“L” is for the way you look at me,
“O” is for the only one I see,
“V” is very very extraordinary,
“E” is even more than anyone could you adore,
and LOVE is all that I can give to you.
LOVE is more than just a game for two.
Tow in LOVE can make it; take my heart but please don’t break it,
LOVE was made for me and you!
Maybe it's because Valentine’s Day is approaching, but this song comes to my mind this weekend. But what is love really? We say God is love, but how?
Is God-Love a cotton candy, chocolate covered, dozen of roses kind of love? Well, partly, but we really need to go deeper to get at the heart of God-Love. The secret to God-Love, you see, is found in that (pointing to crucifix).
Did you know that all the Gospels were composed by starting with the crucifixion and then worked out from there… all with an eye on Jesus’ Passion? Everything in our scripture points back to Calvary. (It's the pebble in the pond.) Why? Because our Church knows that the secret of God-Love is discovered there.
Take today’s Gospel: Jesus “moved with pity stretches out his hand, touches the leper, and cures him.” Jesus could have simply spoken a command to cure the leper as he did so many times before, but in this case Jesus moved with pity reaches out and touches the leper for that is what the leper longed for the most… to again have contact with another human being. Being a leper meant you were going to die, but way before you died physically, you died socially. You were cut off, isolated.
This reveals to us that God-Love by its nature consists of compassion and community; compassionately reaching out to touch us in our pain, seeking to bring us back together in community. But there is one more aspect to God-Love we must come to see…
Did you notice the twist in today’s Gospel? Although Jesus warns the now healed leper to not tell anyone about the miracle, the guy proceeds to tell everybody! Everyone came to know about it. The result is that Jesus loses his own freedom of movement. “He could no longer enter a town openly.” See the twist? Even as the leper regains his ability to live among his own people, Jesus loses his! Jesus sacrifices his freedom so the leper could again be free. And this reveals the deepest truth about God-Love: SACRIFICE.
Just as Jesus takes the place of the leper today, so will he take the place of all sinful humanity on the cross. Just as the leper was cast out of his city so will Jesus be cast out of Jerusalem. Just as the leper was forced to declare himself unclean in public, so will Jesus be publicly humiliated and declared scum. Just as the leper was doomed to a cruel death, so will Jesus face the destruction of the cross.
Once again, Jesus, moved with pity for us, will trade places with us sacrificing himself. Now we can see God-Love for what it is… compassionate, communal, and sacrificial.
This is the God-Love we commemorate at our altar. What sort of response should we offer to this love of God for each of us? Try this…
Imagine for a moment that you are the now healed leper, only now you are on the resurrection side of Calvary gathered with a few other fellow followers of the newly risen Jesus Christ, and Jesus appears in our midst and showing us his hands and side says, “Go and tell people.” “Remain in my love.” “To those who have much much is expected.” “The measure with which you measure will be measured back to you.” “Love one another as I have loved you.”
What are you going to do when you leave that gathering?
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