“I love you.”  This is what we say when we attend worship.

We may enter worship with concerns, fears, pains, and confusions.  We may enter with great joy and extreme hopefulness.  We may enter with an expectation of Grace and Peace.  We do enter worship for many reasons, but at the heart of sacred space and time is being intentional about expressing in the midst of community our love of God. We are drawn by God’s Love to offer our love to God.

To see the cross enter at the beginning of worship is to know we are loved.  The Absolution after our confession is an act of Divine Love.  The Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood is a gift of Love. To offer the Peace to another is to share the love of Christ.  To sing a hymn is to sing a love song.

Love changes things. Love heals us. Love carries us through the cares of life. This is what our worship does because our worship is finally about love of (union with) God.

What a joy to know that the One we love loves us.  

Worship is an act, an expression and an encounter of love.

Julian of Norwich wrote: “I was answered in spiritual understanding, and it was said: What, do you wish to know your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For Love…. So I was taught that love is our Lord’s meaning.”

As you enter sacred space and time, do so in order to express your love. We do not do this so God may love us.  We do so because God loves us and we love in return.

We may want love to be all warm and fuzzy, but to love is hard work.  True love means we have a willingness to get into the mud and the blood with another.  Love means giving oneself to another in the darkness and cold as well as the light and warmth.  Love encounters times of disappointment and vulnerability. Love means being honest in seeking the true and the real.

Love looks like the Cross, not a heart-shaped picture. 

Love is not about how we feel; it is about how we live for God.

Love answers pain, sin, death, and evil with a word of redemption, hope, and light – in other words, love. 

Love has its beautiful side.  It also has its sacrificial side.

So as we enter into sacred space and time, let us do so loving God with a love that is true.

I close with a poem by George Herbert entitled "Love"

LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lack'd anything.

'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'

Love said, 'You shall be he.'

'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,

I cannot look on Thee.'

Love took my hand and smiling did reply,

'Who made the eyes but I?'

'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.'

'And know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?'

'My dear, then I will serve.'

'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'

So I did sit and eat.