In Need of a Hug
‘Love’ is a very much over-worked word. ‘I love you’ trips very lightly off the tongue. We send our love to all sorts of people, in all manner of situations, and sometimes to people we barely know. With a sigh and a certain intonation, possibly from a parent to a disappointing teenager off-spring, ‘I love you’ says more than we know about the conflict in that young person’s mind, hearing the words they really want to hear but knowing the feelings behid the words say something different. And how can anyone who has ever entered into the heart of a penitent offender make the facile distinction which enables them to say, ‘I hate what you did — but I still love you!.’
So when God’s Messenger comes to this dispirited people with the message that ‘God loves you’ their response is an echo of the cry of despairing humanity in every generation. ‘OK! Show me!’ (v 2).
To begin with the Messenger’s response is not encouraging. It amounts to little more than ‘stop whinging and see what happened to Edom’. Your problems are nothing compared to theirs.’ In other words, remember that your God is dealing with far bigger and worse problems in other places (v 5).
By the time we get to the end (3: 16) the tone is more positive. What makes the difference is not so much a change in God, or even a word from God, but rather the fact that ‘those who revered the Lord spoke with one another’. Strength and encouragement comes from finding our allies and that means not only consoling one another but opening our heart to one another and being prepared to acknowledge our depth of feeling, lack of trust and uncertainty. Through this they seem to discover that as long as they are not forgotten by one another they will always be remembered by God.
Hugging is mutual, and where there is a genuine giving and receiving there is also an inexplicable ‘third party’. Maybe Zechariah’s sheep and shepherds (11: 4-14) knew something we have yet to discover.