God so loved… who? Really?!?

We, humans, tend to be selective in whom we love. We have experienced opening our hearts to someone and been hurt, sometimes deeply, in the process. Loving someone makes us vulnerable.

            So we are careful about whom we love. We categorize people into various levels of love. And we also categorize people into levels of those we dislike. We clearly remember those who have hurt us. Often, then, we dislike all those who are like the persons who hurt us even without knowing them.

            Then there are the people with whom we have no history, and so we treat them with suspicion because we suspect that they could harm us as well. People of other languages and ethnic groups become suspicious to us. We assume that they are suspicious of us as we are of them.

            God comes along and turns everything upside down and inside out.

            Many people are familiar with the famous passage John 3:16—“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

            We don’t often think of what is meant by “the world.” The world means everyone. It certainly includes you and me, but it also includes the people we dislike or avoid. It includes those who oppose the work of God. It includes the atheists. And, as we read in Scripture, it includes the people who nailed Jesus to the cross.

            Love makes us vulnerable. But God is so big that God can open up God’s heart to those who would intentionally hurt God. “...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

            As we are disciples, followers, of Jesus we are called to imitate Him. That is a hard task. The 12 disciples of Jesus did not always do this very well either. God sends us the Holy Spirit to help us grow as followers of Jesus. And as such, we are called to love others. In our divided world, this is a difficult task. We fear it makes us vulnerable.

            But we have received God’s unconditional love, and so we learn to love others. Even those who we fear may hurt us.