The Love That Carries Him

We have returned with Him to His Father’s house. Ahead lies a sorrow so familiar in its telling that we may already see its images before we reach it. But perhaps this is where we should turn our imagined scroll again. We have followed what people could see Him do. Now let us consider, as far as we are able, the love with which He continues.

On this side, we remember the people whose lives have filled our journey. The Creator who came looking in the garden knows them all. Abraham’s waiting, Naomi’s grief, the woman beside the well, the man living among the tombs—none has passed beyond His care. Nor does His compassion end with those we have named. Beyond them are generations still to come, lives as particular to Him as those we have drawn close enough to recognize.

We cannot measure what it means to hold them all in love. Yet we have seen something of that love in His willingness to come near. He has touched people others would not touch, received those others would turn away, and crossed the water to reach a man who could no longer live among his own. Now the road before Him asks more, and He continues along it with the same purpose that brought Him to Bethlehem.

We have been asking what God would be willing to do to get us back. From this side of the scroll, perhaps we begin to hear the question differently. We are loved by the One who knows what bringing us home will mean for Him. He has known our need through all the generations, and still He has come. As the story moves toward the hours ahead, let us keep our attention upon Him—the One who desires us with Him, carrying that love into everything He is about to give.

Perhaps we should pause here, before we follow Him any further. We have asked what God would be willing to do to get us back, and we are beginning to glimpse what His answer means. We may have no words large enough for the love before us, but we can speak the ones we have: Thank You.