One of the challenging things about Jesus is that He rarely shows up where we expect Him to.

We tend to look for Him in important places, places of influence. Big churches. Loud voices. Strong leaders. Cultural relevance. Political power. But when you pay attention to the Gospels, you realize Jesus moves in the opposite direction.

He walks away from power.
He resists being crowned.
He refuses to do what’s expected.

Instead, He spends His time with people the world has already written off.

That’s what Love All from Advent Conspiracy keeps pushing us to remember. Loving all is a deeply disruptive way of living that challenges how we define success, faith, and even Christmas itself.

Jesus Didn’t Chase Power, He Walked Toward People

Paul makes it clear in 2 Corinthians 8:9. Jesus gave up everything and became poor so that others might live.

That alone should make us pause.

Jesus didn’t enter the world through a palace. He wasn’t born to royalty. He was born in a borrowed space, to a working-class family, under an oppressive empire. From the very beginning, God chose proximity over prestige.

That choice continued throughout Jesus’ life.

When Jesus announced His mission in Luke 4:18, He didn’t say He came to defend religious systems or protect national identity. He said He came for the poor, the imprisoned, the blind, and the oppressed. That was a declaration of where He would plant His ministry.

And He kept His word.

You find Jesus touching lepers.
Eating with tax collectors.
Listening to women whose voices were ignored.
Welcoming children who were considered expendable.
Standing between the vulnerable and the violent.

If we want to know where Jesus is today, the Gospels make it painfully clear. He is still found among the people society pushes aside.

The Hard Question for the Church

Here’s where things get uncomfortable.

If Jesus is found among the vulnerable, why does so much of the Church today seem more interested in chasing power and influence?

Somehow, over time, Christianity in America has drifted toward power instead of presence. Toward control instead of compassion. Toward winning culture wars instead of loving neighbors.

This isn’t new, but it reveals a lot about what’s important.

When faith becomes entangled with politics, certain groups inevitably become targets. Immigrants. The poor. LGBTQ+ people. Religious minorities. The incarcerated. The unhoused. People whose lives are complex and messy and inconvenient.

That’s the opposite direction of Jesus.

In Matthew 25, Jesus removes all the abstraction. He doesn’t ask people what they believed or how loudly they defended the truth. He points to actions. Feeding the hungry. Welcoming the stranger. Visiting the imprisoned. Caring for the sick.

Then He says something that should jolt us: “Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.”

If that’s true, then ignoring, excluding, or harming vulnerable people isn’t just a social issue. It’s a spiritual one.

Loving Our Neighbor Means Loving the “Wrong” Neighbor

Jesus never lets us define “neighbor” in comfortable ways.

When He tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, He deliberately chooses a hero that His audience would have despised. The Samaritan was the wrong race, the wrong religion, the wrong side of the political divide.

And that was the point.

Loving your neighbor doesn’t mean loving people who vote like you, think like you, or make you feel affirmed. It means loving the person right in front of you, especially when doing so costs you something.

That runs directly against the current state of American culture.

We are trained to sort people into camps. To reduce them to headlines. To see disagreement as threat. Politics thrives on fear because fear mobilizes. Love, on the other hand, slows us down. It humanizes. It refuses to dehumanize the “other.”

Jesus calls us to love anyway.

Not because we agree.
Not because it’s safe.
But because that’s what love does.

Where Jesus Still Shows Up

If you want to find Jesus this Christmas, you probably won’t find Him in the frenzy of consumption or the noise of outrage. You’ll find Him quietly present in places most people rush past.

In the exhausted single parent doing their best.
In the elderly person eating alone.
In the family choosing between medicine and groceries.
In the refugee navigating an unfamiliar world.
In the teenager hiding pain behind anger.
In the child whose only consistent meal comes from school.
In the gay kid wondering if faith has room for them.

These aren’t political talking points. They’re human lives.

And according to Jesus, this is where He is.

Why This Matters Beyond the Church

You don’t have to be Christian to see the impact of love lived this way.

Communities are healthier when people are seen instead of discarded.
Families are stronger when dignity is protected.
Societies are more stable when the vulnerable are cared for.

Love isn’t weakness. It’s what holds things together.

That’s why Jesus’ call to love all still matters, even for those who struggle with faith. It pushes back against a culture built on fear, scarcity, and competition. It insists that people matter more than power.

A Different Way to Celebrate Christmas

Advent Conspiracy doesn’t ask us to cancel Christmas. It asks us to tell the truth about it.

Christmas is not about excess.
It’s about incarnation.
God choosing closeness.
God choosing people.

Maybe loving all looks like showing up for one person who has been overlooked.
Maybe it looks like listening instead of reacting.
Maybe it looks like opening your table.
Maybe it looks like refusing to laugh at cruelty.
Maybe it looks like protecting someone others refuse to see.

Small acts of love change more than we think. They remind people they matter. They remind us who we are becoming.

The Invitation

The question isn’t whether love is hard.

It is.

The real question is whether we’re willing to follow Jesus where He actually goes instead of where we wish He would go.

Because if we do, we’ll find Him right where He’s always been.

Among the least.
Among the overlooked.
Among the vulnerable.

And loving them might just change us too.

Closing Prayer

Loving God,
You came near to us in Jesus,
not with power or force,
but with compassion, humility, and grace.

You showed us that love is not an idea to admire
but a way of life to be lived.

Open our eyes to see the people we often overlook.
Soften our hearts toward those who are hurting, excluded, or forgotten.
Give us the courage to love our neighbors,
even when it challenges our comfort, our assumptions, or our loyalties.

Where fear has taken root in us, plant trust.
Where anger has shaped our words, teach us gentleness.
Where indifference has crept in, stir compassion.

As we leave this place and move into the world,
help us recognize Jesus in the faces we encounter,
and remind us that when we choose love,
You are already there.

Shape our lives to look more like Christ—
faithful, generous, and brave in love.

We offer ourselves to You again,
trusting that Your love can still heal, restore, and make all things new.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen.