Help us to show his love

Help us to show his love

Today is the Third Sunday before Lent, the first of three Sunday’s that make up this year’s brief period of Ordinary Time before Ash Wednesday in our liturgical calendar. In the great Seasons, Advent, Christmas, Lent or Easter, we focus on the key Christian events. In Ordinary Time we explore the richness of Christ in all its aspects.

It is absolutely right, in my opinion, that we should begin this exploration with love — I don’t expect anyone who has read more than a few posts on this blog will be surprised by that. The love our God gives to each one of us, as witnessed to in the birth, crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a truly wonderful thing.

This Collect reminds us that, amazing as that love is, and as much as we might want to hang on to it, we are not to keep it for ourselves. But we’re to allow that love to transform each of us into the image of Christ, and then to show that same love to those around us. Sadly, that isn’t always the image individual Christians project to those around them.

And that isn’t something we should only be doing on a personal level. We should also, as a corporate body that is the Church, be absorbing God’s love, and then passing it on to others too. Sadly, that isn’t always the image the Church projects to those around it.

The amazing thing is, the more we can become a channel for God’s love to others, the more we will appreciate it, and gain from it ourselves. Not that we will actually receive more, God already loves each and every one of us as much as if we were the only ones to love. But we will gain more from the love we are already receiving.

So let us, personally and corporately, become channels for God’s love to flow out to the world. That may mean letting go of the crutches of prejudice, judgementalism, and too many other negative viewpoints. And that may well be quite a scary place to go to. But our Lord Jesus Christ will walk that journey with us, and God’s love will sustain us, if we’ll let it. Will you?

Eternal God,
whose Son went among the crowds
and brought healing with his touch:
help us to show his love,
in your Church as we gather together,
and by our lives transformed
     into the image of Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect for The Third Sunday before Lent
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council