The Risk of Loving - Barbara Kimbrel

Scripture:
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

John 13:34-35

Some years ago Henri Nouwen, a great spiritual teacher, wrote:

Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause not only great joy but also great pain  . . . We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.

The precious and beautiful things always catch our eye: precious gems, precious metals, beautiful houses, etc. We then progress to the next step and want to know what is the cost of this particular thing?

When we look at the cross do we see how precious it is and think about how much it cost? The cost to God is one we find difficult to imagine. God’s most precious beloved Son, Jesus Christ was present on the cross. How could the cost be any greater?

And the cost to Jesus was immense. He had to give up, for a time, his home in heaven and to give up his life. The cost to him was excruciating pain through the agony of crucifixion. The cost to him was the heartbreak of being misunderstood by those he loved so very much. Yet even on the cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” What love can this be that freely gives and gives without a cost to any receiver?

As we look at the cross today can we feel that great love Jesus displayed for us? How can we adequately respond to such love? Repentance for our sins, which separate us from God, and confession of our love for God are the responses God asks of us. And then, God asks us to follow the example of Jesus by loving one another and forgiving one another, even as we have been loved and forgiven by God.

May the joy of a loving relationship with God be yours today, for Jesus has made the necessary sacrifice for our sin and opened the way to eternal life with God. If Jesus is our example then “The risk of loving is always worth taking.”

Barbara Kimbrel