Advent Sunday 2: Love

Reflections from Isaiah 41

 

They fling their words desperately,

Angry accusations tinged with pain –

“How could a loving God

Allow so much suffering in the world?”

 

All around our parched, longing souls

Lie disease, storms, destruction,

Aches and fears, lies and fights.

Where is the love of God in all this?

 

But God—two thousand years ago—

Slipped on human flesh,

Opened his mouth in a baby’s cry,

And came to take on all our pain and suffering.

 

What kind of God is this?

The kind of God who promised his people,

“Fear not, for I am with you.”

And Emmanuel, God with us,

Walked into the messy real of our world.

 

What kind of God is this?

The God who promised parched tongues

Springs of water and flowing fountains—

And gave us Christ, the Living Water

For our desperately thirsty souls.

 

This God has never left us alone.

Rather he’s given us hope

In the midst of trouble

And the deepest love

In the midst of aching pain.

 

Will we receive this divine love?

Will we look up from our tears

And see his eyes of compassion

And nail-scarred hands reaching out to us?

 

He won’t stop loving us.

He won’t stop pursuing us.

He is all our aching souls

Have ever wanted.

What a love, my God!

 

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