Love

Over the past three weeks, I’ve discussed the Advent themes of hope, peace, and joy and how they are related to and found throughout the promises and covenants of the Old Testament. I hope that you’re getting a feel for how consistent the purposes of God are. He does not change and he has always meant for us to hope in him as we find peace and joy in his presence, even in the midst of our fractured souls. 

For this last week, for there are only 4 weeks in Advent, I’m going to write about love. Now, this really could be an endless endeavor for St. John tells us that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). Who am I to plumb the depths of God’s character in a single essay? I won’t attempt it, but I will scratch the surface and paint a picture of the love of God, from beginning to end in the Scriptures, using the major Old Testament covenants as our guide. 

As before, I’ll ask you: why? Why do we need love? Aside from our fundamental need for God, being his creation, there is plenty of scientific and psychological research to back up the human need for love. Do a quick google search and tell me what you find. There are an infinite number of songs, poems, books, and stories about love. Even most stories that aren’t explicitly about love have a love story element to them. We all desire to love and be loved because it is what we were made for. If God is love and we are made by God, then we will naturally crave and need love. 

In theological circles, you’ll come across the idea of the simplicity of God. Briefly stated, this means that God is not complex or conflicted like you and I are. That is not to say that you can understand God, but rather to say that there is no contradiction in him. If God is love, then we can understand this to be fundamental to his nature and character. The Bible says a lot of things about God and describes many aspects of his character and personality, but “God is love” is one of the few clear statements about his essence. I think that makes it worth paying attention to. Further, St. Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians that love is greater than all the other virtues that one could posses. And, if you’ve ever been loved, you’ll know that godly love has the power to heal, restore, and connect all the pieces of your life. 

Just like the other themes of Advent that prepare us for the coming King, love is prominent in the Old Testament covenants and promises. In Genesis 3, God lovingly prepares clothing for Adam and Eve before they are banished from the Garden – much better clothing than they had made for themselves.  

When God chooses Noah and invites him to make an ark to save his family and all the creatures that dwell on land, he doesn’t pick him because he is particularly good or righteous. He picks him because of his grace – this is love in action. Finally, after the flood, God promises that he will never again destroy the earth, even though people are always going to be wicked. The fractures in the heart of humanity and the wickedness in the world grieved God so much that he chose to bring the flood, but he was equally grieved by the destruction. God loves that which he has made. 

Abraham, too, is chosen because of God’s grace, not because of his goodness. He lived in a land filled with idols and religions of all kinds when God called him. He was not a worshipper of God, but like Noah, God saw the capacity for faith in him and invited him to trust him. Because of God’s love, he chose to restore to Abraham and his family that which all humanity had lost in the garden with the seed of hope that one day it would be restored to us all. Finally, God stated in the covenant with Noah that he knew that humanity would continue to be wicked. This has not changed by the time we get to the Abrahamic covenant. So, because of God’s love for humanity and his unwillingness that his good plans for us should fail, he makes the covenant unilateral. The outcome of this promise is wholly dependent upon God himself – he will ensure that it comes to pass. Because he made us and he knows us and he won’t let anything get in the way of us dwelling with him again. 

When we look at the Mosaic covenant, we see God preparing his people to live with him. He teaches them how they should live and how they should respond when they make mistakes. He shows them how to care for the Tabernacle where he will dwell with them so that they can understand how holy and awesome he is. Like many good parents, God gives his children a chance, in this covenant, to see if they can live according to his standards of holiness on their own. Before the terms of the covenant are even fully given to them, we and they discover that they cannot. After the incident with the golden calf (Gn. 32), they know that are wholly unworthy to be with him. They know that they can never measure up. He knows it too. But his love and his mercy and his grace are enough to dwell with them anyway. 

I’ll come to the New covenant shortly, but I want to point out that the Mosaic covenant contains many laws about cleanliness and uncleanliness, about the things that make you unclean or unworthy to walk into God’s presence in the temple. Two of the most memorable things that make a person unclean are touching a dead body and touching someone with a skin disease. There are cleansing rites that people would undergo if they came into contact with a dead person or a person with a skin disease and then they would be clean again. Jesus Christ touched dead people and people with skin diseases, yet there is no record of his going to the temple to be cleansed. In fact, when Jesus touched unclean people they became clean. This is the power of his love working in us. 

In the Davidic covenant, there were both conditional and unconditional elements. I find it significant that one of the unconditional elements was that God would never stop loving David’s descendants. Even if they failed to uphold the conditional elements. Even if they engaged in idolatry and wickedness of every kind. Because they didn’t uphold the conditional elements and they did the worst things. Jesus’ family history is as sordid as any of ours. Yet God promises to keep on loving them. And he does. 

Now, back to the New covenant. As I’ve mentioned in this series before, things get clearer and clearer the closer that we get to Jesus. This is most profound with the topic of love. God himself was literally with his people in the person of Jesus. He “so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him would have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). It is the love of God that motivates the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is all about his love that has existed from the beginning playing out the final stages of his rescue plan. 

To conclude, I want to take us back to Mount Sinai with the dark, thundering cloud and the newly-freed people of ancient Israel in the desert. They are coming to meet with their God that they have heard stories about and have seen perform miracles to free them from slavery and defeat the nation of Egypt. But they’ve never really met him. And when they see the cloud on the mountain, they are terrified. In the midst of all this, God gives Moses his law, but the people get impatient and worship a golden calf, as I mentioned above, then Moses has to go back to meet with God again. In that second meeting, Moses is frustrated with his role leading the people because they are difficult and he asks God to show him his glory. Bold. Even for Moses. But God complies and what he tells Moses is astounding: God tells Moses his name.  

And he passed in front of Moses proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” (Ex. 34:6-7a) 

This is who God is. It is this God who offers us hope in the darkness, peace in the chaos, joy after loss, and love to cover it all. We were made to dwell with him. 

At the beginning of all things, this was our inheritance. Advent and the Old Testament covenants have shown us that, when it was lost, this God came himself in the person of his son, Jesus, to recover for us what we could never regain ourselves. And now, just like King David’s sons, we can never escape his love. 

What a wonderful story. I hope this series has been meaningful for you and opened your eyes to new ways in which God is committed to your good from beginning to end. He’s always the same and his love never changes. Amen.