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January 1

The God Who is for Us

The God of the biblical story is both wholly other and wholly concerned. This God is both veiled in mystery and made himself known in the nakedness of Golgotha’s cross.

The grand song of the biblical narrative is that God, the creator of the world, is especially attentive to humanity. And this attentiveness is not like critical parents frustrated with their teenage son or daughter.

Even though God is before all things and above all things, God has chosen to enter the human fray. And we can know God not only in the otherness of God’s mystery, but in the presence of God’s caring love.

St. Augustine gets to the heart of all of this. He writes, “I [have]

always believed that Thou art and that Thou hast a care for us.”1

The mere knowledge of God is not the heartbeat of the biblical story. The center of the narrative is that this God draws near. This God cares. This God comes to redeem and make us whole.

And it is in Christ that we can most fully see the way in which God has drawn near to us. Fully amongst us. Full of compassion. Full of grace. Full of healing power.

The God who is for us is not the God who seeks to control, but is the God who seeks to make us whole. God’s care is one of self-giving love.

Reflection

The safest place in all the world is to be sheltered in the love of God.