1.
“People as Doers of the Word”
We
are confronted by God. In this confrontation, God frees us from sin and death
by setting them behind us. Made new by the Holy Spirit, we live as seekers—and
so as lovers—of God in Christ. As such we live also as doers with others as
Church. As people set free for God, we live to praise God with others as his
witnesses.
2. “The Love of God”
God
is love. God is love in relationship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God
actively revealed this love to us in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ died in our
place so that we might stand reconciled before God as his children. Our
creation, this reconciliation, and our future redemption are wholly free acts
of God’s unmerited love.
Jesus tells us to love God wholly (Mark 12:29-31). As members of the Christian
community who know how much Jesus loves us, we hasten by God’s grace to love
him in response. We hasten to respond in love to the one and only Lord of life
who freed us from the power of death, not by manipulating us, but by utterly
giving himself. We love our Lord when we freely obey his command to be our true
selves by loving him. We love him by acknowledging as true his always
surprising Word of gracious judgment and sharp grace. We love him with our
whole self in all times and places our whole life.
3.
“The Praise of God”
Jesus
commands us to love God wholly and our neighbor as our self. The first
commandment is greater because the love of God is the source of our love of
neighbor while our love of neighbor is a sign of our love of God. We obey the
second commandment to love our neighbor when we praise God.
We
shall love our neighbor because, knowing what God has done for us and for
everyone in Jesus Christ, we constantly want to share that good news with
others so that they too may celebrate. Like the Good Samaritan, our neighbors
are those who benefit us and we act as neighbor when we likewise show mercy
toward those who cannot otherwise help us. Those who benefit us most are those
who, by God’s grace, bear witness to us of Jesus Christ. Those who suffer are
our neighbors because they most clearly represent the Lord who suffered for us.
Those to whom we may show mercy because they cannot help us may well be those
who regard themselves as our enemies. We love our neighbors when we allow their
sins to remind us of our own and so to point us both to Jesus Christ who alone
truly saves. We love our neighbors by naming this source of help. We witness to
our Savior in words, in acts of assistance, in the way we live. We love our
neighbors as we love our self when we trust God’s grace to enable our words,
actions, and attitudes to witness to him, and therefore to be loving, despite
our sinfulness
Copyright © by Steven Farsaci.
All rights reserved. Fair use encouraged.
