Love Before We Were Ready

This verse does not begin with an improved version of us. It draws attention to God’s love as something shown in Christ’s death, while those for whom he died were still sinners. The timing is not a minor detail. It rules out the idea that God’s love in this verse was a reward for getting everything right first. Nor does it make sin seem harmless: the verse names it plainly. We can receive both truths without trying to erase either one.

It is easy to keep an inner ledger of reasons we deserve kindness, or reasons we imagine we do not. A ledger can draw our gaze toward our performance and away from the action this passage names. When we read these words, we are invited to stop rehearsing a defense and to be truthful instead. God’s love is not presented here as vague approval of everything we do. It is shown in a particular act, Christ’s death for sinners. That gives us reason for gratitude without pretending we had already earned it.

This can change the tone of a small part of today. When a fault comes to mind, we need not explain it away to make ourselves appear worthy of love. We can acknowledge it, and then turn our attention back to what the verse says God has done. And when we think about someone else’s failing, we can remember that the verse speaks of us as people in need, too. Humility and gratitude can sit together: we neither deny our need nor make our own goodness the starting point of God’s love.