Toughening Up Love: Why Love Must Be the Final Candle

Over the last three weeks, I’ve been thinking about the themes of Advent—hope, peace, and joy. The tradition of lighting a candle for each of these Advent topics is beautiful, and it carries a great deal of sentiment for me. But throughout this season, my attention has been drawn to something deeper: these themes only retain their fullest meaning when set against the backdrop of what they cost. When that costliness is removed, the topics themselves begin to shrink. Before long, they become little more than seasonal decorations.

When I wrote about hope, I suggested that it only makes sense when the realities of death, judgment, heaven, and hell are taken seriously. The candle of hope burns brightest not because the world feels hopeful, but because Christ entered a world where hope was desperately needed—and brought it with Him.

When I reflected on peace, I observed that Scripture does not present it as a gentle emotional state. Peace follows repentance, endurance, and correction. Ultimately, true peace is something Christ will finish when He comes again. It is not assumed; it is awaited.

And when I wrote about joy, I noted how often joy arrives unexpectedly—sometimes tangled up with sorrow, loss, or disappointment. True joy survives difficult circumstances and broken memories because it is anchored not merely in the birth of Jesus, but in the promise of His return.

My intention in disrupting the Advent themes this way was never to diminish them. It was to rescue them from softness. I wanted to show their endurance and tenacity—to pull them out of mere sentimentality and return them to substance.

The Advent theme for the Sunday before Christmas is love. And love, too, must be rescued from becoming a soft-serve emotional sensation. Just as with the other Advent themes, love only makes sense when it is framed against what was required to bring it into our world.

A Soft-Serve Love

When the secular world hears the word love, it instinctively thinks in emotional terms. Love is something we feel. Love is something that happens to us when the conditions are right. It is often reduced to attraction, affection, or chemistry—and it rises and falls with our moods and circumstances.

But the Church, too, can carry a softened idea of love during the Christmas season. We picture the newborn baby, Mary and Joseph, a new family, and a quiet stable scene. All the warm, fuzzy feelings attached to this imagery—combined with our festive traditions—can lead us to frame love as something gentle and comforting. Even within the Church, love can quietly become a feeling to be enjoyed.

Yet in the same way that hope, peace, and joy lose their depth when separated from cost, love also loses its meaning when it is detached from what was required to bring it into a broken world. The world Jesus entered was marked by pain, injustice, suffering, and sin. Love did not arrive in an ideal setting.

Bringing love into this kind of environment required an intentional choice.

Love is an Intentional Choice

Because of the condition this world was in when Jesus came—and because of the incredible sacrifice His coming required—we should stand in awe that His arrival was a deliberate, intentional choice. Permit me to put it like this:

God chose nearness over safety.

It would have been far easier for God to love humanity from a distance. But had He remained distant, love would have remained an abstract idea rather than a concrete reality.

Jesus came to us knowing exactly what awaited Him. It would have been sacrificial enough for Him to leave His glory and splendor and enter a world fractured by sin, marked by violence, injustice, and sorrow. To live in such an environment for a time would have been admirable. But He did not come here merely to live for a moment. He came here to die.

He entered the human story knowing we would reject Him, misunderstand Him, and ultimately kill Him. His willingness to come despite all of that moves love out of abstraction and grounds it firmly in action. He loved, and so He acted. He chose closeness. He chose the costly route.

And that choice is what gives Advent love its weight, its seriousness, and its meaning.

Love, the Anchor

Although love is the last of the four Advent themes—and must be strengthened for its own sake—it also serves as a unique anchor for all the others. Without the sacrificial demonstration of love, everything we have said about hope, peace, and joy would eventually dissolve into abstraction as well.

The writer of Hebrews gives us a striking contribution to our topic when he says, “For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame.” That verse is often quoted, but it is just as often misunderstood. It is easy to assume that “the joy set before Him” refers to Jesus’ personal satisfaction at completing His task and returning to glory.

But the joy of Jesus included you and me!

It was not merely the relief of having endured pain. It was the joy of returning to heaven and bringing with Him a redeemed people. He included us in His joy. You and I—sin removed, brokenness healed, relationships restored—that was the joy set before Him.

Such joy is only possible because of love. This is why the joy we celebrate at Christmas must be anchored in love to make sense. And in fact, all of the Advent themes converge in love. Hope, peace, and joy do not stand on their own. They are not independent ideas. Each one depends on love.

Love is what makes hope reasonable.
Love is what makes peace attainable.
Love is what makes joy possible.

Take love away, and the others collapse into sentiment or abstraction.

Light the Candle of Love

The birth of Jesus is not simply the arrival of a child—it is the arrival of love with purpose. From the time Jesus was laid in the manger, he was moving toward the cross. The beautiful Advent themes of hope, peace, and joy carry the weight of what love would accomplish.

And this is what gives Advent its depth. We do not merely celebrate that love makes us feel warm or comforted. We stand in awe of God's choice to love that He chose nearness over safety.

So light the final candle and celebrate love that is greater than sentiment or emotion. Celebrate the decisive act that makes every Advent promise believable.

Love came.
Love stayed.
Love paid the cost.

And because of that, hope burns brighter, peace remains possible, and joy endures.