1 Jn 4:7-10 / Mk 6:34-44
Most of us don’t have to dig very deep or think very long before coming up with multiple memories of our foolish choices, egregious errors, false certitudes, and outright ugly sins of various sizes and dimensions. In considerable discomfort we ask ourselves, “What did I have in my head? How could I have done that? If only those people could come back to life so I could tell them how sorry I am.”
We’ve all had that experience many times, if we have even the slightest degree of self-awareness and good conscience. Remembering it helps us see how utterly astonishing are the love and the affection that God lavishes upon us, even on the worst of our days. How can we explain it? Surely not from any merit of ours.
The fact is that God loves us because that’s who God is, Love Itself. When we get clear about that, two parallel emotions should well up in our hearts: relief and then gratitude. And that faces us with a challenge. How do we give adequate expression to our gratitude? Words alone aren’t enough.
The answer is elegantly simple: Do for one another what God does for us, namely, love one another without counting the cost. It’s all that God asks in return for his loving us, and doing it, following God’s example, will transform us more and more fully into God’s own likeness.
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