Revolutionary Love

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As I drug my lazy self out of bed yesterday morning after a few days of too much pie and too much time on the couch, my devotional was from the beginning of Psalm 118: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.

That staggering proclamation about God is repeated multiple times in the Old Testament – “his love endures forever.” In Ezra, Jeremiah, both books of Chronicles, several psalms . . . in fact, every single line of Psalm 136 ends with that phrase. And of course, after pondering these passages all day, now the old Chris Tomlin song quoting the verse has been running through my head.

And while humming that catchy little tune, it suddenly occurred to me how very remarkable that belief is in the context of the Old Testament.

I’m no ancient history expert, but I do know a bit about the other religions in the world during the time of ancient Israel when these books were written. And I don’t think any of those peoples proclaimed their gods as loving. Like, nothing even close to that.

As I recall, their gods were generally distant and volatile, and the people did horrific things to appease them – even to the point of sacrificing people on their altars. The prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 tried to get the attention of their deity by cutting themselves “until the blood gushed out upon them”. They seemed terrified of their gods.

Yet, the Hebrew scriptures proclaim over and over that Yahweh, the Lord God, is different: “his love endures forever.” His love. Where in the world did these people get the bizarre idea that their God was loving? I mean, that’s downright revolutionary, people!

Think about this: if they had devised a God for themselves the same way the pagans did, how would it ever occur to them to dream up a God who loves his people? That would have been such a preposterous concept. That’s just not what a god is like; gods are cruel and vindictive.

It’s a common argument that people make these days against the existence of a deity: if there is truly a God, how can you explain the existence of pain and evil in the world? But the gods of ancient times were not inconsistent with the existence of pain and evil – they were often the source of such. It is only after the spread of Judeo-Christianity, I believe, that such a question could even be asked.

I struggled a bit for a while in my early adulthood with the idea of an all-powerful God and an evil world. But I'll tell you, the question that brought me back to faith was, if there isn’t a God, how can you explain the existence of love?

You can’t. There isn’t any explanation. At least I sure can’t come up with a good one.

We have become far too complacent about the wonder of a loving God loving us. It’s utterly remarkable. Outrageous. Absolutely inexplicable.

Let’s bounce off our Thanksgiving weekend into the Christmas season by giving thanks to the Lord – not just for holidays or warm homes or good jobs or family . . .

. . . but for his love. His revolutionary, outrageous love. Love that endures forever.

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