Episode 306: Unsentimental Advent, Part Four--Unconditional Love

One of the most well-known Bible verses asserts that "God so loved the world" that God gave us Jesus and sent him into the world. Love is at the heart of what the Christmas story is about, and yet so often we settle for a shallow, limited, or conditional understanding of what love looks like, especially when it comes to God's love. As pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at this theme for the fourth candle of the Advent wreath, they'll explore the difference between a "love" that depends on good behavior as a return on the investment of loving and God's almost recklessly unconditional and incarnational love that accepts us as we are and goes with us, where we are.  God's kind of love doesn't need to "fix" us before we become acceptable, but shows up in all our own human frailty and fragility and meets us where we are.  That's a story worth telling, and a love worth sharing.