LOVE (2)

I went into the choir vestry to put out the music scores for the choir as I did every Sunday and was surprised to find a young theological student reading his sermon notes. He was as surprised to see me, and I explained he was in the wrong vestry. The minister’s vestry was on the opposite side of the church. He left in a hurry as the church bells were ringing to announce the start of morning worship, and the choir climbed up the steps into the choir stalls under the huge stained-glass window of the cross with Christ’s head at the top. There were 4 rows of choir seats, the trebles and basses on one side, and the altos and tenors on the other, separated by an aisle. The minister’s pulpit was on a level with the choir, high above the congregation. Once while the theological student was preaching that day, he turned to speak to the choir, and looked directly at me. Walking home with my mother, I said: “I am going to marry him.”  And I did when, I turned 19. We were married for 66 happy years, through which God helped us and gave us a Christian family of a son and 2 daughters, 7 grandchildren children and 6 great grandchildren.  And that is the first form of love.

And this is the second form of love. Corey Comperatore, a 50 year- old volunteer fire chief died from a young sniper’s bullet as he attempted to assassinate former President Trump at a rally. A supporter of the former president, Corey drove his wife and 2 daughters to the rally. They were happy and excited. They found good seats behind the former president. Corey spotted the sniper on an adjacent building’s rooftop. He pushed his wife and daughters down, and lay on top of them, saving their lives but sacrificing his own. The Governor of Pennsylvania said, “Corey was a devout Christian who loved his community, and especially his family.”

The third form of Love takes us out of this world, and into the New Earth which our Almighty God, through Jesus Christ his Son, and in conjunction with the Holy Spirit is preparing for people of faith before Jesus Christ’s birth, and all believers after his defeat of death and the Devil.  It is impossible to plumb the depth of Almighty God’s agony as, for the only time in Eternity, he had to break the Trinity in order to achieve his desire, and have a vast host of the redeemed in the New Earth, able to enjoy his company and do his will and reverse the fall of Adam and Eve.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16,17).

​God bless,
Merle.