” I’m glad you asked, I’m not so much meaning that God doesn’t care about himself, nor us, nor the consequences of loving every one of his creations. It’s because of who he is that he loves us despite our circumstances and in spite of whether we love or reject him. He already knows who will be with him. To us as human beings, it may appear to be reckless, or careless, but his love is so much deeper.


Perhaps this is why many of us sing about this “reckless love” that God has for us. If you look into the bridge of “Reckless Love” by Cory Asbury, it talks about how far God would go to reconcile us to himself, much in the same way that Jesus depicted this kind of love in Luke 15; this chapter gives us three parables of things and people being lost and found, and shows us that God does pursue after us. He values every life, even those who reject him. It’s this deep love that brought Jesus to be with us, die for us, and be resurrected. It’s the same love that brought Jesus to be born all those years ago to offer an amazing gift out of grace.


So I hope that we as Christians remember the why as we go forth this Christmas with our loved ones. I hope that we remember that we are celebrating a God who decided to enter our mess as a baby to save us, and my prayer is that we will be filled with joy through the Holy Spirit. May we all be blessed with joy and peace in our hearts.

Merry Christmas!