What is our evidence that God loves us?

 

Photo credit: Sarah S.

As I wrote three weeks ago, this Sunday our local church is celebrating the harvest. Traditionally, for the Harvest Festival people bring vegetables (usually gourds and marrows) to church, along with tinned food to be given to food banks. Last year in a different church, someone brought a large sack of hundreds of carrots from a local (Lancashire) farm to share with others.

The photos above are from Miriam and my wedding in 2016 (the anniversary of which we celebrated last week). One of Miriam's aunts arranged the vegetables from Miriam's dad's garden and polytunnel, and the church kept them there for the Harvest Festival, which occurred the next day.

The festival is an opportunity to give thanks for the gifts God has provided us, particularly the fruit of the soil. I am reminded of the tone of thanksgiving in Psalm 104: 

The earth shall be satisfied with the fruit of Your works.
You are He who causes grass to grow for the cattle,
And the green plant for the service of man,
To bring forth bread from the earth;
And wine gladdens the heart of man,
To brighten his face with oil;
And bread strengthens man's heart (vv. 13b-15).

We often show our love to people by giving them gifts, particularly food. People often invite other people round for hot drinks or a meal as a form of hospitality. During bereavements, people often cook a meal for the family grieving not only for practical aid, but also as a sign of support. Our neighbour recently gave us a large bowlful of Braeburn applies from her fully-laden tree, and we appreciated the gift and the bond it has strengthened. 

A friend recently described to me his crop of courgettes as blessings. It struck me to read his words because I don't always consider vegetables as gifts from God, but this time of year especially reminds me to give thanks where it is due.

Most importantly, the harvest points to the greatest blessing God has given humanity and the world: his Son Jesus.

As the Apostle John writes, 'This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him' (1 John 4:9). 

We often rightly consider how we humans might offer sacrifices to God, but in Jesus we find unexpectedly that God also offers a sacrifice to us. This sacrifice is himself a gift of food, the 'living bread that comes down from heaven,' as Jesus says of himself: 'This bread is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world' (John 6:51). 

Whereas we offer sacrifices of praise, thanksgiving and service to God to give worship where it is due, God the Father does not give us his Son to worship us, but rather so that we might receive eternal life and know his love for us.

However, we often first look elsewhere for evidence of God's love. During harvest season, it might be easy to look to the beauty and bounty of nature and say this is all we need to know God's love. Although we rightly give thanks for God's providing everything we need, the natural world is not always pleasant or nourishing. In it we also find decay, death and the limits of our control. It can be easy to 'feel' God's love on a sunny, early-autumnal day, for instance, but when we're exposed to driving wind and rain on the fells in winter, God's love is far from our minds. Further, the natural world, without Jesus, does not give us hope for union with a loving God beyond our death. Without that hope, what certainty do we have that God loves us?

Or, we might look for evidence of God's love in other people or in ourselves. However, like the previous example, this can cut both ways; even the people we look up to the most can disappoint us because no one can love as perfectly as God loves, and if I am honest with myself, even in my better days I am only a disfigured reflection of God's love (if even that), and in my worse days, I am far worse than that, to say the least!

In this case, we might say that the limited warmth we have experienced from other people can be a springboard or a foil, teaching us that God's love far exceeds the flawed love of humans. As true as I believe this to be, and as helpful as the comparison may be at times, it is not sufficient or objective evidence of God's love for us. Perhaps it proves more our ability to trust in the goodness of God than it proves his goodness itself. 

I'm not saying God doesn't express his love for us through providing for our needs or through other people. Rather, such gifts reflect the love he has fully revealed to us in Jesus, who became a part of the natural world and transformed it, and who transforms even us so that we may experience his everlasting life. He is the best assurance we have of God's love for us because in him, we receive life that we can receive no other way.

Jesus is a heavenly meal, one that far exceeds the annual harvest that is cooked and gone in a short time. Jesus explains that 'whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day' (John 6:54). The Church has from the beginning understood Jesus to be referring here to the Eucharist, or the thanksgiving meal that he introduced to his disciples, which the early Church participated in regularly and has continued doing through the centuries, a mystical feast through which Christ makes himself known to the Church.

The Church has also consistently fed on the presence of Jesus through prayer, learning from the apostles' teaching and the scriptures, sharing with one another and supporting people in need (Acts 2:42-47). 

If I want to know the love of God more closely, then, it would be wise to participate in the life of the Church, as it participates in the life of Jesus.

I have been blessed to have been a part of churches that live in love for God and for their neighbours, but even then, no church community perfectly follows Jesus. They can even do the opposite, harming people rather than being vehicles for divine healing. 

However, the Church is the bride of Christ, the beloved people entrusted with the Gospel message of God's love for the world in Jesus. Despite its failings, the Church is the community upon which the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), empowering it to faithfully display God's love through God's power. The Church is the people called to embody and proclaim the love of God in Christ to the world.

God can use anyone, even those outside of the Church, to reveal his glory and love. Thus, we cannot say where God is not present. However, we can confidently say that Jesus makes himself known among the Church, the people who gather in his name and who walk in his light, who have been washed in his death and who receive the life of his resurrection.

Further, while our own individual walk with Christ is required, our participation with the Church is also essential because it is among the Church that we receive the fullness of the heavenly banquet at Christ's table, which strengthens us to serve God wherever we go in the world afterwards. As I have written previously, we cannot have Christ without the Church.

When I was a freshman at university, I took an introductory philosophy course. Although in retrospect I appreciate the new ideas I learned through the course, at the time I became confused, doubting not only the love of God but even his existence -- and even the nature of reality itself! 

That same semester, I began attending a church that would become my spiritual home for the next few years. I told my pastor some of my questions, and he said he could relate to them. He also encouraged me to keep coming to church and being involved there. 

At the time, I thought his reason for this advice was because of how important practice and discipline are despite our changing thoughts, feelings and moods; sometimes we have to carry on living as though we believe what we have believed in, until we believe again.

That can be true -- but again, it is not evidence that our beliefs are true. In light of the Apostle John's words, however, I also see in my pastor's advice the recognition that participating in the life of the Church is essential, especially when we feel far from God, because it is among the Church and the Church's work in the world that we expect to clearly encounter Christ, in whom we most assuredly know God's love for us.