Love is Sugar and Salt

1 John 3:16-24 (MSG): This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves… My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love…God told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep God’s commands, we live deeply and surely in God, and God lives in us. And this is how we experience God’s deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit God gave us.

 

How do we experience love? By hugging and kissing? Or by touching and feeling?  It was a cold Friday as we drove off to this wonderful place.  It was snowing and I thought the weekend was ruined.  But Love was in the air, we knew it, God’s presence was in the middle of the snow.  Suddenly the presence of God was near and powerful.  A deer dashed in front of our car, the trees full of snow, or was it sugar?  No, it was salt!  Yes, Sugar and Salt sprinkled on trees, like he Holy Spirit is sprinkled on our souls.

 

Sugar provides energy for our activities.  And salt?  Salt enhances flavors and helps suppressed bitterness.  Which is one of the functions of the Holy Spirit, provide the power that our body needs for preservation.  

 

The same way that we enjoyed our trip looking at trees sprinkled with Sugar and Salt it should be the way others see and enjoy the work of the Holy Spirit in us. A blessing and not a hindrance, take for example some of the blessings Latinx brings to this world:  the gifts of creativity in the arts, in preaching, in music, in worship, in education; and do not forget the power our sexuality, which is a gift from God.  And all this creativity sprinkles flavor, power and Love. And in all this, my beloved, comes a desire for Love that is freely given (with consent) and not warehoused.  

 

Prayer:  Dear God, now that we are seasoned, we can taste the fullness of your Glory!  Thank You for Love sprinkled in Sugar and Salt. Amen.