The omnipotent Mover of Mountains, who calls the stars by name and wears the heavens as a garment, loves us. He loves us individually and intimately. He writes our name on the palm of his hand and carries us on eagles’ wings. He gathers us into his love as a hen gathers her chicks beneath her, like a shepherd comforts a frightened lamb or a mother her trembling child.
And, when we rejected that love, when we turned from the perfection of Paradise to the pigsties of Babylon, he still loved us. Born into the stable we had made of the world, he subjected himself to our bondage. He walked among us, loved us, and we killed him. We took him into our hands, broke him and threw him away.
Were we to write an ending to that story, the superhero would rise up and annihilate the planet that had killed the god/king. The screen would erupt in flaming mushroom clouds as justice was visited upon the inhabitants. But love is not like that. Love is God, who took everything we could do to him, walked from the tomb with outstretched hands and said, “Behold, I stand knocking at your heart’s door.” That is no easy love. But that’s what God is.