The Christmas season just came to a close with Candlemas on February 2nd. It was the last day we might (liturgically) sing O Come Let Us Adore Him. As we prepare for the season of Lent, which begins March 5th this year, can we show Jesus the same Adoration amidst the suffering of the Cross?
What Does it Mean to Adore?
We may think of adoring someone as loving in a joyful way as we do when we hold a small child, but to adore means to love and respect deeply and even to worship or venerate. The word adore comes from the Latin ad meaning “to” and ore meaning “speak or pray.” Knowing this might change how easily we say we adore things. In fact, knowing this, can we say we would adore Christ on the Cross?
Easy Love
Culturally, we say we adore someone or something to mean we love strongly. It’s not wrong, but it’s at times too loosely used. We love little babies, and we love cute outfits. We love a person’s friendliness or kindness. Fun and positive things and people are easy to love, but can we love ugliness?
Tough Love
Not all love is pretty. Married couples take a vow to love in sickness and in health, for better or for worse. Stick around and those things will happen. Stick through them and love grows stronger, but it’s not easy. Love is tough and sometimes ugly.
There’s nothing pretty about the Cross. It’s a brutal form of capital punishment. The way Christ died for us was violent from the moment the night of the arrest began. He sweat blood while praying, yet still healed the ear of the soldier who arrested Him. He endured questioning and being paraded around and mocked. Christ took on a crown of thorns and a horrid lashing with the whip. He bore the Cross to Calgary, falling three times but getting up each time and enduring the suffering.
On the Cross, amidst the final moments, He asked the Father to forgive those who tormented Him. His love never faltered. He never turned away from us. He took on the Will of the Father out of love for God and man. Christ became the Sacrificial Lamb.
Adoring in the Ugliness
Not all love is pretty. Some love is ugly. Sometimes we love right in the muck of life. We love our kids when they get sick. We love our spouses when they lose a job. When times are tough, we’re still called to love. We love during old age and all of its ugliness. Sometimes loving in the ugliness of life is harder than we want it to be. Some relationships don’t survive. Those that do can be scarred. It’s difficult, but to truly love and adore is not meant to be easy.
Christ’s love for us was not and is not easy. (I, for one, don’t make it easy; I’m working on that.) Yet still Christ loves us as the Father loves us. His love is free and we are called to do the same. It’s the real meaning of being created in His Image, to love unconditionally, that sacrificial love, mimicking Christ’s love and suffering for us.
True Love
As Lent approaches, let’s think of ways to increase our love for God and for each other. Lent is a time of inward reflection, sacrifice, and contemplation of Christ’s suffering. Can we make it a time to increase in love as well?
We can never love as strongly as God loves, but our imitation should pull us to our knees, so that our suffering is united to Christ’s suffering. If we can adore Christ in the manger, we must also adore Him on the Cross. If we love in the joys and happiness of life, we must also love through the ugliness.
That is, after all, what true love really is.