Loves Excelling

This Morning I woke from a vivid dream. I had been in the living room of a house with a number of people; most have left this present time and scene. We were listening, on tape, to an old gospel singer – a man who is also no longer in our realm of time. At one point he sang an old hymn – the chorus of which goes like this –

Out of the ivory palaces,
Into a world of woe,
Only His great eternal love
Made my Saviour go

As I was waking, somewhere between the world of dream and the world of reality a verse of the Bible came to my mind –

“We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:8 (King James Version)

As I lay thinking about the dream and the verse another picture came to mind – a picture of my early school days when, every morning, the headmaster went through the school roll – calling our names. Two words in this verse were heard again and again on these occasions – “present” and “absent”.

There was a time when the Saviour of the song absented himself from the majesty of the “ivory palaces” to be present in our world – present to love, present to heal, present to give, present to die, and present to save.

Today some of the people in my dream are absent from class! But they are “present” in another living room – the living room of my heavenly father’s house. As the singer in my dream came to the chorus – my earthly father, one of those faces I recall, joined in.

The last verse of this Hymn, which I had to search for in the very “present” world of computers and technology, goes like this –

In garments glorious He will come,
To open wide the door;
And I shall enter my heav’nly home,
To dwell forevermore.

“Jesus looked at him and loved him.”

(Mark 10:21 – NIV)

Love is normally expressed in three ways – through words, by touch and by means of eye contact. The look of Jesus (a reflection of Father’s face) is always one of pure love. Irrespective of the recipient of his gaze – love beams from his eyes.

How must it have felt for the young man in this story to gaze in to the eyes of pure love? Yet he walked away dazzled – not by divine love but by the riches he possessed. It is difficult to understand the choice he made – yet it is the choice many of us make every day. Such an expression of love creates an irresistible impulse to respond. It either draws or repels – there is no middle ground. Love drove a wedge between this man and the heart of the Father towards him. Despite his fine sounding religious language, his material riches were his real god. Love demands a response in our lives also – and while the heart of the Father is to draw us to himself – he will never override our free will. He loves us freely and he longs for us to respond to him in a similar way.

“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

(John 5:19 – NIV)

Seen through the lens of this truth, the earthly ministry of Jesus takes on a new dimension – for his primary purpose is to be and to reveal the true nature and character of his Father. In his own day, as in ours, people’s concept of Father had been marred  – mostly by religious tradition. Jesus came to re – redefine the heart of the Father to his own generation.

As we follow the life of Jesus both in John’s account and those of other biblical writers we discover again and again that the true character of Father’s heart shocks people. Far from being dictatorial, demanding, and heavy handed, as implied by the religious leaders – Jesus reveals Him to be compassionate, extravagant, lavish, and passionate in His love towards us.

It is not by accident that the first miracle performed by Jesus at a wedding, a place of joy, that of changing water to wine – is extravagant by any standard. He turned water in to the best wine people had ever tasted. It was not a cheap or even good wine – it was better than the best – of divine vintage. Nor was it a small quantity created for the select few – he made about 180 gallons of it. In other words he was extravagant! This is the heart of the Father towards us.

“So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.”

(John 1:14 – NLT)

The Apostle John reveals the heart of Jesus – Jesus reveals the heart of the Father. Many people have difficulty identifying with a father figure. Perhaps some have never known their father, or in knowing him, found him to be a stern, demanding or even abusive figure. Our experience of a human father, or lack of one, is, very often, reflected in our attitudes and relationship with our heavenly Father. Yet, if John was asked to sum up in one sentence his impression of Jesus, who is the human face of the Father (“the exact representation of his being”  – Hebrews 1:3 – NIV) he would say simply – “He is full of unfailing love and faithfulness”.

Regardless of the relationship we have had with our natural father, or our lack of one, God wants to reveal himself as the true Father who loves us passionately and promises never to fail us. Even the best earthly father cannot fully reflect the essence of love our Father in heaven feels and longs to express towards us. Once this truth is understood and experienced – nothing in the world will shake our confidence in Father’s love and faithfulness.

“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”

(Jesus – as quoted in John 14:9 – NLT)

Most of us believe that we can   judge the character of another by looking at their face. Scientists also have uncovered evidence that points to the fact that the personality of an individual can be seen on their face.

For many generations the ultimate longing of men and women was that they might see the Father’s face. Moses cried – “show me your glory”. Father replied – Yes, but my face must not be seen (See Exodus 33:30). It was not that he was being cruel or unkind – it was simply that the radiance of his face would destroy anyone who looked in to it – like looking in to the face of the sun if you were standing only a few yards away.

