April 25, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Find out what pleases the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5.10; 25-27)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

It is easy to SAY “I love you,” especially in English. It seems that we have limited our understanding of “loving” someone else based on what we need from that person. Of course, it is difficult to separate ourselves from the needs and wants we have from someone else and those we have for someone else. Love is, after all, intended to be shared. Such sharing, one might assume, is in equal measure. We cannot, however, categorize “love” as a one for one transaction, obligation nor expectation. We, as mighty ones of God, are aware of God’s great love for us. He gave without expectation because He knew of the human heart, mind, body and soul with and without its broken nature and sinful confluence. If love was truly love, it was a gift poured out for another for their good and not for their own satisfaction. Yet, it would seem that in today’s culture and climate the value, viability and acceptability of a relationship leans in the direction of “what have you done for me lately.” When John the disciple/apostle/seer and friend spoke of Jesus it was with the conceptualization of God’s love. Yes, we know of the famous John 3.16 verse declaring “For God so loved the world (the human population) that He gave them His only begotten Son so that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.” This verse is so well-known that only the name and number is needed to invoke the understanding of the beholder of the gift, the gifter and the gifted. Does that explain the power of “the Word” which is love; that is, Jesus the Christ. God had manifested many gifts, not the least of which was their freedom from Egyptian captivity and the establishment of a Promised Land, which said “I love you.” It came with a promise of “to those who are My people, I will be their God.” It was still a choice as powerful and impactful as the choice offered in the Garden. It is a choice of life and death; moreover, it is a choice of living and dying. It seems that when we are defined merely by “words of God,” such as the Shema, the Decalogue, the Prophecies, the Psalms and the History a transactional mindset is taken instead of transitional or even transformational. It was always about giving and taking, earning and qualifying, keeping and maintaining. “Love” in the midst of those “words of God” almost bore the burden of bartering. You know what I mean: if you do this, I will do this; if you give this much, I will give this much. Sadly, such bartering from the broken human standpoint ends up with the mindset I see prevalent today: how little can I give to get as much as I want. That isn’t love, that is lust.

Jesus reminded the teachers of the Law and their law-dogs, the Pharisees, “If you lust in your heart you have already committed the sin of adultery.” Imagine the impact of that wisdom on those who thought themselves wise enough to manipulate the “word” for their own device. They had already brought a woman many of them had “known,” in the biblical sense, with an accusation of adultery. She was the bargaining chip of power to test Jesus’ mettle. Would He accept their witness of “a word,” a statement borne by at least two? In this case, there may have been as many as seventy but two would do. Jesus, however, was more than a testimony of the word which was spoken. He was the perfect witness standing, or in this case kneeling, before God, men and the crowd. This woman was a part of the crowd. Yes, she was singled out. Nonetheless, she was one of the crowd. There were others there who had been called out for their sins, their transgressions, their debts. Who had called them out? The same accusers who now stood over Jesus and the woman were their accusers as well. The accusers assumed the place of God’s justice, judgment and execution. The people were to answer to them. There was no love lost in the transactions they demanded and commanded in the Temple marketplace. John had introduced the story of the Cleansing of the Temple at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry of righteousness. No, Jesus was not God’s mere “statement” of “I love you.” Jesus was the incarnation of God’s love brought into the world as real and as reality. Jesus was God’s manifestation of the image by which all humankind had been created in the beginning. As God had walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden, so now Jesus walked with Jew and Gentile, man and woman, slave and free in the land of promise. He made “love” real by living real love.

Now in Paul’s teaching concerning the right relationship between a man and a woman as husband and wife, as Church and its Savior, as a people and their God it was with the audacity of saying “make love real.” It was a physical and spiritual call to being loved and loving. Go back through those verses listed above from Ephesians 5.25-27 and capture the verbs: loving, sacrificing, willingly gifting, sanctifying, baptizing, anointing, reading, presenting, taking, radiating and honoring. Love is not just a word but a call to action. It is a call not to just any action but right action; righteousness. This is what pleases the Lord: righteous relationships of love in action between a man and a woman, a people to others and a people to God. It was His plan the whole time. It hasn’t changed yet and it never will.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit so that others may be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind that we would know that we are Your people and that You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.