Risky Love

We were having a discussion in class last night about the Ascension. One of the members of the class said that the sentence in the chapter we were discussing which really struck her was, "By ascending, Jesus took the risk of being forgotten." I knew what she meant -- it was one of the thoughts in Yancey's Ascension chapter which also struck me.

As we talked, another class member said, "Don't you think he (Jesus) knew what would happen? Don't you think he knew how we would react? He's God; he knows things."

Right on the heals of that sentence, another class member said something that I thought was very profound. "Sometimes it's risky to be God."

Sometimes it's risky to be God.

I think that's true. I think it's much more true than the idea that God and Jesus took no risks in leaving us behind. I think it was a risk. I think it could have gone a different way, and we might have forgotten him. Why do I think so?

God is God, and he does "know things." I believe, though, that he has given us free will. We are able to choose one action or another. He set it up that way; it has to be that way. Unless we can choose to love, then we cannot love. Love is not love if it is forced. Love always involves risk, don't you think? There is always a risk of rejection. There is always a risk of being forgotten. It is so very much like the God I have come to know to love us so much as to give us the freedom to love him, too.

Secondly, it is so like us to forget him. We do it all the time. I think that it is much more likely that we would have forgotten him that we would have remembered him. Thank God we have remembered (for it is by grace that we do remember).

It was a risk. It still is. The class member who brought up the idea that the ascension was a risk, also mentioned that it is hard to remember that God is with us. When we are in the valley -- when we are afraid, or lost, or when we feel alone, that it is hard to remember that he is with us. He is God, and he knows things. He knows how hard it can be. That's why he left us each other. That is one of the reasons that we have the Body of Christ, so that we can remind each other.

So that we do not forget.

Image: The image is of the Special Metals building with a Christmas wreath on it. It was taken on Wednesday -- yesterday. I post it because there are a few people who will understand why that makes me happy!