I Will Love Them Freely

March 16, 2012

Friday of the Third Week in Lent

By Melanie Rigney

I will heal their apostasy, I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from them. I will be like the dew for Israel: he will blossom like the lily; he will strike root like the Lebanon cedar, and his shoots will go forth. (Hosea 14:5-7)

I am the Lord your God: hear my voice. (Psalms 81:11)

The scribe said to (Jesus), "Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, He is One and there is no other than he. And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God." And no one dared to ask him any more questions. (Mark 12:32-34)

Piety

Lord, thank You for loving me in spite or perhaps because of my perceived flaws.

Study

I heard someone learned say recently that you can’t go more than about two pages in the Bible without reading about the angry God, the one full of vengeance and retribution.

While I’m not a biblical scholar, I have read the Bible cover to cover once, and have lived through a few cycles of the daily lectionary readings and Bible studies. Angry God is certainly there. But to me, that anger typically is preceded by someone doing something that consciously opposes God’s will… and is followed by beautiful signs or actions or words similar to those in today’s first reading: “I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from them. I will be like the dew for Israel…”

As Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel reading, everything that is asked by the Father can be boiled down to two commandments. I’ll go him one better. It can be boiled down to one word: Love. Love is the number one word in the universal language of God, and He says it and shows it to us all the time. In return, if we love, we don’t injure ourselves or others. If we love, we don’t betray ourselves or others. If we love, we find God everywhere. If we don’t love, God has a way of letting us find out just how wrong that lack of love is, and directing us back to the sound of His voice.

Action

Think of ways you can show five people today how you love them. Actions and words are good, but so are actions and words left unspoken.