Nov 20, 2016

 

Follower of Jesus (2)

“The most important one” answered Jesus,

“is this: ‘Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, The Lord is one Lord.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart

And with all your soul and with all your mind

And with all your strength.’

And the second is this:

‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

There is no commandment greater than these.” (1)

                     Mark 12:29-31

 

This quote from Jesus defines what it means to be a follower of Jesus: Love God, and love your neighbor. The rest of my postings on this topic will be further examining these terms, especially who your neighbor is. But first I want to look at the first part of that charge: “‘Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, The Lord is one Lord.” Seemingly a strange start to this defining call: The Lord is One Lord. Part of this, is defining the God of Israel separately from the multi-god beliefs of the Romans. But another way to look at it is a hint of the Trinity: One God, multiple Presence that we now call the Trinity.

 

God is Love, and one cannot love in a vacuum. Since humanity has only been around for a measly 70,000 years or so, that is nothing when compared to the age of our universe (14.7 billion years), which is nothing when compared to the age of the All, or eternity. But for love to exist, it must be within a relationship, for only in the give and take of a relationship is the giving of love possible.

 

Love is a power that is given, then received and given in turn back to the giver. We can never take love in and hold it; it will dissolve and drain back out to be nothing. A person “looking for love” will never find it. Oh you can find lust, but that charged feeling soon vanishes and until a person becomes the lover in return is there any chance for lasting love to be present.

 

Now why am I talking about the Trinity when talking about being a follower of Jesus? Jesus was the pure exhibition of God’s Love: that God loved us so much that God was willing to do anything to awaken a like love in return in God’s beloved creation. We call that energy of love the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but in truth it is a continual circle of Love that never ends, and one being cannot be distinguished from another, so powerful is that circle of Love. The mystics have been talking of this for 2000 years. So God gave us Jesus, the focus of the Christ (Jesus the Christ), that eternal creative side of God, both the creator and the creation, with the living force of Life that we call the Holy Spirit. These forces in constant motion throughout the breadth of the universe and beyond, that together we have named God.

 

And as Jesus said: “I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one – as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be one in us so that the world will believe that you have sent me.” John 17:21. We see that for love to be true, it must include at least one other, and in the eyes of Jesus we are all part of that dance in God, going on for eternity. We are all part of the one, one in Jesus and therefore one in the Father, or the Creator of all. It is that dance when we join with the Christ and the ‘Father’ that we can learn to love and live in the boundless love that is God Itself, our home for eternity.

 

Dancing in the everlasting circle of love is being a Follower of Jesus, the Christ.

 

Meditation

Eternal Wisdom, Eternal Lover, I place myself into your boundless energy of Love, now and for eternity. I find my heart lifted into joy as creation sings around me, raising a sublime song of life and love. I bow in gratitude for this glimpse into eternity, and place myself each moment in that endless love that is always present. That glorious joy is mine to grasp at all times, and at this moment of time I gladly join in that endless dance.

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