Loved into Being

Easter 7 by Desiree Snyman 17th May 2026

There is a thread running through the readings today: we are loved by God into being. Our deepest identity and purpose are not defined by the world. Jesus reminds us that we are in the world, but not of it. Our lives are shaped by love, we are made in love, for love, with love and our purpose is to give love. The great adventure of the Christian life is learning to awaken to that love, to live from it, and gradually to become so filled with the presence of Love, the Spirit of God, that like Jesus we become a source of that love for others.

For some, loving seems natural. For many of us, the journey into love is more complicated. We long to love well, yet we encounter resistance within ourselves and around us. The project is to manifest love. Yet it is often hard to consistently maintain a life of full voltage love. We can become exhausted, irritable and even discouraged when our intentions of love are thwarted by the less loving aspects of our inner lives and discouraged also when greed or hatred or vain self- interest push back against us. The point of the seventh Sunday of Easter is to encourage us to keep on loving, to let go of discouragement.

One of the great spiritual challenges comes after we have tasted the presence of God. There may be moments when something opens within us, when prayer feels alive and our hearts burn with love for God. Yet later, after such moments, God can begin to feel strangely absent. This seventh Sunday of Easter stands precisely in that strange in between space: between Ascension and Pentecost, between Jesus disappearing from the disciples’ sight and the coming of the Spirit. 

The Ascension and the Hidden Presence of God

For forty days after the Resurrection, Jesus appeared to the disciples intermittently, teaching them to relate to him no longer by sight, but by faith. He had already told them that he intended not simply to stand beside them, but to dwell within them, in their hearts, words, relationships, and actions. Then comes the Ascension.

We misunderstand the Ascension if we imagine Jesus simply floating upward into outer space. In Acts 1, Luke is not giving us geography; he is giving us theology. The language is symbolic and visionary. A cloud takes Jesus from their sight. Throughout Scripture, clouds signify the hidden glory of God: the cloud covering Sinai as Moses receives the commandments, or the cloud overshadowing the Mount of Transfiguration. The cloud represents a divine presence that is real, but veiled. The Ascension represents the spiritual evolution the disciples experience when they learn that Jesus is not leaving the world. The disciples experience a deeper level of consciousness when the Christ disappears from their sight so that he may become present within them. The Spirit will teach them this. The Spirit will remind them that Christ is no longer merely someone they look at, but the very life within which they live.

Perhaps this is why the experience of God’s absence can become one of our deepest spiritual teachers. If God remains merely an external object, someone who occasionally visits us in moments of consolation, we have not yet awakened to the deeper truth: God is nearer to us than our own breathing. God is not simply alongside life. God is the depth within life itself. 

Glory Revealed Through Love

John’s Gospel leads us directly into this mystery. On the night before his death, Jesus prays: “Father, glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.” Ordinarily, we think of glory as power, triumph, or magnificence. But in Scripture, glory means revealing what is most deeply true about a person. Jesus is saying: Let the world now see clearly who you are and who I am. This revelation happens through the cross. On the cross we see love refusing retaliation, love refusing hatred. We see Love pouring itself out completely and remaining faithful even in suffering. The cross reveals that the deepest truth about reality is not violence, domination, fear, or empire, but self-giving love. This is why Jesus can say: “I have conquered the world.” Jesus conquers the world not by crushing enemies, but by revealing a love stronger than death.

Christianity is not ultimately about admiring Jesus from a distance. It is about participating in the very life that animated him. Jesus not only reveals what God is like; he also reveals what humanity looks like when fully open to God. When Scripture says, “God is love,” it is not sentimental language. It is a description of reality itself. To awaken to love is to awaken to God. Whenever we begin, however imperfectly, to love as God loves, we participate in divine life. We too are held within divine love. 

Remaining Faithful in a Wounded World

The world is beautiful, but it is also wounded. Peter acknowledges this directly: “Discipline yourselves. Keep alert… Resist him, steadfast in your faith.” Whether we understand Satan personally or symbolically, the reality is familiar enough. There are forces within us and around us that pull us away from love: cynicism, resentment, fear, despair, violence, and the temptation to harden our hearts. Perhaps the greatest danger is discouragement.

When love becomes costly, we are tempted to withdraw, to become smaller, safer, less vulnerable. Jesus prays precisely for this moment. Not that we would escape the world, but that we would remain faithful within it.

As we move toward Pentecost, the invitation today is simple: Keep loving. Stay the course. Do not lose heart. Do not abandon love simply because the world does not always reward it. The Christian life is not the avoidance of suffering. It is learning to remain rooted in love through suffering. May it be so.