Love, Jesus (the Christ)
The texts for Sunday, May 13, 2012: Acts 10:44–48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1–6; and John 15:9–17
…Dear Church,
That seems so formal. I wish I could list you all by name—each and every one of you
but then, I suppose I’d never get to what I’d like to say.
You are each so precious to me. In fact, I love you.
I love you—all of you. Those parts of you you are proud of, those broken parts too.
I love you even when you doubt or don’t love back.
I picked you, after all.
I picked you up out of the dust, brushed you off and made you a prized treasure.
But you know, that whole treasure thing? It’s not really enough.
You see, treasure on shelves just collects dust … and I don’t need that.
No, I want so much more. I love you, which means I want to be in relationship with you.
I want to be friends with you—not just casual friends, though. Friends.
The kind of friendship that is worth dying for.
The kind of friendship that is worth living for.
You know, that’s why I came to dwell with you. To become flesh too…
Because I wanted to touch your brokenness and make it whole
Because I wanted to hold your tears when you cry.
Because I wanted to show you my love in every way possible
Because I wanted to make your whole life and death holy, so that we’d never be apart.
I hope that you trust the love I have for you.
I hope that when the world seems crazy and out to get you,
I hope that when everything seems to be going wrong and things are so broken, so evil, you can’t see anything good—I hope that then you will remember I love you.
And that love is strong enough to destroy even death.
Remember that love always.
More than remember it: re member it.
Make it come alive in you by loving each other—
I know that sometimes that is hard: you don’t always like everyone around you.
You get hurt by other people.
But, I love them too.
You see, I picked them too.
They are my precious treasure—beautiful and special to me too.
Yes, even that person you’re thinking about right now that you are mad at…
Yes, even those people who you’ve been fighting with for years
Yes, even them…
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