Herein is Love Part 3

Christ could see behind the suffering of men, behind their sins, and He was not distracted by what they did. He was concerned for men first and for their behavior last. He knew that if He could reach the man, the behavior would take care of itself. We are supposed to be like Him, men and women who, because His Spirit indwells us and because we partic.i.p.ate in His living and dying, are able to see the hearts of other men and women and to unite them with the power of G.o.d's love and forgiveness.

_Partic.i.p.ation in the Resurrection_

This kind of living would bring us to our third partic.i.p.ation in the life of Christ, namely, in His resurrection. Because He was faithful to His love and willing to die in obedience to its demand, He was raised up in triumph, and with Him all things were made new. These were the events of His life. But His life affirms the principle of G.o.d's life as it is lived in human existence. Since His Spirit incarnates itself in us, then we may expect that our lives will be triumphant also and be the source of renewal for others. Another criticism that we can make of Christians is that they do not have this sense of expectancy, this sense of deliverance, this sense of triumph, and this appearance of having been renewed. All too often we are grim and sad, discouraged and cynical, and our lives contradict the faith we profess.

However, because we partic.i.p.ate in His resurrection, we are given the wonderful power of facing any problem with courage, even though it may seem, from a human point of view, that no solution is possible. We live in the faith that if we consent to be buried with Christ in His death, we shall be made partakers of His resurrection. And this, not in the hereafter, but now, in this present life.

A father told me of an incident with his son that ill.u.s.trates the principle we are now considering. He and his son had become involved in a quarrel and both had lost their tempers. The father confessed that he had said some harsh and cruel things to his boy. Finally, however, he came to himself, realized what he was doing, and, dying to his pride, he acknowledged his fault and asked his son's forgiveness. When the exchange was over, the boy was still rather subdued, but later when he came through the room where his father was seated, he called out cheerily, "Hi, Pop." The cheerful greeting of the son was a sign of the triumphant relationship between father and son, and, in the human relationship, the father was partic.i.p.ating in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In other words, our partic.i.p.ation in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ will give us courage, faith, and hope. This way of life will not save us from the pain of human living, nor will it save us from going through dark times of indecision and lack of faith. We shall, however, be able to live our lives out of the power of the triumphant life that G.o.d lived in human life.

Our worship is yet another way in which we partic.i.p.ate in the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord. In worship we bring our lives to the judgment of Christ's teaching and life, and these reveal how unequal we are to live His life, and how greatly we need His Spirit to transform our lives. By our confession of our sins we partic.i.p.ate in His death for us and for our sins, and the a.s.surance of His forgiveness enables us to partic.i.p.ate in His resurrection so that we may rise to our feet, make a confident offering of ourselves, and sing our praises of thanksgiving.

The Christian, we conclude, is one in whom the Spirit of Christ is incarnate. By the power of the Spirit he partic.i.p.ates in the life of Christ, so that the presence of Christ and His Spirit has contemporary power and meaning in the arena of human relations. The love of G.o.d is for the world, and this world-love of G.o.d should be reflected in the devotion of His people to His work in the world.

[3] 1 John 4:20.

[4] 1 John 4:16.

[5] Matt. 18:20.

[6] Luke 18:11.

[7] See 2 Cor. 5:17.

[8] Luke 10:27.

[9] Rom. 6:4; See also Col. 2:12.

[10] Mark 8:35.

III

HEREIN IS LOVE

"Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of G.o.d, and he who loves is born of G.o.d and knows G.o.d."--_1 John 4:7_

Thus far, we have identified the Christian life as partic.i.p.ation in the life of Christ, and the Christian fellowship as the relationship of men who have been reunited to one another by the presence in them of the Spirit of Christ. We need to make this concept even more specific and, therefore, now ask the question: "How does one partic.i.p.ate in the life of Christ; how does one find the Spirit; what must one do?" The gospel's answer is: "You shall love."[11] It has surpa.s.sing attraction, but is also considerably disappointing. Love is appealing, but its practice is appallingly difficult. While the Christian relationship seems to promise a difference, it is hard to identify. What makes the difference? or, What is the Good News?

