The very real presence of God's love

by Rev Chris Cohen

(Published in News First, February 2006 - monthly church newsletter of the Warragul Uniting Church)

Since I last wrote for News First much has happened.  I last wrote in October, preparing for Christmas.  Well, in case you missed it, Christmas had come and gone.  Do you remember all of the anticipation and business of that time?  Sending special letters and cards, choosing presents, preparing special meals, getting together with family and friends, singing carols and worship on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Well, these have all passed and we are into a new year, 2006; have you become accustomed to writing that yet?  Some good friends and loving family members have died in this time and we remember them with fondness and sadness as we miss them terribly.  The joys and sadness of our living are mixed together and each reminds us of the depth and richness of our emotional being.

As I write this, fires are burning throughout Victoria and I can see and smell the smoke.  Fire too can cause such anxiety and sometimes devastation, that we are touched very deeply in our emotional being by loss, tragedy and then joy and hope as people respond to those in desperate need after the devastation of fire.

It is into these realities of human experience that a child came, a child that grew (as children do!) and went on to show God’s love in the ways he responded to the human experience he discovered, all of those we know so well, sadness and joy, loss and hope.  Sometimes we can feel that love emotionally within ourselves and other times we are helped to discover it through friends as they give something of themselves to us.

This coming year will have for us some hopes and maybe some fears, some anticipation and maybe some despair, and yet in all of these, known and yet unknown, we are able to remind each other of the very real presence of God’s love as the Spirit of that love inspires us to live with each other in ways that make our lives more worthwhile or even more bearable.  I hope and pray this year is full of the activity of this Spirit in us and around us.