Holy Nights
1 John 4: 7-13
Dear brothers, let us bear love toward one another,
for true love comes from God; everyone who is truly loving is born of God and
knows God.
Whoever does not truly love has not known God, for
God is love.
And this is what revealed God’s love among us, that
God has sent into the world his only begotten Son in order that we might live
through Him.
God’s love consists in this: not in the way that we
have loved him, but that he has loved us, and has given his Son to save us from
the banishment of sin.
My dearly beloved, if God has so loved us, so also
should we bear love toward one another.
Until now no one has seen God with his eyes. When
we bring love to one another, God dwells in us and his love is fulfilled in us.
By this we know that we dwell in him and he in us,
because he has given us of his Spirit.
Holy
Nights
1
John 4: 7-13
A
poet described a three-tiered fountain this way:
High
climbs the jet and, falling, fills
up
to the brim the marble rounds
that
overflow in veils and frills,
into
a second basin's grounds;
the
second, now too rich, forsakes
its
waves and on the third one spills
and
equally it gives and takes
and
stirs and stills.[1]
This
fountain is an image of God: the life-giving, bright water of love, falling
from on high, filling and spilling over into all the world; the triune God as a
threefold fountain, who continuously bestows His overflowing love and
forgiveness on all below; a God of love both stirring and still.
The
fountain is also an image also of the human being: hearts overflowing with love
received from the Source; jetting upward toward Him; hearts filling and spilling
out His love toward others. Equally we take from above and give to below. For
we would be those of good will, whose hearts overflow, stirred by love, and who
yet walk within the stillness of peace.
“By
this we know that we dwell in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His
Spirit.” 1 John 4:13