There was only one way the Father could reveal His face to us and that was to come down to a level where the human could behold the divine. So he sent Jesus! If I want to know anything about Father – I find it in Jesus, for everything he did was a reflection of Father’s heart. His is the human face of the divine Father – the face of the Father to us.

“And there was one of his disciples reclining (at meat) in the bosom of Jesus, whom Jesus was loving.”

(John 13: 23 – RYLT 1862)

The writings of John reveal very clearly the heart of Jesus. His is in fact the clearest revelation on the nature of Jesus to be found anywhere in the Bible. John was also, as this incident reveals, the closest person to Jesus during his public ministry. But the writings of John lead us to an even deeper truth, for he states early in his letter – “No one has ever seen God. But his only Son, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s Heart (in the bosom of the Father A/V).” – John 1:18 – NIV. Consequently as John rests on Jesus bosom – the place closest to his heart, he is in fact listening to the heartbeat of the Father – for Jesus rests in the Father’s heart. And, as Jesus actively loves John, by virtue of his being (for he is God), Father is loving Him also.

To be in the bosom, or near the heart of another indicates a place of intimacy, love, kindness, secrecy and care. It is the place Father longs to hold all his children. Later John will reveal the Father as having the heart of a shepherd. But hundreds of years earlier the prophet Isaiah spoke of the Father in similar terms – as a shepherd who holds his lambs near to his heart. In fact Isaiah declares that Father – “carries them in his bosom” (Isaiah 40:11 – A/V), or “close to his heart” (NIV).

Many people long for such intimacy – such security. Yet it is not a place we can struggle to attain – rather it is a position we come to by way of resting. All that is required is that we be still, open our eyes and look in to the eyes of the shepherd as he carries us close to His bosom – to behold His gaze of passion – and open our ears to hear the sound of his heart – a heart that with every beat flows with divine love. This is the heart of the Father.

To stand with ones arm wide open leaves the heart vulnerable. To stand with ones arms wide open is to place oneself in a defenceless position – almost as if inviting pain. Yet we cannot fully love unless our arms are open and our is heart vulnerable. There can be no true love without – at some point – pain. Is God vulnerable in this way? If to love includes vulnerability we must conclude that he is. The heart of God must be one which can experience a level of pain we can know little or nothing about. The heart of God which feels the weight, misery and tragedy of the world he loves is beyond our comprehension. Yet he continues to love. We are called to follow him through our pain, disappointment, and failure – and to love – despite it all.

You can download this video free in HD. Click on the VIMEO logo and once on the VIMEO site select the download link.

Have you ever seen a mother or a father standing with open arms waiting for one of their children to run in to them? What happens when the young child throws themselves in to the open arms of the parent? In an instant their little bodies are wrapped in the embrace of their loving mother or father who sees them as the object of their desire and passion.

Can you imagine a parent standing for minute after minute to hour after hour – a whole day – waiting for the child they love to run in to their arms – but the child never comes? It is so engrossed in its own activities that it never sees the parent who loves and longs for them standing with open arms waiting – waiting to lovingly embrace them.

As we stop and stare we may hear the parent gently calling, pleading for the chid to come – but they are so self obsessed they choose not to hear.

Were such a thing to happen it would surely draw the attention of passers by for it goes beyond the borders of normal human behaviour. Some would conclude that parent had some mental problem while others might see a broken heart and feel some sympathy for the parent so ignored and rejected by their child.

Try for a moment to imagine all the love in that parent’s heart – and then magnify it a million times. Even that is not enough to have some measure of understanding of the pain that God feels when his children reject his love. He once said to those who were the object of his desire –   “I have spread out My hands all the day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts”. (Isaiah 65 - Amplified Bible) This is patient love.

The perfect example of Divine Love is Divine Love. He lived in unique union and communion with his Father. But what if Jesus spent his life in secluded communion with his Father – far from the pressing crowd and demands of life and living? What if the passion for his Father’s presence led him to withdraw from interaction with the broken, the hurting, the sick, the tainted and the sinner? Yes he shows us, by example, the importance of solitary times of communion, of private times of prayer – but for the most part Divine Love lived amongst our dysfunction, brokenness, pain and sorrow. How else could he pour healing on our broken world? So he lived, so he died, The Embodiment of Love Divine – Emmanuel – God with us. And in this union with the broken, lost, ashamed, hurting, poor and lonely he calls us to follow his example.