Whole Lotta Love

For God so love the world.  Okay.  So what?  How do you wrap your head around that?

According to projections by the United States Census Bureau, the world’s population hit a new milestone last week.  On March 12, according to these projections, the world’s human population crossed the seven billion mark for the first time.  Seven billion!  And it’s only going to grow.  In fact, it grows by 215,000 every day.

This yields two simultaneous thoughts.  First, here’s hoping science catches up with science fiction soon.  The way we’re going, we’re going to need to branch out to some new home planets (unless, of course, we start changing some very fundamental behaviors and reversing some very disturbing trends in the near future).

Second, if God loves the world, and the world is full of more than seven billion people, then God’s got a whole lotta love.  God’s love in Christ Jesus encompasses all of us.  All of us.  Every person in every car zipping past my office window.  Every person in every high rise in every city in the world.  Everyone in every rural hamlet or suburban cul-de-sac.  Every person who is born today.  Every person who will die today.  Everyone.  No exceptions.

God’s love knows no bounds, whatever we might like to imagine.  May we follow our Lord’s way of life and love each person we encounter.  And may we remember that God’s love extends to those we don’t know, don’t like, don’t want anything to do with.  God’s love is of a quantity and a quality to encompass more than seven billion people all at once.  So much so that God would give the Son to us and for us so that we can find abundant life.

And thanks be to God.  If God has enough love to love seven billion, God has more than enough love to love me.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  John 3:16-17