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Holland Presbyterian Church
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Newsletter |
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 February
2012 “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.This is the first and great commandment.And
the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
Matthew 22:37-39
Wow! Already we’re entering the second month of this new year. We’d have to say that we sailed through January pretty painlessly, weather-wise. Of course, we aren’t done with winter, yet… As we enter February, our thoughts turn to Love. Mostly, when we think of February, we think of Valentine’s Day. This is eros love, the affection and intimacy of two people “in love.” On Valentine’s Day, it’s become a tradition to send flowers or chocolates to our sweethearts as a way of showing how much we care. Around the same time, Holland Church has a spaghetti dinner for everyone. For some, this may include eros love, but mostly this is an example of a celebration of philos love, the enjoyment we derive from fellowship with fellow Christians and our church family. As we move through this month, we’ll come to the season of Lent. Here, we become conscious of the unfathomable love – agape love – of our Savior Jesus Christ. This is a love most remarkable. Generally, we go about our lives thinking mostly, or only, of ourselves – our problems, our relationships, our desires and our challenges. And yet, while we are thus focused, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” [Romans 5:8] It’s hard to comprehend that anyone would love us – even unto death – if we ignored them. This is the mysterious nature of God’s agape love. During the next four months, during the Adult Bible Study, we’ll be studying a book with video entitled, “Why? Making Sense of God’s Will”. This is, to a great degree, centered on the universal question of why God allows bad things to happen and why we have difficulty understanding God’s will within our circumstances. As we work our way through the 40 days of Lent, it might be good to center on the question Why? also, but in the context of the question of why God loves us so much in the face of our disinterest in Him. Why was Jesus willing to endure the torturous death on the cross – for us? Lent is our annual time in which to meditate on our relationship with a loving God. Not a God Who yearly sends flowers and chocolates, but Who sends us hope when we lose sight of the end of the storm; Who shows us the empty Cross when we thought we were lost; Who sends Love, in February and in eleven more months.
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