Reflections: The Challenge of Unconditional Love

A wonderful thing happens at Christmas. People are touched by a spirit of kindness, a wave of generosity, an urge to share with others. Various groups come together to pack hampers, entertain the old and sick, help out in soup kitchens, to sing and play music in the streets, so that we will gladly, smilingly, part with our money for the poor.

The pressure to buy gifts for friends and family is there, the surge of the crowds in packed, glittering shops, the harried parents, anxious commuters – but still, an underlying current touches all of us, washing off some, if not all of our self-centredness. However meagre our own circumstances, we feel the need to reach out to others, especially those who are alone, cut off from society. A visit to a long neglected neighbour, a 'cuppa' with an unwashed beggar, a conversation with an alienated teenager. Reaching out.

The latent goodness of ordinary folk is revealed anew, the 'kindness of strangers' calls down blessings, the flicker of new hope stirs in the most disillusioned. This is a gathering time, a time to let old prejudices go, old bitterness die and welcome the other with a good heart. A time to retell the old story, to listen with the shepherds to that news of great joy first told in Bethlehem

All our festivities are because God really did become one of us, 'like us in all things except sin', and we cannot but celebrate this extraordinary, life-giving truth. He came, not in a blaze of glory, but as a child, vulnerable as all children are, so that we could come to him unafraid. In this Child we sense something of the tenderness of God, of His risk-taking, vulnerable love, of His unceasing forgiveness. He is here, waiting for us.

"To maintain that the world is founded on an abyss of unconditional love is incredible. To accept that there is love and only love is the most terrifying truth of all. To know, to trust, to hope in the weakness of love alone seems madness when the whole world of experience and everyday life is structured on other assumptions. To have faith in the weakness of love is to be absolutely vulnerable to the egotism, the desire for control, for power, for glory, for riches, for domination, for revenge that the world believes in." (Rediscovering Jesus, Eamonn Bredin).

This Christmas, may we risk believing in this unconditional love, this 'good news of great joy', and in our vulnerability, in our poverty, let our joy spill over on others. This is the very best gift we can give to the Child in the manger, give to our suffering, broken world, give to the next person we meet. Something truly wonderful.

SRT

[Far East Magazine]