18TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

With age-old love I have loved you.

Have you ever seen a young couple in love? Sometimes one or the other of them tries to look for signs to prove the devotion of their beloved. For example, they may feel loved when their beloved lavishes them with gifts or compliments. But if those outward measurements decrease, they start to wonder if the love is fading.

With God, though, we never have to wonder. Just look at today’s first reading. When the Israelites were in exile in Babylon, they might have felt as if God’s love for them had faded. But Jeremiah consoled them by reminding them that God’s love is “age-old” (31:3). The Hebrew word here means that God’s love for them is unchanging, extending both into their past and into their future. Before they could ever do anything for God, he loved them; as they looked ahead to an uncertain future, they could be confident that he would love them.

What did that mean for the Israelites? That God loved them even before they were a people. His love didn’t fade when they were slaves in Egypt, as they wandered forty years in the desert, or when they lived in exile in Babylon. His love remained constant even when they were stuck in sin and idolatry. In that “age-old” love, he promised to restore them and bring them back from exile into the Promised Land.

This is the kind of everlasting love that God has for us too. It’s a love that can’t be measured by outward events or disproved by our feelings because it is before them all and after them all. If you think of your life—and the events that fill your life—as a timeline, God’s love encircles it all. From before the beginning of your life until after the end of it, his love surrounds you. It doesn’t evaporate during your tough times. It isn’t stronger in your good times. And God certainly doesn’t withdraw his love even when you turn away from him. No, his everlasting love calls you back to himself and promises mercy and restoration.

How marvelous is this unchanging, eternal love of God! Let it sustain you today.

“Lord, help me to see your love as the one constant thing in my life!”

Jeremiah 31:1-7
(Psalm) Jeremiah 31:10-13
Matthew 15:21-28