_The Gift of G.o.d in Christ_

Christians believe that the gift of G.o.d in Christ confers something that man needs but has lost. What is it that we do not have that we are supposed to receive as a result of our new relationship with Christ? Let us recall that in our earlier discussion we took note of the ambivalent character of love. We want to be loved and we are afraid to accept love; we want to love and are afraid to give love for fear it will not be accepted. We are not free to love, therefore; that which by nature we cannot have is the freedom to love. We believe that G.o.d is love.

Creation is the work of His love, and love is the work of His creation.

But the ambivalences of human nature keep us from being free in the work of love. The coming of Christ, in the midst of history, changed the balance of power between love and hate, life and death, and set us free to love. Love became the energizing, reconciling force in human existence. B.C. and A.D. marked the transition, not only of time, but also of the old creation in which our power of love was imprisoned in our fear to love, and of the new creation in which our power of love was set free by the love of G.o.d in Christ. Now the triumphant power of G.o.d's love is at work in the world and is available to all who seek to do the work of love anywhere and for anyone. Accordingly, the work of love was and is the breaking down of walls of separation, and the reuniting of man and G.o.d, man and man, and man with himself, in all which work we partic.i.p.ate.

_What Is Love?_

Do we know what we mean when we think of love in this way? A clear understanding of love is needed, because it is so gravely misunderstood in our time. All too commonly, love is regarded as a sentiment, a feeling, a "liking" for someone. While sentiment and emotion are certainly a part of love, it is tragic to make them synonymous with love. Certainly we mean more than that when we say, "G.o.d is love," or when we wrestle with the concept of man showing his love of G.o.d through his love for his neighbor. In these concepts we are thinking of love as the moving, creating, healing power of life; of love that is "the moving power of everything toward everything else that is."[12] Love reunites life with life, person with person, and as such is not easily discouraged. The most dramatic symbol of love's courage and triumph is, as we have seen, the cross and the resurrection; it stands for the love wherewith G.o.d has loved us. "In this is love, not that we loved G.o.d but that he loved us...."[13] Having given us His love, we have it for our response to Him, so that we love Him by loving one another with His love which we received through His people. Thus, the nurturing of our response to G.o.d's love is the work of the church. Our responsibility is to love Him. We are to love G.o.d by loving one another, and in loving one another we introduce one another to G.o.d. This is the work of the church and the vocation of the people of G.o.d. We are called to love one another reunitingly with the love wherewith G.o.d loved us.

In order for us to partic.i.p.ate in the love of G.o.d which is at work in the world, we need to understand ourselves and our own creaturely problems in relation to love. Too much Christian thought about love and its work is abstract rather than a reckoning with the complications of human existence. In order to avoid this danger, let us turn to a consideration of what is involved in recovering our freedom to love.

_Recovering Our Freedom to Love_

Because we are created in the image of G.o.d, our deepest need is to be loved. This need is fundamental and has both human and divine roots. The baby comes into being as a result of being loved. We take him in our arms, care for him, call him by name, and reveal to him the love that we have for him. Thus he experiences love. These experiences of love stimulate, in turn, his love, which is the completion of his need of love. His response to being loved is to love, and this response is not long in coming. We see it in his smiles, in his cooing, when he pats his mother's cheek, when he puts his little arms around her neck, and later when he begins to toddle and bring his gifts to her. In many ways the individual begins to show that he has been loved by revealing his growing power to love.

Our day, however, seems to be one in which people are more conscious of their need to be loved than of their need to love, with the result that everyone is running around looking for love. But we do not find love by looking for it; we find it by giving it. And when we find love by loving, we find G.o.d. Our Lord gave us His love generously, not in order that we might be loved, but that we might be freed to love one another.

"You received without pay, give without pay."[14] He calls us from our childish preoccupations with security to the appropriate adult occupations of the mature Christian. He calls us away from our suckling tendencies to our responsibility to feed others, from receiving to giving. If someone came to me and asked, "How can I find G.o.d?" I would answer, "Go find someone to love and you'll find Him."

Unless the searcher was love-deprived and in need of rea.s.surance, I would not begin by figuratively putting my arm around him and cherishing him. There are situations where this is necessary. People can be so broken and so hurt that they cannot love, and they need to be cherished and rea.s.sured until they can. One of the responsibilities of the church is to be on the alert for those people who in later life need the love and rea.s.surance they should have had when they were younger.

