Reaching out, rejection, and ridicule

Many people have experienced fear in asking someone for a date. It can be terrifyingly vulnerable moment: revealing your feelings and leaving your heart open to possible rejection (and even ridicule).

In today’s readings, God is just such an openhearted suitor: God is reaching out with his heart to the people of Israel who have treated him so badly; Christ is reaching out to people who are suffering the tragic loss of a little girl.

So sublime is the beauteous expression of God’s love:

And I will betroth thee unto me forever;
yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness,
and in judgment, and in loving-kindness,
and in mercies.

But Israel responded to her Lord imperfectly, and the people at the little girl’s house openly ridiculed the Lord Jesus.

So too we ourselves have not always responded perfectly to the love the Lord reaches out to us.

Yet the Lord is not dissuaded or discouraged, he continues to open his heart and reach out his hand. The Lord’s love is not diminished by rejection or even ridicule. No matter what we have done, even now the Lord reaches to us with his heart, calling us to a deeper relationship with him.

The Lord also calls us to be his hands and arms in this world, for we are the body of Christ, and we are to reach out to others with God’s truth and love just as he has reached out to us.

We will experience rejection, we may even experience ridicule, but we will always experience the unconquerable, unquenchable love of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Lover of humankind.