I can hear the sound of your mocking
I can hear your taunting
I can hear your questions echoing:

“Who is this Messiah?
Who is this Jesus and does he even exist?
I’ve seen your cathedrals,
I’ve heard the noise of your mock-offerings.
And still there is no proof.
Where are the miracles?
Where’s the hope?
Where are the wonders you love to boast of?”

To you, our response is this:
I am the hope
I am the miracle
I am living the awakening
This resurrection power lives in me
Hear my roar that my God is not dead
My God is not dead!

He is like a lion.

It seems useful to talk about love, and how to love, on this day dedicated to that sort of thing….

At the end of Matthew 22, a Pharisee comes to Jesus, intending to trick him, and rather un-loving asks:

³⁶“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

My guess is that he was not expecting the answer he was given:

³⁷Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

This seems simple enough, and we’ve certainly heard about it enough times from Pastors, Sunday School, et cetera — but what does it really look like.

Scripture talks about this later, in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church:

¹If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹²For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

There are endless articles (books, as a matter) written, or to be written, on the topic of loving (and loving others). Consider this my small contribution to the library.

¹The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
   because the LORD has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
   to proclaim freedom for the captives
   and release from darkness for the prisoners,
²to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
   and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
³and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
   instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
   instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
   instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
   a planting of the LORD
   for the display of his splendor.
⁴They will rebuild the ancient ruins
   and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
   that have been devastated for generations.
⁵Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
   foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
6 And you will be called priests of the LORD,
    you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
   and in their riches you will boast.

⁷Instead of your shame
   you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
   you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
   and everlasting joy will be yours.

⁸“For I, the LORD, love justice;
   I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
   and make an everlasting covenant with them.
⁹Their descendants will be known among the nations
   and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
   that they are a people the LORD has blessed.”

¹⁰I delight greatly in the LORD;
   my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
   and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
   and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
¹¹For as the soil makes the sprout come up
   and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness
   and praise spring up before all nations.