Suffering Love

A good little Easter season reflection that I just had to post...

Suffering Love
By: Dr. Willis Van Groningen, Chaplain Trinity College Chicago

“Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows … the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53: 4,6

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” I John 3:16

There are formative moments in a person’s life that forever change us. One of mine occurred on the edge of a swamp.

It was early fall and our little student retreat was getting ready to wind up and return to campus. We’d had a great weekend together. The lake was beautiful, the night air chilly, and the campfire stories ranged from revelry to revelation. Now it was late Sunday morning. The final event before we turned for home was going to be an outdoor worship service.

We hiked back into the woods, climbed up and over a rise, and there, laid out before us, was a sheltered inlet. The entire floor of this little inlet was a swamp. But rising from each side of the swamp were the most glorious trees you could ever imagine. The colours were radiant. Bright reds, vivid yellow, offset by patches of dark green. The scene took our breath away. Without a word, we just sat down, mesmerized by the glory of God on display before us.

It took a while, but finally one of the students remarked: Swamps are the greatest. All kinds of junk flows into them, but by the time the water leaves on the other side, it’s pure as crystal. All the muck and rotting detritus of upstream collects here, only to be transformed into the richest of soil, and clean clear water.

God’s love is like a swamp. God’s love absorbs all our sorrows and grief, takes to itself all our iniquity and sin, and transforms it all into life and life more abundant. Love suffers. And when our suffering love is freely offered in service to others, we participate in God’s great work of redeeming and transforming the world.

Prayer: God of wonder and grace, we thank you for taking up our sin and suffering so that we might be redeemed and transformed. May our lives exemplify that same suffering love you lavished on us, so that we might help others find life and life more abundant with you. Amen.