Eastertide
April 30, 2015
Scripture Reading: 1 John 4:7-21
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. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. –1 John 4:7-21
While I enjoy thinking about scripture and making comments about it, sometimes I read something like our scripture today and I just want to say, “We all need to read this. Inhale it. There is nothing more important than this message.”
When I was a child we sang this scripture. It is no longer in hymn books at least in the form I knew it:
Christ Jesus my Lord from Heaven came,
To save me from guilt and sin and shame;
His death on the cross of Calvary
Brought pardon and gave me liberty.
I love Him because He first loved me,
He first loved me, He first loved me;
I love Him because He first loved me,
And died on the cross of Calvary.*
The church goes through phases of identifying what is theologically correct like society defines what is politically correct. I guess at some point we decided that simple sing-song messages were not up to our standards. Isaiah would not have agreed. He liked repetition. He knew we need to constantly be reminded of God and God’s love or it slips from our hearts and minds. I was pleased to see, when I looked for these words on the Internet that there are several current day variations on this song. In whatever form you chose, keep the words of this scripture always in your heart.
Prayer: God who is love, be near to us reminding us that you have always loved us. Make that message the one that enriches our love for you and for each other. Amen.
*I Love Him Because He First Loved Me, words by Frank E. Roush, see whole hymn at http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/i/l/o/iloveHim.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.