To Love and be Loved
As we celebrate the second Sunday of Easter, I am coming to a new understanding of words I have heard repeatedly for years. You have listened to them too, and perhaps you understood their significance from the start but perhaps not. This is what I am hearing in a new way this Easter.
In every one of the post-resurrection stories, when Jesus met the people, He knew and loved, they didn’t recognize Him. He stood eye to eye with them, and they didn’t know Him. In today’s reading, Thomas just gives a more direct voice to what they all experienced. All those He loved didn’t at first know Him. It took a word, an action, or a look for them to see Jesus, to see God.
Mary of Magdala saw Him as a gardener, and until he spoke her name, she did not know Him. The disciples on the road to Emmaus walked and talked with Jesus for several miles, and until he ate with them, they did not know Him. Peter and the disciples are out in the boat fishing and see a guy making a fire and roasting fish on the beach. Until He calls to them, He is just an unknown stranger. Then, finally, he speaks, and they see God. There is truth in their stories that is vital for us to hear.
In the Broadway musical Les Miserables, we hear a line that may capture this insight for us. Jean Valjean, in the finale, sings the words, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” There it is. That is the purest truth. To see the face of God is God’s forever gift to us.
Mary of Magdala loved Jesus. When she heard a gardener speak her name, she saw the face of God. On the road to Emmaus, it wasn’t until their companion from the journey, blessed and broke bread, that their love saw in the stranger the face of God. It wasn’t until the Disciples in the boat heard His voice did they recognize God cooking them breakfast on the beach. When Thomas looked into the eyes, into the wounds of Jesus, he proclaimed, “My Lord and My God.”
We love God. It is as simple and as profound as that. If we did not love Him, we would not seek Him. Jesus knows us. He knows we need a word, a gesture, a look to recognize Him. Jesus’ disciples needed that, and so do we.
“To love another person is to see the face of God.” To love is to see the truth. When we love someone, we see their soul. We see their life, their pain, their sufferings, their joy, and their hopes. When we love, we see beyond the physical, our own limits, and we see God. How often I have failed to recognize Him. I have often allowed the clutter and my selfishness to prevent me from hearing the other whisper my name. I have often missed the Lord breaking bread, baking fish, and calling my name. When the one I love does those simple everyday things that Jesus did, they are showing me the face of God.
God has given us His constant presence when we dare to love, and we drop our defenses long enough to allow ourselves to be loved. Perhaps that is the single thing we are asked to do in our lives: love and be loved. To know and be known as the real presence of God with us forever and for always.
God is speaking our name. God is sharing our conversations. God is breaking bread with us every day in those we love. We need only look with eyes clear and listen with an open heart, and we will see Him. We will see God right here, in the eyes, words, and actions of those we love. He promised it would be so, “I will be with you to the end of time.” And so it is. To love is to see God. To be loved is to have a glimpse of God’s unconditional love for us.
May we love one another and see the face of God.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
