Have You Ever Met Love? Part II

Love. Have you ever met love? Some weeks ago I wrote to you about Love finding those who are hiding and living in shame.  We discovered this in the creation story located in the book of Genesis, which is the first book in the Bible. 

Love (God) found Adam and Eve hiding in the Garden of Eden and clothed in fig leaves after their act of disobedience.  Though consequences fell upon the newlyweds, God demonstrated His essence, which is love, by searching for and locating this couple existing in shame. In short: Love is always looking for the lost.

PICKING UP CROSSES

In the New Testament of the Holy Bible, Jesus Christ is presented as the Son of God who takes away the sin of the world. He does this, according to all four Gospels in the New Testament, by dying on the cross.

Dying on the cross was the Roman Empire’s version of the death penalty. The first followers of Jesus saw the death of Jesus in the context of the Jewish sacrificial system where the lamb, without spot or blemish, was sacrificed for sin. 

This meant that Jesus, the Son of God, was the Lamb of God that was used
as a proxy by God to satisfy His holy demands. 

Through this one sacrifice all were made free to be at one with God!

When I was a child growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana I went to Sunday school every Sunday. One of the first passages I memorized was a scripture in the Gospel of John chapter 3, verse 16: ”For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

That scripture still sings and soars in my spirit and is a cornerstone of truth to my faith.  God is declared as the giver of His only Son.  Another way of putting it, God gives all that He has in order to be at one with His creation. Through this act God eradicates the barrier formed and erected when our creation parents sinned in the Garden of Eden. 

If there is one scripture in the New Testament that parallels with The Jewish sacrificial system it is John 3:16. Love is the spirit of that verse of scripture. As soon as one begins to celebrate such an overwhelming love we are quickly ushered to a letter written by one of Jesus’ disciples named John.  In that letter, John 3:16, we see these words: “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”  Wow! We who are recipients of such a matchless and boundless love must, as Jesus took up His cross, pick up our cross.

There is a lyric in one of the church's great hymns which asks, “Must Jesus bear the cross alone and all the world go free? No, there is a cross for everyone and there is a cross for me.” Could those words in melody have been inspired by the words Jesus spoke to His disciples in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 16, verse 24: “…if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me?" Perhaps. 

Nevertheless, we see clearly that the love God bestows upon us makes us a reservoir of love to others. Not a pond, but a stream of everlasting love.  Jesus picked up His cross and so must we. This is the real meaning of Christianity.

WHAT’S IN A CROSS?

The Cross is the true symbol of the sacrificial way we are called to live. Of course, we cannot literally die on a cross the way Jesus did outside of the gates of Jerusalem. Then how do we render due diligence to the words of Jesus’ disciple John when he says, “...we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”  

The answer, or my attempt to answer, would let us see what’s in the cross we are to bear as Jesus bore His. Living to die daily that others might benefit is what the cross is about. The diminishing of our own agendas and desires and letting the passions of others show up in the equation of our approach to collective happiness is what a cross-bearing man/woman of faith is summoned to do.

We know this experientially when it comes to the notion of happiness and joy in family life. Parents, husbands, wives even children, especially children with
siblings, come to understand that one cannot live life for self. At dinnertime there’s not just one chair under the table. There is a chair for all who sit at one table. The table is a
symbol of what it means to share. All involved must give up a little for all to have some. This means that one cannot have all that they could have or would want but must reserve some for others.

Even our beliefs! Our beliefs are precious to us, and they should be. I am convinced, however, that beliefs were never designed to divide us but bring us so close to the source of our belief that we become creative in our effort to come together and let our diversity be celebrated in our unity.    

This way of the cross stretches from the intimate surroundings of family to the outer reaches of our political lives in this great republic. We discover that sharing, sacrificing and upholding others so that others might participate in the grand scheme of things is how the cross would look through living among our fellow believers, citizens of different faiths than ours and citizens of America and beyond. When we learn this we meet love.

Am I looking for a Utopia? No. Rather, it is an effort to be hopeful. Disagreements must come, debates will take place. The heart submitted to living life through love will see disagreements and debates as resources to deeper meaning and understanding, not negative signs to disburse from each other.    

How I wish that this symbol of the cross could move around and through our efforts every day to live substantively. So many people need to meet love and experience the true nature of love’s ability to transform and give meaning to life. Searching and looking for the lost. Sharing and sacrificing for others. 

This is love! Have you ever met love?