Loving Invitation

7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.  (1 John 4:7-9)

God's very nature, God's essence and being, is love.  A God who is love will always choose loving relationship with us and all of creation.  It is out of love that God sent Jesus into the world-for the salvation and healing of the whole world (John 3:16).  To demonstrate this love, God took on human flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. We call it the Incarnation – en carne in Latin – God enfleshed.

The Incarnation reveals the lengths to which God will go to invite us into a participatory life in which God's holy loving realm reaches its fullness in and through us. My prayer of hope for us is that we enter this new year with openness to what God's on-going loving invitation.

An invitation is a request or beckoning, an encouragement, perhaps even an enticement, drawing us or pulling us in one direction or another.  Throughout our life in Christ, God presents us with invitations-tempting us, so to speak, into possibilities characterized by faith, hope and love.  These possibilities are meant to bring about more of God's justice, grace, healing, and restoration in the world. 

God knows our hearts and struggles, knows the hearts and struggles of all throughout the whole world.  And God presents us with possibilities for our healing engagement in the world.  There is no force of God's will-God does not force people to make any particular decision.  Rather, God presents us with possibilities, invitations to participate in God's desire for goodness, truth, love, beauty and wholeness to be further manifested in the world. 

If God's desire is to invite us into deeper participation in God's holy realm, even luring us in one direction or another, then our response is to maintain a posture of openness, an attitude of wonder.  In this open posture, we are more likely to notice the lure of God, to see the possibilities that God is setting before us, to wonder and imagine the beauty of God's holy realm and our role in revealing it in the world, our part in helping others to experience its beauty, goodness and truth.

The Incarnation reminds us that God continues to be present with us. We are immersed in the holy, surrounded by the divine presence. As we enter this new year together, I pray that we open ourselves to what God is doing. I pray that a sense of divine wonder will capture our imaginations, that we will see the possibilities for hope and healing that God's grace and love invite us into. Peace be with you all!