Lent
March 17, 2015
Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 31:31-34
No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.— Jeremiah 31:34
What does it mean to “know God”? Sometimes I wonder if it is even possible to know another person, fully and completely. 1 John 4:7-8 talks about knowing God: Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. If we truly know God, we must love one another. When we humans reach the point of all loving one another then we will also fully love God and thus know God.
So what is love? The Greek word translated love in 1 John 4:7-8 is Agape* and is often described as divine love. What seems to set Agape love apart from the other forms of love in the Greek language, the love of siblings for each other or erotic love, is that Agape love, God’s love, results from choice. God chooses to love each of us and we are to follow God’s example and are free to choose to love one another. Agape love centers in moral preference. God calls us to prefer to love one another always and to live that love.
When I worked at children’s hospital years ago, we helped a family whose baby had a very rare condition that resulting in his emitting a strong foul odor most of the time. Besides that he was very large for his age and very delayed in development. It was backbreaking to carry him and at that time he was too big for infant strollers and two underdeveloped to sit in a wheelchair. We could use a gurney to move him about at the hospital. I think the family used a padded wheel barrel at home. His family could have chosen to walk away from him. They did not. The mother chose to love him with all her heart and the resulting care was still there when he died in her arms a few months later. I have also seen substitute caretakers chose to love unconditionally when primary caretakers cannot. In many instances it takes both.
Sometimes the people we deem the most unlovable are the ones who we need to love the most.
Prayer: Lord, enable us to love each other particularly the least of these. Amen.
*http://biblehub.com/greek/26.htm
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.