Sometimes, when the challenges of life pile on and the sorrows of life multiply and the seasons of life pass agonizingly slowly, I just want God to remind me of the commitments He’s made for my well-being, don’t you?
I find myself, occasionally, walking in Tevye’s shoes. You know, Tevye, the lead persona in “Fiddler on the Roof.” Tevye is a Russian Jewish man whose life is defined by custom and tradition and culture who finds himself smack dab in the middle of what we now call a “paradigm shift.” Changes overwhelm our hero, and he has to make life adjustments he never thought he would. He has been comfortable, in charge, grounded, and suddenly events seem to conspire to erode the very foundations of his life from under him.
At one point in the screenplay, Tevye turns to his wife of 25 years, whose marriage to him was arranged by their families, and he asks, “Do you love me?”
Tevye and Golde’s daughters choose men they love as husbands, but, as they had an arranged marriage, Tevye asks Golde if she actually loves him. He wonders with her if she would characterize the entire content of their lives together as “love.”
There are moments when life gives us reason to turn to God and ask, “Do you love me?” Golde gives Tevye a long list of activities that she performs for his benefit as an answer to his question. He acknowledges her efforts but repeats his question, “Yes, but do you love me?” The concluding line of the song’s lyrics have Golde, after reviewing all the joys and sorrows and efforts and accomplishments of their life together affirming, “Yes, I suppose I do.”
There are more ways God affirms His love for us than there are people on the planet, but there is one unmistakable means by which God declares the depth of His love for each of us. Jesus said, “No greater love has any man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” The apostle Paul makes the connection between Jesus and us when he writes, “God demonstrates his love for us in this, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Sinners are people who have no room for God in their hearts. Their lives are consumed with self-interest and self-determination. In regards to God, they are disinterested, distant, indifferent, and unconcerned. Sinners are people you might expect God to ignore, or chastise, or condemn since they’ve pretty much rejected Him, but God does not treat them (okay, us) as we might expect. Instead, He loves us, and to prove it, God sends His Son, Jesus, to live the life of love we should but can’t (and won’t) live and to die on our behalf the death our sin deserves. Jesus lays down his life for us.
That is love! That Jesus is God in human flesh makes this love divine, eternal, infinite, and holy.
How do we know God loves us? Because He said so, magnificently and unchangeably, in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Life circumstances will, inevitably, lead us to those Tevye moments when we have to ask, “Do you love me?” and God’s response will always be, “See Jesus? See my Son on the cross? Yes! Yes! A bazillion times, yes! I love you!”
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. Pastor Dale McIntire has served as pastor of the Cornerstone Community Church in Grand Marais since April of 1995.
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