God is Love
Too many people try to make their relationship with God too complicated. God is not some big, scary, faraway voice. God is not some cold judge that we only speak about on Sunday. God is also not a genie in a bottle that we only talk to when we have a problem. Put simply, God is love. God is filled with compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. To the extent that we know love, is the same extent that we know God.
The problem with love is that it requires relationship with others. As soon as Jesus has to deal with people, that’s when he runs into problems. Why? Because love is complicated. We are flawed and broken because we fail to love others. In fact, when we see the fullest expression of love wrapped up in Jesus, we beat him, spit on him, and we hang him from a Cross.
Love is so challenging to learn because it plays tricks on us. Notice how quickly the crowd goes from shouting “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday to “Crucify Him” on Good Friday. What happened? It wasn’t malice, hatred, or ill will. Rather, we deceive ourselves into believing that what is not love… is. For instance, we can convince ourselves that turning refugees away at the southern border is acceptable because we love our country. But wait… isn’t love filled with compassion and mercy? Wouldn’t Jesus, the perfect example of love, welcome the stranger? Wouldn’t Jesus walk alongside asylum seekers in the process of obtaining proper documentation? Or, would Jesus turn people away?
To know God is to know love. To love our country is to love the fundamental idea that we are a nation of immigrants. Why is that important to our Christian story? Because loving others is what we are striving to do as Christ-followers. My prayer for us is that the experience of Good Friday is not something that we merely witness. Instead, Good Friday is something that we use to change how we think and act in the world. I pray that we will feel the ridicule, the mistreatment, and the suffering of Jesus and then seek to avoid repeating it. Because I know us, I know humanity. I know that we will fail to love.
Still, I holdout for the Resurrection. I cling to the promises of new life. I pray that Easter brings a new way of seeing the world that changes how we live in it. God is simply love. This Sunday, may Lamb of God Church be consumed by it. May the world be covered with love. May strangers be engulfed by it. God drenches the world with love, and we get to be a part of the miraculous feat. Come, experience the love that has the power to transform the world!
With love,
Pastor Lucas McSurley
Photo by John Tyson