The Way of Love - December 17, 2018

God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16

Copyright 212 west: the spoken life

During the season of Advent, our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has invited us to reflect on the way of love. For many of us, there are numerous paths to love. Some have found love through the sacred acts of prayer, blessings, learning, and worship while others discovered love through the movements of turning, going, and rest. Collectively, these expressions of love or the various ways to love have a purpose. In Luke 10:27, Our Lord Jesus Christ reminds us of the purpose of our love. The purpose or the object of Christian love allows us to, “ Love the Lord our God with all our hearts and with all our souls and with all our strength and with all our minds '; and to 'Love our neighbor as Ourselves.” Love, according to Christ, embodies an inclusive communal experience between the Divine and humanity. In loving God with our very being: hearts, minds, souls and strength, we become conduits of the divine character of God. As written by the evangelist in John 4:7-21, “God is love” and those who love God and their neighbors translate the divine will of God.

We, despite the harsh realities of human experiences, are beautifully and wonderfully made in the image of God through His love and grace to be beacons of love as revealed in the Gospels and through the Scriptures. As we celebrate the coming and birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, lets us remember to share our love with God and with our neighbors. Since the Creation of the world, God has shared His Love with humanity. Do you remember? It occurred through the breath of life and it was reaffirmed through the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In the words of A.J. Russell, I proclaim that “I am Love because God is Love,” because I am made in the image of God and I am willing to testify of my Love.

Oh, what a blessing and joy to receive and give love.

Post by Shancia Jarrett

On humanity and sandals

Embed from Getty Images

I’m struck by the metaphor John the Baptist uses to compare himself to Christ in this week’s lesson from the Gospel of John.  “I am not worthy to unite the thong of his sandal.” It’s a simple, physical image—a sandal, a foot within it—in the midst of this evangelist’s typically more abstract imagery.  It’s an image that looks forward to other moments in the life and ministry of Jesus, especially that most surprising moment when, at the Last Supper, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.

This physicality of the image, and of those other moments it anticipates, helps me remember one of the central things we look forward to during Advent—the Incarnation, when that same God that created and sustains all that has being took on our human form and lived as one of us.  It’s all too easy to lose sight of how shocking this is:  that the God of the universe should become a vulnerable human who, from infancy to crucifixion, would experience all the joys and the pains of our lives, even unto death.

But the Incarnation isn’t just about God taking on human nature.  It’s about the perfection of human nature in God.  In the Incarnation, we come to understand that we, as God’s creatures, are also made new, made good.  Our human selves, our human bodies, are part of God’s creation and God’s plan.  And this, as we will come to see in the days and weeks to come, changes everything.

Post by Jett McAlister