The Many Sides of Love

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. (John 3: 16)

Moses climbed Mount Sinai to pray.  There in a cloud stood the Lord.  The Lord assured Moses: I am mercy, kindness, and faithfulness.  These were not the names that Moses expected.  The scrappy Jewish community had scorned God at many turns.  Moses was braced for wrath, threats, and punishment.  Instead of a tempest, gentle rain fell on the prostrate man.  Moses implored God to stay close as they stumbled through the desert in search of home. 

Many proclaim that God is one.  But often this oneness transcends the busy scenes of life, our actual hopes and fears.  From this cloud no words are spoken.  This God dwells beyond earthly dimensions in the unnamable void where our concrete concerns mean nothing.

This blank oneness is not the unity of the Trinity.  We do not sing “glory and praise forever” to the abyss.  The oneness of God stirs with the motion of love.  Love gives birth.  He who is begotten is cherished.  The spirit dwells in the love of God for God.  God swells with the fullness of life, and the world bursts forth.  This world is not wretched.  It does not deserve constant complaints.  God so loves this world that he gave his only Son.  Jesus shared this earthly life with us. The world is worthy of praise.

Who condemns the world?   Some focus on the afterlife as our only home.  Others prize indifference and strive not to care.  Some confine the world to material entities moving in space and time.  Nothing in this universe is good or bad.  Values are projected onto the things that give us pleasure or pain.  The apple is good because its sweetness pleases me.  No beauty exists until humans create it.  We condemn the world when we deny the goodness already there in the chains of DNA, tectonic plates, dark matter, sand hill cranes in flight, babies learning to speak. 

The spirit bestows gifts.  Jesus shows us the way.  From the one exalted above all forever comes power.  The sign of the cross names us.  Like every creature, we belong to God.  Born of love, we are here to give ourselves away.