Joining the Revolution of Love

Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.

Beloved in Christ,

The third verse from the Christmas hymn “O Holy Night” is one of my favorites. It has a long and complex history. The original French poem was written by an atheist, and the tune was composed by a Jewish man. Church authorities were not crazy about this, or what they perceived as a lack of religious spirit, particularly its revolutionary ideas about who counts as human. It was translated into English by the abolitionist John Sullivan Dwight, and it became popular among that movement in America.

What I love most about it is that it reminds us that Christmas is remarkably simple and unmistakably clear: God has no law but love, and that love has the power to turn the world upside down, which it turns out is right side up. 

But the law of love is not soft and fuzzy. The law of love demands everything we have. The law of love demands that we live for the good of the other, that we are always mobilized for waging peace, healing, and forgiveness in the face of the world’s cold and nearly constant cruelty. 

The revolution that Jesus inaugurates is not, like so many revolutions through human history, about replacing one form of oppressive power with another. The revolution of love isn’t about someone winning and others losing. The revolution of love is about a complete remaking of the world into the more perfect image and likeness of God, whose very heart is unity without uniformity and difference without division. Joining the revolution of love is about becoming a community where we are always in the business of giving ourselves to and for one another, a centripetal force drawing a broken and lonely world closer to God’s heart of love. 

And it is small. The revolution comes helpless, vulnerable, in the middle of nowhere important. That means whoever you are, wherever you find yourself, you play a key role—moment by moment, breath by breath, encounter by encounter—in advancing God’s glorious revolution of perfect love. Joining that movement is the only way our restless hearts find peace. Joining that movement is the only way we are finally and fully free. We, beloved, are called to use our lives for that. Unbelievable.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, 
Let all within us praise His holy name. 

Merry Christmas,

The Right Reverend Craig Loya
X Bishop