Love that Covers

One day this week, I sat at my computer, thinking about Easter. I started recalling all I know about Easter by journeying through the Easterland that my mind conjured up. I wondered, What lies at the centre of Easter?

First, I found myself shovelling boatloads of Cadbury Mini-Eggs out of my way so I could keep going. (By the way, don’t Cadbury Mini-Eggs smell amazing?) I then encountered Cadbury Crème Eggs and the kind of chocolate eggs that are wrapped in colourful foil, but don’t taste as good as anything made by Cadbury. I also had to hack through piles and piles of white- and milk-chocolate bunnies, kittens, puppies, eggs and chicks. The hollow ones were a lot easier to move out of my way. Some of these chocolates ended up in a basket that I carried on my right arm.

Once I got through the chocolate, I encountered a beautiful landscape full of spring flowers that looked like they just jumped out of the ground one day. Easter flowers. Daffodils, tulips, lilies, lilies, lilies. Oh, and fields of blue hydrangeas (my absolute favourite). The happiness of their petals contrasted with the damp earth underneath. I walked past both flowers growing out of the ground and flowers planted in pots covered in purple foil. I pushed the leaves of these flowers out of my way and kept on going.

The walking got a little easier once I stepped over the last few white clucking bunnies and the last few beautifully-painted actual eggs. 

Everything was colourful—I saw no end to sunny, pastel colours. I continued down a path, surrounded by light green grass—a field, I guess. The breeze gently brushed past me as though it was pressing on ahead.

The path led me into a little stand of trees, and to the east was a tomb. An empty tomb. I hurried along because even though the tomb was empty, it was still a tomb [shudder].

The path started winding up a hill. At the top of the hill were three crosses. The cross in the middle was bigger than the other two.

I stopped and knelt in awe, reverence and thanksgiving for what the middle cross represented. It was splintery, blood-stained and tilted, but it was the most stunningly beautiful thing I had ever seen. The path meandered past the crosses, so I kept going; there was more to discover.

I didn’t have to walk far before I came upon something so large, so infinite that I was made to stop walking. This tangible “thing” at the same time spanned higher and lower than anything I’d ever seen. It was a creamy, rosy pink in colour—the kind of pink that girls delight in and guys set aside their preconceptions to appreciate. What I saw was not so much a wall as it was a dynamic monolith, and it covered me. It covered me with an easy weight, like the weight of warm, fleecy throw blankets in winter time. It covered everything. It covered Easterland. It covered north, south, east and west. It covered the universe. It covered history. It covered time and space, blanketing existence with a creamy, rosy pink life-giving promise. I kind of forgot where I was and how I got there. I felt—I experienced—one thing, and one thing only.

Love.

God’s love.

Oh, how deep the Father’s love for us; a love so deep that He gave Jesus so that if we only believe in Him, we won’t perish but have life that lasts forever—that kind of love. The monolithic kind.

This year, when I pondered and wondered about Easter, I wanted to get the crux of the cross. I walked past everything “Easter” until I got to its heart: God’s love, infinite and beautiful and wonderful.

Seriously. Can you believe how much love is involved in a father giving up His only Son for billions of people who just can’t save themselves?  Can you believe that no matter what you’ve thought, said or done, what choices you’ve made or will make that God loves you with a love that is perfect and complete and unconditional? Can you believe that God’s love overrides your current perceptions of Him? Can you believe that God intimately knows and understands everything about every single person who has lived, is living and will live, and that regardless of what each of us believes or thinks of God, He loves everyone anyway? The same love that fuelled grace and redemption drenches every square inch of you. Of me. Of the human race.

I think I’ve only managed to lift the corners of His love; to peel back the golden, pinky epithelial layer enough to sit frozen at my computer, to become lost in that love, to find it hard to comprehend that this kind of love is possible, yet knowing that regardless of what I am able to understand or what position I take on it, it’s actually true. God’s love is covering you right now. Think about it. You’ll feel it.

Happy Easter!