The great theologian Karl Barth was reportedly asked after a lecture to sum up his thought, and this legendary intellect and writer of volumes of complex theology articulating the nature of God, of man, of Christ, and more, replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.”
Does it really just come down to love? Jesus said so… “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
In his prayer to his heavenly Father on his last night in human life, Jesus spoke of having made known to his followers the name of God, so that God’s love, with which Jesus had been loved, would reside in them – and further, that he himself would be in them. That is what we claim happens at baptism (and may happen in other times and ways; baptism is simply a guarantor) – we are united with Christ, and his spirit takes up residence within us for ever. Already. Now.
That means we too are filled with the Father’s love. Do you feel filled with God’s love? I’m not always aware of it. I can be filled with energy or anxiety, peace or hope or fury or love for another. Rarely am I conscious of being a repository of God’s love, God’s love made available to the world, through me, through you.
This may be our most important goal in the spiritual life: to become conscious, intentional conduits of the love that made the universe into a world thirsty for it. We need to be aware of our belovedness. This is old news, yet so difficult to live into.
We don’t have to find this love and ingest it – Jesus implies it is already in us, because he made God’s name known to his followers. And we are their descendants, apostles ourselves. Our job is to release this love into the world around us. How and where are we going to do that today?
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