A son at college was seeking to apply pressure for more money from his dad. In a letter home he wrote: “I can’t understand why you call yourself a loving father when you haven’t sent me a check for three weeks. What kind of love do you call that?”

The father wrote back, “That’s unremitting love!” [1]

We smile at that. Some of us may even chuckle, though not out loud, because we have all been there. But who has ever really defined love that way? Unremitting. We usually think of it in completely opposite terms—total giving. We call is unconditional love. We certainly think of God that way. That’s the way Jesus revealed Him—a God who gives and gives and gives until He gives everything, even His life, out of love for us. That’s the reason the word of Jesus in our text today is a shocking one…