Good Things
We have language, thank goodness, to help us understand, communicate, and explore. Rational human beings can engage deeply in abstraction to ponder meanings and possibilities. Language has its limitations, as all things humans do, because we are finite, we are certainly flawed creatures. Still, Oh my. How many possibilities are afforded by the capacity to reason?
When we use words such as “good,” “peace”, and “love”, we know in the back of our minds that there are grades or levels of these things. We imagine that there is a perfectly good, a perfect peace, and a perfect love. We experience that there are lesser manifestations of these realities. When Christians consider Jesus, we see the one who brought perfection into the mix, into the changes and chances of this material existence. There are countless words in the many, varied languages of the human realm; Jesus is the Word, the eternal Logos of God. There are many good things to find in this life; Jesus is the Good; he is the Truth; he is Beauty itself. We encounter elements of relative peace; Jesus perfectly gives the very Peace of God. We come to know love in our lives; Jesus came as Love itself, revealing that God is love.
There is a prayer in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (p. 225, Sixth Sunday of Easter) that reminds us of these things:
O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Jesus offers not relatively good, randomly good things, but such good things as surpass our understanding. Jesus is eager to pour into our hearts not any old love, but such love as allows us to love God profoundly in all things and above all things. Such love allows us to obtain divine promises which exceed all that we can desire. The human wonder of language helps us to look to Jesus for the perfect forms of the good things that come in life. We are imperfect, but Jesus engages us with the perfection of God. Also, consider the beautiful gift of peace. Jesus tells his followers that he has this gift for us, and it is not the imperfect form found in other places. With this promise he comforts his followers and gives them courage:
Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27)
The world gives partial peace, that has strings attached, that is short-lived. Our hearts are troubled; we are afraid, sometimes a little, and sometimes severely. Christ wants our hearts not to be troubled but filled with love that he has poured into them. Let us look daily and deeply for the ways that Christ is extending good things; they come from no other source whatsoever. Receive peace that the world cannot give, pure love. All of it is offered freely from the Word sent from heaven.