Seized by Love
Last week, Jesus told us to love one another as he loved us—a love that stoops, forgives, lays down its life. A love that is anything but easy.
So how do we live like that?
Today’s Gospel offers the answer.
Jesus speaks of his departure—and of his abiding presence. Judas (not Iscariot) asks the question that hangs in the air: “Lord, how can you be with us if you’re leaving?”
Jesus’ answer is the Holy Spirit: the Advocate, the Comforter, the one who teaches, reminds, and dwells in us. Not just a placeholder, but Jesus’ very presence—no less real, no less near. And through this Spirit, we are empowered to love as he loved.
What the Gospel touches, the Collect unpacks. To love God and neighbor, we don’t just need better intentions or stronger willpower. We need the Spirit to transform our hearts.
Like the Gospel, the Collect names love three times. First and last, it speaks of our love—our esteem for God, our devotion. But at its center is the miracle:
“Pour into our hearts such love toward you…”
Before we can love God, we have to fall in love with him. And that kind of love cannot be forced. It must be given.
I used to think I could generate love by mastering the right beliefs or willing it hard enough. Maybe it worked at first—but it never had legs. It left me striving, but unmoved. Then—through no effort of my own—love seized me instead.
It happened at an Episcopal church plant in western Pennsylvania. I was a college student, heartbroken after a relationship I had believed would last. Everything felt like ash. One Sunday, I wandered back into church. And somehow—through the sermon, the liturgy, the table—I encountered something deeper than knowledge or willpower. I encountered Christ by the power of the Spirit. I was, in Thomas Chalmers’ words, “seized by the power of a new affection.”
That’s the kind of love today’s Gospel and Collect speak of—not duty. Not striving. But the presence of Christ—a love that overtakes the heart. And once the heart is seized, life begins to shift—not from pressure, but from joy.
Oliver Burkeman puts it this way: real transformation rarely begins when we treat it like a test to pass. It begins when we realize we don’t have to change to be loved. We are loved already. And that—paradoxically—is what makes change possible.1
That’s what happened to me in that little church. I didn’t have to earn love. I didn’t have to prove I could love. Love came first. And once it did, I found myself wanting to love in return.
That is how Christ is present even in his absence. That is the gift of the Holy Spirit—not just comfort, not merely a substitute, but the very power of Christ: power to receive God’s love, power to return it, power to live the life Jesus invites us into.
So may the Spirit make Christ present to you, and pour his love into your heart.
May you know—deep in your bones—that you are already loved.
And may that love overflow: for God, for your neighbor, even for yourself.
O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Collect for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
These midweek reflections are a preview of Sunday’s sermon—but not the sermon itself.
You can find the full sermon here after it’s preached.
Oliver Burkeman, Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, 2024, chapter 2.
Hearts break at all ages and stages of life. And love sucks on this side of the dirt.