Wednesday, January 6, 2021

6 January 2021 - love that calms the storm


Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,
God remains in him and he in God. 

When we acknowledge Jesus we do the work of God which is "that you believe in him whom he has sent" (see John 6:29). But it is not just words spoken hypocritically that matter. Not everyone who says 'Lord, lord' will enter the Kingdom (see Matthew 7:21). Yet it remains true that no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Spirit (see First Corinthians 12:3). 

No one has ever seen God. 

We see what God does in the world, but never his divine essence, which is beyond human comprehension. Yet, although we don't understand him by our intellect power we do experience his love for us. 

This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us,
that he has given us of his Spirit. 

God can perhaps be likened to the sun, which can't be seen directly, but which is known by the warmth of its rays. This is why loving one another is so closely connected to experiencing that "God remains in us". It is in fact his own love that is warming us to love. When he loves through us we experience "his love is brought to perfection in us.

Rather than something we can't observe directly, like the sun, we sometimes wish that God were more obviously tangible, like a mountain whose presence is known and agreed upon by all. But without the light of the sun we would all perish. And without God's love we would not exist. We actually tend to take the effects of both God and the sun for granted, because we can't see them directly, and because, paradoxically, of their prevalence. 

A common human tendency is to try to fit God into a predictable mold so that we can look at him more directly. After Jesus fed the five thousand the crowds wanted him to be a king according to an earthly paradigm. Even the disciples were not prepared for the possibility that he could walk on water and calm the storms around them. So it is that, oddly, when we try to make God more comfortable and predictable we actually limit the ways we can believe that he might choose to act.

But at once he spoke with them,
“Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!” 

This is not to imply that we should be content with not knowing God. It is rather than we should learn to embrace the mystery, never missing the countless opportunities he gives us to experience the manifestations and revelations of himself. It is a reminder to stay on our toes because we cannot finally predict how he might choose to move. He is not, in the end, a static thing like a mountain or a sun. He is a person, a person with whom, though we can not comprehend him entirely, we can grow in relationship. This happens when he loves us and we love him and our neighbor by that love we first receive from him. This is a deeper realization than the comprehension of any truth. It is only a realization of this sort that enables us to say, 'Jesus is Lord' and to "have confidence on the day of judgment".

God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. 


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