How much smaller and how much sadder a gospel it would be to think God loves us because we are right, rather than because God’s very nature is to love. How much paltrier would the good news be if it were that some of us are forgiven because we happen to be right, rather than because it is God’s nature to forgive us all.
And into our demented lives, Jesus comes uninvited, saying something like, “I see you, and you can live in this shattered world in a different way. You can take the fragments and scars and make something whole again, even beautiful.” Peace be with you.
Maybe if our love loses the last of its interest in anything it might get in return, maybe then we’ll find ourselves alive at last, in that eternal kingdom Jesus kept telling us has been right here among us all along.
“Because a night creeps through the day.” Because this is how it is. And this world of distorted and destructive power, of fear turned to anger and rage. On a grand scale, how the forces of control can conspire to crush what it will not allow. And in the smaller worlds we inhabit, where this simple unraveling of what we counted on sends us into a parallel universe marked by loneliness and gloom. Because the night is creeping through every day.