How Can I Love One I Do Not Know

How can I love someone I do not know? How can I know God whom I’ve never seen? These are great questions worthy of our attention. Though it is true that we cannot “see” God in the sense that we can see others, we can see reflections of God in those who love as he loved, and in those who openly, willingly, and joyfully sacrifice themselves, their treasure, their talent, even their lives for others, especially in the hardest of times. Yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we recognize that such people are rare “pearls of great price” in the world. But here is the real challenge: we are all called to be such persons, so that others can begin to see and to know God in and through us.

Let me try this in another way. None of us can look directly at the sun with our naked eyes. We can not look at it like we can look at another’s face. We can not, in that sense then, “see” it directly. But we can see the evidence of its presence, of its reality, of what it is and what it does, by gazing around at the mountains, or the vast forests, or the broad fields of grain bathed in the sun’s light. Though we cannot see God himself, we can see his love, his light shining in and through those who believe in him and who reflect his light more brightly than most in this world so darkened by ignorance, arrogance, injustice, and sin.

The Apostle John tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8). Is it not our experience that it is in and through love that we are enabled to come to know ourselves, one another, and God? The Apostle John tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). It is in the love that is offered to us through others, our parents, etc., that we come to know, accept, and love ourselves. We recognize by observation and experience that those who cannot truly love themselves and others also cannot know either their neighbor or God. In reality, it is love that enables us to reveal ourselves to others, and vice versa. In 1 John 4:20 we are asked, “How can a person who does not love his brother whom he sees love God whom he does not see?” Because God is love he begins making himself known to us in and through the love of others. It is in being loved that we are given a glimpse of God. In being loved, and by loving others, we are enabled to come to know God. And just as human love is incomplete, but capable of growing toward completeness, the more we learn to love, the more we are able to know God.

“Beloved let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4: 7-8). It is in the Holy Scriptures that we can come to know God. The Holy Scriptures reveal the boundless, unconditional love that is the very Nature of God. They reveal God’s love again and again through the telling of the countless horror stories that arose (and continue to arise) as a result of human arrogance, prideful self-absorption, and sinful rebellions against that love, from Adam and Eve to the present. These scriptural accounts of our sin and rebellion paradoxically reveal the great mystery of God’s endless, forgiving love for us.

If we want to know who God is, we need look no further than the Cross. This is God. We know God because of his infinitely compassionate, supremely sacrificial love for us shown to us on the cross. And we can come to know him more each day by willingly and humbly choosing to love him as best we can, even in our awkwardness, and by loving others with that same kind of forgiving, compassionate love. And we can trust that, in the end, it is Love that saves everything! Amen! Hallelujah!