It's a Mystery

Well, here we have it, God is love. He created the universe, the world, and you and me for love. Love is all about laying down our lives for others. And we are made in the image of God to be lovers.

At Christmas time we know all this. And we wait for this revelation of God in Christ, and in one another. We wait expectantly for love, as at no other time of the year. And when love fails to show up we miss it, as at no other time of the year, and we know that something is seriously wrong.

We see Ebenezer Scrooge for example, not as we might see him in May or September, a shrewd, if somewhat over zealous businessman, but as Dickens saw him, “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!” And we wonder, in the glow of the Christmas candles, what was wrong with the Grinch. Were his shoes, indeed, just a little too tight? Is it true that his head wasn’t screwed on just right? Or was it, perhaps, as the doctor suggests, a two sizes too small sort of heart in his chest?

Someone once told me that they were really enjoying the Harry Potter books till they realized the story came down to “that cheesy old thing about love”. And I’m afraid it is true. It’s love that saves Harry and makes him special. And, in the end, it’s love that defeats Lord Voldemort and saves the world. Voldemort doesn’t get it, of course, and neither did King Herod, Scrooge or the Grinch – though, admittedly, the latter two did get it in the end. And much of the time we don’t get it either.

But, there you have it. It all starts with love, runs on love, cranks out love as its most enduring and valuable product, and eventually ends in a humongous festival of love: love for our ancestors and our descendants, love for our parents and children, love for our brothers and sisters, our neighbours and friends, love even for our competitors, opponents and enemies. And yes, even for that idiot at work who laughs too loud and breaths through his mouth.

And, when I put it like that, it does sound pretty ridiculous. But this is what theologians call “a mystery”; something that’s just so ridiculous it can’t possibly be right, but so obvious it can’t possibly be wrong.

And what do we do when we come upon such a fundamental mystery? Well, we do what Herod and Voldemort should have done, and what Scrooge and the Grinch finally did. We just throw up our hands and start over.

Matthew 18:3 "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

And, when we do, everything becomes possible, and we can move on to PEACE, week two.