Like is mediocre.

Like is the wishy-washy emotion of the content.

Athletes don’t do it for the like of a sport.

Artists don’t suffer for the like of art.

There is no I like NY t-shirt.

And Romeo didn’t just like Juliet.

Love. Now that’s powerful stuff.

Love changes things.

Upsets things.

Conquers things.

Love is at the root of everything good that has ever happened

and will ever happen.

It’s scary because it is so true, although it’s my opinion that if you love your phone, instead of just liking your phone a lot, well, you’re in more trouble than you think! And if we stop to ponder this, there are some things in life that are deserving only of our “like,” and not our love.

Perhaps this ad is so appealing because it cheats a little. If you take a look at those few phrases, they do ring a bell don’t they? Nearly two thousand years ago, a Jewish rabbi, who had learned the love of Christ in an extraordinary manner even though he had never met Jesus, wrote a letter to others about the nature of Christian love. The apostle Paul was probably Jesus’ best adman ever. Tell me if you can see the parallels:

Love is patient and kind . . .

Love bears all things

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

Love never ends.

I suppose if you’re going to plagiarize you might as well steal from the best. Do you wonder if they did this on purpose, or had one of the ad team just gone to a wedding where this passage from Corinthians was read?

This morning is the last Sunday of Advent and the day many of us think of as Christmas Sunday, and whatever our interpretation, the theme is love incarnate – in the flesh. The message of the day and of our faith is that God doesn’t just tolerate us, or like us reasonably well. God loves us enough to be physically present with us as a human being. It is a claim that no other religion makes and one which seems to annoy an increasing number of people who are certain that, if there is an omnipotent being, he or she would never deign to actually become human. Yet most of us know the words of John chapter three:

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.

While I also cheated a bit and threw in the passage from Corinthians this morning because it speaks so powerfully of what love can be, it is actually the story of anticipation for Jesus’ birth that really matters today. You didn’t hear the word love once in the gospel lesson from Luke but we are invited to read between the lines and realize that the two women, Elizabeth and Mary knew their pregnancies would be life-changers, as all pregnancies and births tend to be. And that Mary knew more – the birth of her baby will be a universe-changer. We can imagine the birth announcement stating that Jesus, child of Mary and Joseph (and did we mention God?) came into the world as eight pounds six ounces of “love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down.”

Are you open to Christ’s love this morning, a love that is for now and for always? The immediate answer is “of course” because all of us want to receive love, maybe be in love, and perhaps most importantly give love. That’s the first answer, but you might follow that up with a “well, yes and no” because – and this may be news to you – love can be rather complicated. And sadly, even though we all know the expression “love makes the world go ‘round,” far too many persons feel that they are not loved. Some go day in, day out, week in, week out, without ever hearing that expression “I love you.”

Others suffer through terrible physical and verbal abuse, only to have the abuser say “I didn’t mean it. Don’t go. I love you.” You may be aware that my wife, Ruth, is an outreach worker and counsellor for Bethesda House, the shelter we support as a congregation. She often sits with women who are in soul-destroying and dangerous relationships but they won’t leave. Why? He says he loves me. There is a disconnect between the words of love and the actions of love.

One of the cruelest, most heartbreaking phrases in any language is “I don’t love you anymore.” They are words of profound rejection and they have a lasting impact. Some of you have heard these words and they make Christmas a difficult time rather than a celebration.

Some of us have a hard time expressing our love and we’re not sure why. My experience is that men are more reluctant to say the words because of some goofy notion of what it is to be manly.

Even in our religion there is the danger of saying that we are all about Christ’s love, but not exactly living that way. We have probably all heard someone say that we should love the sinner, but not the sin. While that is actually true, there can be the lingering feeling that the supposed love is something which resides in the head but not the heart, that the love which is rooted in “in the flesh” compassion just isn’t there.

So, even though we may feel that love is essential to being human, the way food and drink and shelter are essential to our survival, our sense of abiding, deep within love can get lost or marred or scared right out of us. In our cynicism or disappointment we might agree with the words of that great twentieth theologian, Tina Turner:

What's love got to do, got to do with it
What's love but a sweet old fashioned notion
What's love got to do, got to do with it
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken.

Somehow we need to get back to that essence of love which is central to our faith. What we are upholding on this Sunday of love, but really every single day, is that sweet old-fashioned notion that love, especially the love of God, never ends.

Many of you were not part of St. Paul’s the first Christmas I was here, but some of you may remember me telling a story about one of my daughters when she was quite young. I came into my study after worship on this Sunday, the Sunday just before Christmas, and saw evidence that my kids had been using the time when I chatted with folk to do some creative artwork. Amidst the drawings left for me on my desk was a message from our newest writer – or printer, to be more accurate – which said, “To Dad, I hope you know I love you.” It happened that I had been wrapping Christmas gifts in my study and this message was penned on a scrap of leftover Christmas paper. Actually, that wasn’t precisely how it read. To be accurate, it said “To Dad, I hop you no I love you,” since spelling was also a recent venture. I certainly got the drift, and, needless to say, this little message warmed my fatherly heart.

I know I must have received many cards, and lovely Christmas presents that year, but for the life of me I can’t remember what they were. To my total surprise, this was one of the most precious to me, and continued to be for some time. It stayed on my desk and would disappear for a while because, at times, it disappeared into the debris. Then it would show up again and I would tell myself that it should go in the garbage – it was silly to be sentimental. I would look at it, and to the trash can, but never could bring myself to throw it away. I nearly always smiled when I saw it, realizing, I suppose that at the same time my child was learning to write she was also learning to express her emotions.

For many of us who are parents there is the realization, in the good moments, that the best thing we have done in our lives is to bring our children into this world, despite all its potential dangers and sorrows because of love. Sometimes we forget and they forget, but it is in certain moments that we see it most clearly again.

This morning is an amazing opportunity to see clearly once more that love is at the heart of our Christian faith. It is easy to become preoccupied with so many other things during these days leading up to Christmas, and put the things that really aren’t all that important at the centre of our celebration. But we can we all make the commitment to keep our eyes on the baby of the manger, and the Christ who taught a deeper love.

Christian love is the love we offer without a whole lot of “fine print,” the conditions and restrictions that often undermine its true power. The apostle Paul wants us to believe that love is really what endures through all the distractions and diversions.

If we had read on in the passage from Corinthians, we would have heard Paul say that faith is great, and hope is important too, but the greatest of these is not like, it is love and, as the commercial says, that’s powerful stuff.

Christ has come as love, to share love, to invite us into love, now and always. Thanks be to God!