True Love

My daughter was married two weeks ago. It was a fairytale sort of day, perfect in so many ways. Watching the newlyweds gaze at one another for hours on end was intoxicating and you could sense its addictive nature among the family and friends who joined in the celebration. Fast forward to the following Saturday when our home was filled with a dozen or so 20 something singles for a night of food, friends and football. In the shadows of the plays, spoken and unspoken, were tales of young love, lost love, left behind love, baby love, unrequited love and the hope for a love that might leave them breathless. Today, seven days later, we find ourselves deep in the chocolate red-roseyed atmosphere known as Valentines Day, the revered and sometimes abhorred holiday. One could say, (forgive the cliché) “love is in the air”.

All this love got me thinking of an experiment performed at a foundling home in the 1940’s. The infants had all their needs cared for except that of motherly love. Their consequential withering was captured on film and more than two- dozen infants died in their first year of life.  The thought, that the urge to love and be loved as the basic urge of human nature is not hard to fathom. Without love, one withers.

So where does this urge for love come from? From the Genesis story we read, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” In the simplest terms we were created to resemble the Creator, the Triune God. Among other attributes, God is Love. The love that He stamped in us could only be His kind of love, called Agape. God has put a hunger in each one of us for this Agape love. Yet, we sometimes settle for a marginal kind of love.  Marginal, in that when loving others we become caught in the snare of looking for a return on our investment.

Frank and I became engaged 33 years ago today. We committed to spend the rest of our lives together. The idea was that we would make each other happy the rest of our days. We have been blessed in that, although not perfectly, we have loved each other well. If conflict arises, one of the sources can often be from this marginal type of love. One soon discovers that marriage is a toolbox of God’s to teach forgiveness, patience and unconditional love, all earmarks of Agape.

As the world looks for true love, true Agape love can only be found in the raw penetrating gaze of God. It is in this gaze we discover that we aren’t loved by what is seen in us, rather in spite of it. It’s a knowing gaze that sees into the deepest crevices of our hearts and loves us still.  It’s a love so deep, so wide that nothing was too valuable to give in order to redeem us. “For while we where yet sinners, Christ died for us.” It is this kind of love that demonstrates just what a treasure we are and gives us incredible value and worth. It is this self -sacrificing kind of love we were created for to spread in our world.

The highest and second highest commandments are, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus adds, “Love each other, as I have loved you.” God commands us to love others with this same self- sacrificing love He demonstrated at the cross. To command us to this kind of love is simply to command us to the kind of love placed in us when we were created in His image and likeness. Surrendered to this crucified love, where we receive forgiveness, the “burden” to love the un-loveable with Agape becomes light and natural. To love this way becomes totally realistic.

So beware of the sneaky marginal type of love, one that comes with a hook of self -interest and has no real benefit to the giver or receiver. Without love, one withers. Agape love is a gift that desires nothing in return yet discovers it receives everything. Agape wants nothing, but to give itself.