Looking for Love
Psalm 80:1-7; Luke 1:46-55[1]
In my experience, most people spend their whole lives looking for
love. I know it may be a cliché, but we really do have a way of “looking for
love in all the wrong places.” We look to a significant other to fill our
longing for love. Many of us are lucky enough to spend our whole lives with
that person. But if we’re honest, we have to admit that no human being can
truly fill our deep longing for love. Others of us may turn to our families to
find the love we’re looking for. While families are wonderful, they are just
people. While we may derive great joy from our families, they cannot fill our
deepest longings for love. The truth of the matter is that even the good things
in this world leave us at time still looking for love.
St. Augustine recognized this centuries ago, when at the very
beginning of his Confessions, he
said, “you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they
find their rest in you.” [2] It’s a lesson that is difficult to learn. In
order to truly grasp the message that only God can fill the longing in our
hearts, I think we have to have our hearts broken, maybe more than once. We
have to come to the place where we recognize that those we look to in this life
to fill our longing for love simply cannot do so. We have to learn the truth
that we are made to find our longing for love filled by God, and God alone.
The message of our Psalm for today resonates with this theme.
Although there is no specific confession of their sin, the people have strayed
from God once again and have experienced the consequences of turning away. They
have eaten “the bread of tears” and they have had to endure the scorn of
neighbors and the laughter of enemies (Ps. 80:5-6). The Psalm proceeds to speak
of Israel as a vineyard whose wall has been broken down and left to be ravaged
by the wild animals (Ps. 80:13). For those who considered themselves to be the
people of God, God’s chosen ones, experiencing such devastation had to have
shaken their faith.
And yet, the very fact that they turn to God and cry out for him
to save them implies quite a lot, in my opinion. I think it implies that they
realize that they have strayed from God. More than that, they are making the
attempt to repent and return to God. The central refrain of the Psalm is,
“Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved” (Ps.
80:3, 7, 19). The request for God to “restore” the people could be translated
“cause us to return.” That suggests to me that there is at least an awareness
that they have strayed. They are seeking to return and are asking God to help
them do so.
This prayer acknowledges that God is the one on whom their
restoration depends. It is only as God comes among them and “lets his face
shine” that they will know his salvation. The prayer recognizes that God alone
is the source of their life and their well-being. The presupposition to this
prayer is that they are addressing the one who has promised to love them with a
love that will never let them go. They recognize that the love they need to be
“restored” is the love that comes from the God of “steadfast” love: a love that
is unconditional and irrevocable. That is the only love that can truly satisfy
them.
The other side of this restoration is found in Mary’s “Magnificat.”
Mary’s song is called the Magnificat because that is the first word in the
Latin version. In her song she sings with joy over God’s work of restoration.
But the way she describes that restoration might sound strange to our ears.
God’s work of restoration would come about through what some have called “The
Great Reversal”: the proud humbled, the powerful pulled down from their
thrones, those who are stuffed sent away empty-handed, while those who are
disempowered are lifted up and those who are hungry are filled with good things
(Luke 1:51-53). Mary describes the
overturning of the current system of destruction and oppression and violence by
the ways of God’s kingdom: mercy, justice, and love.
How we respond to Mary’s song of restoration depends on where we
find ourselves. The only way for those of us who are “full” and “rich” here and now to sing
Mary’s song with the same kind of joy—the joy of the “lowly” being lifted up—is
if we actually join with God in his work of restoration. As one contemporary
prophet puts it: “There are only two ways you can enter the kingdom and
experience its joy. One is to be among the poor, oppressed, bruised, blind, and
brokenhearted; those to whom God comes as healing, comfort, justice, and
freedom. The other way is to be among God’s people who are going to the poor,
oppressed, bruised, blind, and brokenhearted and bringing God’s healing,
comfort, justice, and freedom.” [3]
What may not be readily apparent is the fact that both of these
expressions of restoration reveal God’s unfailing love. Both the prayer that
looks to God to restore a wayward people and the song that rejoices in God’s
“great reversal” reveal a God who will not leave us to our own devices when we
have strayed from him. Whatever alternate sources of love we look to in this
life instead of God, God remains the one source of love that will never fail
us. While it is true that our hearts are restless until we find our rest in
God, I think it’s also true that God does not rest until he wins our hearts
over with his love. In this season of looking for God’s salvation in Jesus, it
is a time to be reminded that all the substitutes we use to satisfy our longing
for love will never fully satisfy us. We have been created in such a way that
we will only find our life fulfilled as we look to him to fill our longing for
love.
[1]
©2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon
delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 12/23/2018 at Hickman Presbyterian Church,
Hickman, NE.
[2]
Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, I.1.
[3]
Cf. Stephen Shoemaker, GodStories,
217-18
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