God’s love isn’t mere theory. It’s messy. It requires you to be honest about yourself; your faults and failures. It requires you to be truthful about others – not speaking lies, entertaining gossip, asking forgiveness when offending someone, forgiving when one is repentant, and maintaining communication through friendship instead of walking away when someone disagrees.

So, God’s love is more than an idea. Jesus came to show us what love looks and feels like. Love is incarnate – a fancy way of saying God was clothed with flesh and bones, and He bled. Oh yes, God bleeds and that’s the greatest measure of His love. That Christmas miracle of the babe, the son of Mary, the Christ-child would live the perfect life required of us all. Then, He would also become the substitute for all that mess and malignance that is far too common in every single one of us. As the carol lyrics ring: “Nail, spear shall pierce Him through, The cross be borne for me, for you.”

Ultimately, we are grateful not just to write or sing about love, but to taste it. Jesus loves the mess out of us. This Christmas, don’t miss that. Live like you’re loved. And walk with others through the mess of life so they too can taste and see that the Lord is good.