Love and Reverence
Just two words, yet they cover a wide range of human experiences. The first word, “love” you know can mean romantic love. It can also go with many modifiers such as “brotherly” or “parental”. It can mean love between friends or the love of God. One can also love a new car, a show on TV, or Paris in the springtime. It is one word but is used in many different contexts.
The word “reverence” is not used as often and is more narrowly applied, but it too has a range of meanings. To revere, someone can have to do with respect and esteem. On the stronger side, it can mean to hold in awe or even fear in a specialized way. I have always felt a little curious that the office of ordained clergy goes with the title “Reverend” as if the person holding that position is in some way fearsome. Really? Softening it a bit, “to revere” often means holding deep respect or admiration. Even this probably fits only case by case to a cleric. With a judge, we put the words “The Honorable” and with clergy, we put the words “The Reverend”. One hopes it might fit, considering the particulars.
Applied to God, love, and reverence finds a perfect fit. The Christian revelation of God allows us to experience God as perfect love. Just as surely the majesty and mystery of God will stir reverence within us. When we use the term “god-fearing” or the phrase “the fear of God,” we mean that our sense of God evokes reverence within us. We mean that holy awe comes over us when we perceive the transcendent quality of God, so wholly other than we are. God is ineffably holy, and our finite nature can barely fathom it. We are called to revere God and to love God with all we have. Look at the first petition in this Collect for the Second Sunday after Pentecost:
O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The implication of the prayer, overall, is that to be on the “sure foundation of God’s loving-kindness,” to fall into the holy guidance of God, we should yield to divine help in loving and revering God. We can cultivate this love and reverence, and, even better, we can cooperate with the Spirit’s grace in making it happen within us.