Around this time in December, our church normally has a lovely ecumenical ladies’ luncheon. There is a speaker for the event along with two local missionaries who display crafts produced by the people groups they serve so that the crafts can be purchased for Christmas gifts.
It is a wonderful time of fellowship where we hear God’s word and enjoy each other’s company before we move headlong into the Christmas rush of activity. I certainly have missed this event these past two years and do pray that next year we can again all get together for such a delightful celebration of “Jesus is the reason for the season.”
In 2019, I was asked to speak at the event and my first reaction was – I’m not a speaker, but because I know God can work through all of us if we are willing to let Him, I prayed to see if this was something I should tackle or leave for someone else.
The more I prayed the more I felt I was being led to move ahead, study, and prepare a short talk.
The subject Hesed – the all-encompassing love of God – was given to me months before allowing for sufficient time to research the word. I was quite fascinated once I got into studying this Hebrew word and I was surprised to hear it used in sermons and in other areas which I evidently had missed in the past. For instance, that year Michael Card was singing at the Ocean City Tabernacle, and I was advised he had written a book on the meaning of Hesed.
Learning has always been exciting to me and now that I understood Hesed I was happy to share this wonderful picture of God’s love for us.
The Apostle Paul tells us, “May you have the power to understand as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is.” (Eph 3:18). This is Hesed – God’s love.
The verb Hesed shows us God’s love is active and ongoing.
This Hebrew word is much more inclusive than any word we have for love in English. The better description is unswerving loyalty, complete undeserved kindness, and generosity – by Father God to us, the all-encompassing love of God.
This Hesed love of God is a gift clearly shown to us through our knowledge that Jesus died and rose again to restore us to a right relationship with the Father. The Bible tells us we are dead in our sins. (Eph. 2:1). Sin must be punished, but Jesus took the punishment for us. If we repent and follow in His ways, we will then be in the center of the Hesed love of God forever.
The Apostle John wrote, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:9). Jesus, the son of God, our redeemer and savior lives in the Hesed love of God because He is one with God.
As the Old Testament scriptures were translated from Hebrew into English, there was not an English word that could comprise this wonderful type of heavenly love, so they used several words to describe Hesed and most often they used grace, loving-kindness, and mercy. Now, when we read the Old Testament, if we keep an eye out for these words, we will understand they originate from the word Hesed.
For instance, in Isiah 54:10 we read, “Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love (Hesed) for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you.”
Preparing for this short talk was much more beneficial to me than to anyone that heard it at the gathering. Each of us enjoyed a lovely luncheon served by the men of the church, sang praise songs, and shopped, but I came away having sat with the scriptures for five months studying and learning about the true heart of God.
There is nothing that can replace reading and studying the Word of God. He truly speaks to us through His Word, the Bible, and moreover, we then learn about His character and heart. We learn what God loves to see in us and what we do that hurts Him.
Just think of the story Jesus told about the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). In short, the son forsakes all his father’s provisions and morality and goes out into the world to taste the forbidden fare. When he finally realizes his father’s home and his father’s ways are best, he returns contrite and ready to be a servant to his father, but, before he can speak, his father who mourned the wayward son runs to embrace him because his heart is full that the son has returned to him.
This is about our God aching for us when we’ve gone astray and taking us back when we realize His ways are better than ours. We cannot see this from our worldly view, but only when we get into God’s word and discover God’s Hesed love for us full of grace, loving-kindness, and mercy.
God’s love toward His children is so wide and wonderful. It includes for us God’s unswerving loyalty, complete undeserved kindness, and generosity. It is all there for us if we decide to step into His light. What a blessing it is when we make that decision to turn our backs on the darkness and enter God’s light.
As we move through the Advent Season and look forward to the celebration of Christmas, let us seek to know this God, the one that has provided a way for us to live with Him forever. After all, truly, Jesus is the reason for the season.
ED. NOTE: Amy Patsch writes from Ocean City.
