Reflection
We began by saying the world needs more than love, but it’s fitting now to clarify that it certainly needs not less than it. For the wager Christianity makes is that at the core of everything is love, not chaos — love that seeks the good of the beloved, despite their flaws and wrongdoing.
The heart of God the Father is shown in the sending and sacrifice of his Son, demonstrating that the love of God empties itself on our behalf so that there might be restored relationship, life and eternal joy rather than enmity, separation, and punishment. This love now enjoins us, who have been saved and transformed by that love, to love one another deeply for, as Victor Hugo puts it in his majestic Les Misérables, “to love another person is to see the face of God”.
Is the love of God real to others in the way we love each other?
Prayer
Our loving Father, thank you for the outpouring of your love for us on the cross. May your Spirit work in us so that we can grasp, more and more, the height and depth of your love for us — and may this transform and invigorate the way we love others, in order that more people would come to know you as their loving Father as well. Amen.