Old Testament: Jeremiah 31:27-34
Psalm 137:1-6(7-9), 144 * 42,43
Epistle: Romans 11:25-36
Gospel: John 11:28-44 or 12:36-50
Since becoming a parent I have read many infant and toddler books on love. The stories vary in how love is observed and experienced but generally they all leave me in tears. I get choked up every time because these simple stories connect with a love that is already alive for my child. They give words and draw forth a reality that already exists as though my love is speaking.
Stories of love are also within our Bible, speaking to the reality that already exists between God and us. God does not have to find mediums to elicit these words and explanations as to the depth and power of the love that God has for us. The love is not contingent on our understanding; it would still exist. The love is given words that we can understand because God seeks relationship: “I want you to know that I love you, unconditionally, with joy, and forever.” Explaining ourselves to others nurtures a connection on both ends.
The love story we hear about in Jeremiah in today’s readings describes how God wants “to build and to plant” rather than “to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil.” God speaks about loving in community. Brought together with God’s desire for inclusivity, we are also sealed with a new covenant where God will “put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” God speaks about loving with intimacy. This no longer sounds like the God who is afar, out there, watching us, judging us. This God gathers us up like a mother hen and claims us all as her own with a proclamation that she will always be with us, in us. God desires a deep intimacy driven by unconditional love, a yearning that transcends deed or merit.
When God’s love came to life as Jesus it ignited a rapid paradigm shift. In John’s Gospel account, Jesus is moved by Mary’s grief, “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved” that he does not allow even death to exist as a barrier to God’s love. Jesus invited Lazarus to “come out” from death still “bound with strips of cloth” around “his hands and feet.” What power and love is this?
The story of love that Jesus personifies moves us beyond our laws of religion and nature. In today’s reading, God is pointing us to a greater love that already exists.
Kimberly Meuth Olson
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