SCRIPTURE
LUKE 1:68-79

Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us—
to show mercy to our ancestors
and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

—LUKE 1:68-75

Hope points to love because the assurance of love at work makes it possible to hope in the first place. In this second week of Advent, we are invited to think on the love of God that is unlike anything else in creation. We use the English word “love” a lot. We love our family or closest friends, but we can also love tacos, a particular color, and our favorite sports teams. There’s only one English word for all of it. But the love of God throughout the Old and New Testament is talked about in very particular language that is not used for anything else.

The Hebrew word chesed and the Greek word agape are used to talk about the holy, unique love of God that is more like a never-ending commitment than a feeling of affection. Neither word describes action born from duty-bound obligation or resentment. The commitment of chesed or agape love is not mandated by any outside force. Instead it is driven by a selflessness that leads the one who loves to voluntarily do what no one has a right to expect or ask.

‘Today's scripture speaks of the never-ending love of God at work. Zechariah and Elizabeth spent decades longing for a child while experiencing the grief of infertility. Then one day, while he worked in the temple, Zechariah received a visit from the angel Gabriel to tell him he would have a son who would help fulfill God’s plan to redeem Israel. Zechariah was so filled with unbelief that he was unable to speak for the whole of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Nine long months of silence later, Zechariah finally regained his ability to speak, and the words in today’s scripture are the first ones he says.

Zechariah’s song of praise has little to do with his and Elizabeth’s personal experience of waiting for a child. Instead, his attention is on the even longer period of waiting that has been endured by all of Abraham’s descendants. Zechariah sees his own life and his son’s birth through the lens of history, recognizing the through-line of God’s faithful, steadfast love. His story is continued proof of the hope voiced in the midst of deepest grief by those lamenting Jerusalem’s destruction centuries earlier: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him’” (Lamentations 3:22-24, NRSVUE).

This kind of love is not something one can understand or acknowledge cognitively. It is incomprehensible. It is a love we can only fully know within relationship—both in our own lives and through the stories of those who came before us. This is the chesed, agape love that we are invited to experience, receive, and share during this second week of Advent.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION, DISCUSSION, AND PRAYER

Based on the descriptions of chesed and agape set against your own experiences, how would you define God’s love?

What examples of God's chesed, agape love come to mind from Scripture, stories from the tradition of the universal church, or from your own life?

Which is easier: to learn about love, or to open ourselves up to experience love? Why?