We love you because you first loved us (1 John 4:19)
Love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31)
This living and loving. This being of the Gospel. This becoming like you, requires us, no requires me to love first. To hold out that olive branch. To jump in to take the risk. To love first. To not know if the other person will respond in kind. To lay aside my prejudice, to lay aside my mind.
Is this why you wept? You knew. You knew, my Lord and my God, that you are the solution. The yes and the Amen. The Alpha and the Omega. The Beginning and the End. You where, and you are, and you will always be the answer, the solution, the great longing met, the souls precious treasure. You’d extend it freely, at no cost to us other than acceptance. The cost to you…the cost to you, far too great to measure. This leaving of the grandeur and the Holiness of the Heavenlies. You left playing among the stars, for dirt, and thirst. Whips, and tears. Tired sighs. And hunger.
All in an effort to woo. To romance through the sacrifice, to win us back to the Father’s heart. To win our hearts and claim us as your own. And what have we done with your gift? We’ve rejected it. Swatted it from your hands. We wouldn’t see what you were offering in pure and beautiful simplicity. This treasure for our hearts. The invitation handed to us from the grace-filled hands, and healing gaze. The gift to be, our truest selves, that which you created. The Creator rejected by the created ones.
Rejecting the only thing our souls need. We would nail you there in our depravity, so unaware. Unaware of the torn flesh and blood spilt on our behalf. Unaware for the first time, the Father would turn His face from You. The darling of Heaven.
This is why you wept. You too knew we would face the rejection. The batting away of our love, the walls we would build back up around us. The hurt we would feel as we reject each other. The pain we would cause one another. You bore it all. You held it all there. On that cross. You broke it all. You healed it all. You overcame it all.
This precious sacrifice which you made for me. This need for you which should cause me to break every wall. You took the risk on me. I will take a risk. I will bear the cross you’ve called me to. The beginning of the loving, is the breaking. The most broken of the hearts, are the ones who have loved the most. Risked the most. Sought you the most. This is why you wept. Not from the rejection you felt, but for the rejection you know I would feel. The breaking that began in me the day we met. The breaking that scares and scars. That brings me to my knees. That requires me to meet you in the dead of the night, to search you in the throne room. The breaking of these walls I’ve set against those you love. The breaking of these walls I’ve set against you. The rejecting of the truest self you’ve created in me.
You wept because you knew every effort I would take to protect against, the agony, to protect against, humanity, to protect against the becoming, to protect, against the breaking. Is this what was in the cup you begged the Father to remove from you?
Father God. My Beloved. You paid it all. You paid it all. The cost too far for me to count. I press on. I move into your embrace. I ask you to brush me off and show me how to love again. To become closer to the truest self.
