Surprised by Love

Christmas is so planned and busy for me. My December calendar starts filling up in September or even earlier. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in all the festivities that we fail to stop and think about how truly surprising Christmas can be.

The story of Joshua Bell,  Full Story, on a crowded subway platform always reminds of this. 

Joshua Bell was an amazing violin player. He was part of a marketing experiment, where he went incognito with his 2 million dollar violin to play some of his music on a crowded DC subway. He played for 43 minutes while 1,097 people passed by him. Only a handful even stopped and listened to his music. And only 3 stopped to listen for more than a few seconds.  One was a 3 year old child, whose mother had to drag him away from the music. Bell collected approximately 17 dollars for this impromptu concert, while usually his concerts cost 100 dollars per seat.

So just like the business of a subway at rush hour and people missing the amazing music of an amazing violin player, during this holiday season we can often miss the power of the music that seems to be incognito. The music of Gods love, the incarnation, the breaking through of God into human space and time is the power of the music. This was the event that people had been waiting for hundreds of years to arrive. They were waiting for the Messiah to come and save the people of God and deliver them for all eternity. Some were expecting the Messiah to come as a military power, a king, or a ruler, but the Messiah came as a child, born in a feeding trough for animals (a manger). This was not a glamorous event at all, the wise men and shepherds did not arrive until days, even weeks later. There were only animals, Joseph, Mary and Jesus lying in straw and animal feces. Sound surprising? Yes, most of us forget how unglamorous and how surprising the incarnation, the Christmas story was. The Christmas story, the breaking forth of God into human history often seems like a fairy tale, a glamorous thing, but it was not at all. And we miss how surprising it was, a surprise of love. This act showed us just how much God loves us. Loves us so much He became like one of his creation and was born as a child and laid in straw and animal dung. All this to demonstrate love, love for us.

Not only do we miss the music of Gods love, we can miss the amazing instrument that the music of his love is played upon. It would have been amazing enough to hear Joshua Bell play in a subway, but he choose to play his music on a 2 million dollar violin. It would have been amazing enough for God to love us and demonstrate His love for us, but to do it through His son, Jesus, God in the flesh, is even more amazing. We forget how surprising this Messiah was. He was God. This event changed the course of human history. And not just in the world, but in the church as well. We recognize and celebrate the birth of Jesus as a child, but do we realize and recognize the power of this, the surprise of this, God in the flesh.

One of my favorite artists from U2, Bono, puts it this way.  ” The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain itself by becoming a child born in poverty, in crap and straw, a child, I just thought, ‘Wow’! Just the poetry … I saw the genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this … Love needs to find a form, intimacy needs to be whispered … Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have to happen. There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh.”

So when you hear music being played this holiday season, especially a violin, pause and think about the story of Joshua Bell and then think about the surprise of Christmas, God’s love becoming flesh. Become surprised again, let the quaint story come alive. And stop and pause this season and look around and see where love may be manifested in ways you might not normally expect it. Be surprised by love.