Daily Word of Grace # 196 (December 15, 2020)

Two of the central themes of our lives (and of almost every great novel, poem, song and play) are love and death.  Along these lines, a particularly moving song from the Broadway musical smash Hamilton is “Wait for It” in which  Aaron Burr (played by Leslie Odom, Jr.) sings about love: “Love doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints.  It takes and it takes and it takes and we keep loving anyway.  We laugh and we cry and we break and we make our mistakes.  And if there’s a reason I’m by her side when so many have tried, then I’m willing to wait for it.  I’m willing to wait for it.”  Later in this song he sings about death: “Death doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints.  It takes and it takes and it takes and we keep living anyway.  We rise and we fall and we break and we make our mistakes.  And if there’s a reason I’m still alive when everyone who loves me has died, I’m willing to wait for it.  I’m willing to wait for it.”  Love and death are at the center of the gospel as well—the love of God for the world (including you) and the definitive expression of that love in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross for all of us, “sinners and saints” (Romans 5:8).  God’s love meets us in every situation—when “we laugh and we cry and we break and we make our mistakes” and when “we rise and we fall and we break and we make our mistakes.”  No matter what, God will always “keep loving anyway”—and you never need to wait for it.

Love and Prayers,

Dave