Holy Week

April and her four kids were here from Monday evening to Wednesday afternoon. Oh, it's wonderful to be with April. Even after not seeing her for months and months and not talking all that much either, there is no period of reacquaintance. The time and space that have been between us are immediately irrelevant. Although she is rarely a part of my daily life, I feel most myself when I am with her. There is never any question that I'm not going to be good enough in any way. I already am. And this is not because she only sees me at my best. She knows some of the messy little corners of my life. She has seen me sick and tired and discouraged and pregnant and hungry and indecisive. If April's love was ever a thing that I needed to earn, somehow I earned it long long ago. More likely, though, I think that I never earned it. It just flows from her generous and loving heart. It took no effort or decision. I don't believe it was earned or that it will be revoked.

Being around April makes me a better person. It never crosses my mind to do anything just to impress her, but without meaning to I strive to do things she would approve of or admire. When I do something well as a parent and April comments upon it, I want to be a good parent all of the time. April said once that she thinks I am brave, and so when my courage fails, I remember that, and I am brave. April thinks my house is lovely and clean, and when I remember that, I clean my house with a happier heart. April admires my cooking, and I wish that I could cook for her more often. April thinks I am smart and helpful and caring, and so I am, and so I wish to be. Not because April will love me more but because I wish to live up to the love I already have. I do not want to disappoint April or to make her sad. And yet, I trust her with my weaknesses, knowing that she carries my hurts with her but will never use them against me. They will never make her love me less.

It occurs to me, as I write about April, that this sort of love sounds strangely familiar. April is not God. She is not perfect. I do not mean to imply that she is or to burder her with such a comparison. But because of her, I begin to see how God might be.

Tomorrow is Good Friday. Sunday is Easter. It's a baffling time of year to be a Christian. Why must Christ be killed? I don't quite buy any of the major atonement theories. I don't like the picture they paint of God. But if I think of Jesus as a friend like April, someone whose love is absolutely certain, whose judgment is more like compassion than verdict, who has endless hope in me and in my capacity to be someone truly wonderful regardless of the confused and flawed human I have been and still am, who would look upon my worst crimes not with condemnation but with agony over the gap between the faith she has in me and my behavior, I begin to understand. God is that kind of love. The life of Jesus says to us that that kind of love is what changes the world, not with demands or punishments or threats or force, but one friend at a time, one day at a time. Good Friday and Easter Sunday promise us that it's a love so powerful I cannot kill it. I cannot ruin it. I can refuse to interact with it; I can forget to spend time on it; I could probably even ask it to leave me alone, but it will still be there year after year after year. It's always exactly what I need. Even if I lose faith in that kind of love, it still has faith in me.

How can I not go forth in confidence having experienced that kind of love? How can I want less than to show that kind of love in return? How can greed or hate or selfishness or even apathy ever triumph in the end if everyone lives with that kind of love? It cannot. It does not.

Holy week.



John 13:34
"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another."