LOVE Lent 12

Scripture

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
   we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans.8.31-39

Reflection

The Apostle Paul in the letter to Romans asks a rhetorical question of a persecuted church. Do all the hardships and distress we experience show that God's love is not with us? On the contrary he writes, there is nothing that separates us from the love of God in Christ. 

It's usual to ask 'why me'? when we are enduring difficulties in life, and common to think that somehow it might mean that God disapproves of us, or doesn't love us. The Bible tells us that certainly is not the case, and that going through pain and suffering is not a result of God deciding to punish or teach us something, but is something that just happens. Unless we believe that God directs us and moves us about like chess pieces on a board, then the idea of punishmnet or chastisement is as false as believing that somehow those who are richer or seem to have an easier life than us are somehow 'blessed' for some invisible reason. 

Instead of worrying about God's favour or blame, says Paul, we remember that in all that we go through, in struggles and celebrations, in joy and sorrow, God's love is there. There is nothing that separates us from the love God, there is no time when we are not embraced by Divine grace. God is not distant, God is wherever we are, celebrating or hurting with us. God shares our pain and our happiness, and is a companion through it all, in love. 

Prayer

God of Goodness, I come into your presence so aware of my human frailty and yet overwhelmed by your love for me.
I thank you that there is no human experience that I might walk through where your love cannot reach me.
If I climb the highest mountain you are there and yet if I find myself in the darkest valley of my life, you are there.
Teach me today to love you more.
Help me to rest in that love that asks nothing more than the simple trusting heart of a child.

Author Unknown found at Xavier.edu