The Bungee Cord. 12-25-23

Hello,

Merry Christmas!

I was sitting in my hot tub on a beautiful, temperate afternoon last week looking out over the horizon and into the sky. There were puffs of clouds dotting the blue sky, and I was looking at them and imagining what they looked like. A running dog. A flying bird. A heart.

A heart! When I saw the heart, it occurred to me, fancifully, that maybe God was saying “I love you” in this cloud-heart. So, I jumped out of my hot tub ran into my mancave grabbed my phone so that I might take a picture of it for this Bungee Cord. But alas, by the time I got back outside, the heart-cloud had morphed into the picture that is with this Bungee Cord. The heart was gone.

I suppose that if I really believed that this cloud-heart was a sign from God, I would have begun to wonder, “Does God love me? Is God’s love for me such that it can vanish in a few moments?” But such is the case so often in life when we look into the world around us for signs of God’s love for us. A baby born. A promotion at work. An acceptance for college. A home run to win a little league game. A cancer turned back.

Now, I am not saying that any of these things, small or great, are not a sign of God’s goodness, but just like clouds, these signs can leave us wondering of God’s love. The baby has severe complications. A pink slip comes with a down-size. College is overwhelming. A strike out to finish the next game. The cancer returns. The world, like a broken mirror, often brings us an unclear vision of God’s love for us. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “For now we see in a mirror dimly.”

But God, whose desire is to love us divinely, and wants us to live our lives in that love and confident in it has given us a sign of his love for us so solid that leaves us with no wonderment, only wonder and awe. God enfleshed God’s love for us. God made that love breath and cry in a manger. God made that love leave footprints on the dirt and heal a blind man with spit and mud. God made that love eat with outcasts and sinners. God made that love hang for three hours in the burning Jerusalem sun with nails pounded into his hands and feet. God made that love walk out of an Easter tomb, eternally crushing everything that might try and separate you and me from him. God spoke that love to us as claiming water splashed over us. God unites that love with us in a holy meal. And this faithful God has promised that the day will come when God will seal that love with the words, “Come into the eternal place that I have prepared for you from the beginning of time….when we will “see each other face to face” (1 Cor. 13).

Does God love me? Does God love you? Does God love your neighbor, near and far? Look into the Bethlehem manger, and the answer is clear and forever certain. Yes!

Have a great week. Merry Christmas!

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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