Unfolders

Linda Pollock April 25, 2023 2 2

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1 Peter 1: 17-23 (NRSVA)

17 If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. 18 You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. 20 He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. 21 Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.

22 Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. 23 You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

The unfolding pattern is clear: Christ Jesus, God as a human being, is revealed to us. In sharing all of His life, death and resurrection with us, modelling the way we are to live, He invites us to be the ‘unfolders’ the ‘revealers’ to others.

The way we are urged to do this is: “… (to) have mutual love, love one another deeply, from the heart.” (Verse 22.)

The unfolding of the Kingdom to us is pointless if we are not moved to respond to one another in deep love.

Can we, the Body of Christ, the Church universal, say we love each other deeply? Our constant need to be right and someone else to be wrong, our inability to allow and celebrate difference and diversity, our unwillingness to accept that everyone belongs in God’s economy, only leads us into disunity rather than deep love.

Can our response to the unfolding of God’s deep love for us in a fractured world, a polarised world, be the agreement to love deeply first, and to hold our disagreements loosely — theological or otherwise — as we make a path wide enough for everyone to walk together? Surely, surely, God is too big to be confined by culture or creed, might, and right?

When we can see the unfolding of God’s nature, we will be compelled to unfold our own tightly wrapped understanding of God and embrace the deep love He has for us, as we share His deep love with each other.

PRAYER:

Eternal God, thank You that we cannot confine You, that You refuse to be made in our images. Thank You for the deep and constant love You continue to have for, with, in, through and to us. Grant us a glimpse of this love each new day that we might be empowered to love as You love, to live as You lived. Amen.