Jackson Community Church

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. — John 15:9

All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. — John 1:3-4

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Lights spring into being, one after the other, because you ignite them. Each feeds the neighboring candle. Each flame take life from the lit before it and contains a spark of its antecedents.

            Similarly, every form of love reflects some aspect of the greatest love: agape. Take friendship, for instance, which can also denote kinship. It has been called storge or filios.

            In these days, you have reason to cherish friendship more than ever. The past eighteen months made people aware of how precious relationships have become.

            Friendships endure. Grow and change. Expect much from you and yet allows for your mistakes and mishaps as you who try to get it right, but sometimes get it wrong. Friends are sometimes as close as family: they may even become the kindred you choose, as opposed to the families into which you are born.

            Friendship fulfills part of the Gospel commandment to love your neighbors as yourself. When you look at people as friends, they stop seeming ‘other’ and become someone with whom you share respect and recognition.

             Can you feel the heat from the four candles, which leap and flicker together, lean toward each other and spring apart, dancing, moving? Everything they touch is lovingly revealed and rendered by such intimate light. — Rev Gail

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Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. — Lao Tzu

I will love the light for it shows me the way. – Og Mandino

When we love another heart

And allow it to love us,

We journey deep below time

Into that eternal weave
Where nothing unravels …

• John O’Donohue (excerpt)

Daily Advent Devotional: WEEK of LOVE: Day 22- Sun, Dec 19

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.
Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
— John 13:34

In the same way, let your light shine before others.
— Matthew 5:16

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Love glows bright as the focus of this week’s reflections. As you light four candles, prepare to welcome holy love into your home and life.
            Can you imagine a love more determined than the one that chooses to show up in our messy and imperfect world? To be born human?
            It takes a stubborn love to move toward us, because we cannot ever quite reach that love itself. That is what our holy stories translate to us. Love chooses to be with us and among us in this season. And every day.
The holy love narrated in our scriptures points toward agape. Agape is a love greater than ourselves. It is different than erotic or passionate love, larger and deeper than love for friends or family.
            Agape gives of itself. And part of that giving begins with movement. Holy love has turned to us and returned to us, chosen us over and over, meeting us where we are, coming to this world and time in which we live. Love shines out as the final light of Advent: until the arrival of the Christ light.  — Rev Gail

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When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.  ― Fred Rogers

When you possess light within, you see it externally. – Anais Nin