Unfortunately, however, many of us are embarra.s.sed when we are confronted by emotionally needy persons. We may resent their need and the demand which it makes on us, with the result that they may never know the love of man and G.o.d, and may never be brought to the point where they may partic.i.p.ate in the life and work of Christ which is, as we have seen, to love.

Of course, it is not easy to love, especially when we feel unequal to it, are tempted to regress, and want to be loved and cuddled ourselves.

Yet even then the answer to our need is to love. Many of us have had experiences that have borne out this truth. Once when my son and I had had a quarrel in which I had lost my temper, and was feeling discouraged as a father and not at all competent where human relations were concerned, the phone rang and a young couple asked if they might come and talk with me about the difficulty they were having with their young son. Because of my feelings of wretched inadequacy, my inclination was to say "No," but they were so obviously in need of help and so importunate that I arranged for them to come to see me immediately. I had no confidence in being able to help them, but I did try to listen to them. As I listened, I partic.i.p.ated in their thinking about their own situation. When the session was over, they thanked me enthusiastically for my help. After they were gone, I realised that however much I had helped them, I myself had been helped. By accepting my responsibilities as a counselor and by listening to them, I was loving them; and because I loved them, I had the experience of being loved. The relationship in which our love is needed may offer little apparent encouragement, but once we give ourselves, the resources for the work of love become available.

It is, therefore, as important for us to love as it is for us to be loved, and our need to love is as great as the need to be loved. If we are not able to love, life is as deficient as it would have been if we had not been loved. We must not a.s.sume that because we have been loved we shall automatically become a person who loves. Human beings do not develop that automatically. Certainly the experience of being loved prepares us to love, but we can misuse the gifts of love. We may decide to appropriate them for ourselves. We may not want to a.s.sume responsibility for others. But having received love and choosing not to love, we may lose such love as we have. We then become self-centered and selfish misers of love, and therefore loveless.

How can we love our children so that they will become givers of love rather than h.o.a.rders of it? How can the freedom and power to love be released in them? The answer is, by encouraging their love responses. We have already recognized the importance, first, of the need to be loved, and second, of the need to love. We now face the importance of our being able to accept love and of encouraging the attempts of people, and especially of our children, to express their love. We might a.s.sume that it is easy to welcome their responses. Unfortunately, our expressions of love do not always please those to whom we make them. Because our love offerings are not appreciated and accepted, we may feel unloved and rejected. After repeated attempts to express our love successfully, and having been repeatedly rejected and discouraged, we may give up and turn our love in on ourselves.

A rose gardener told me of an instance that ill.u.s.trates how difficult it is to accept some love offerings. He not only grew roses, but exhibited them as well. On one occasion, he had several blooms that he was nurturing for a coming show, one of which was being produced on a bush of his favorite variety. On the day before the exhibit his four-year-old son appeared before him with ecstatic face and with his prize rose clutched stemless in his hand, saying, "Look Daddy, what I brought you."

It was obvious that the youngster, who adored his father, thought that he was presenting the perfect gift of his love, because he knew how much his father liked that particular rose. The father, on the other hand, confessed that he responded as the rose grower and exhibitor, rather than as one who had an opportunity to encourage his son's love responses by recognizing, from his son's point of view, the appropriateness of the gift. When, therefore, he very understandably scolded and spanked his child for picking the rose, the little boy was dreadfully upset.

Episodes of this kind, if only occasional, are not serious, because they are experienced in the context of a relationship that is predominantly loving, supportive, and encouraging.

When the expressions of love and affection of children are not received with understanding and acceptance, their attempts to learn to love find no encouragement. Because they are being prevented from learning to love their parents and others, they are being prevented also from learning to love G.o.d in and through them. Our Lord's response to the gifts brought to Him demonstrates the kind of responses we should make to one another.

Even when people's gifts were poorly motivated and ill-chosen, He was able to look behind them and see and understand the person who gave.

Although Zacchaeus seemed to be motivated only by curiosity, our Lord invited him to come down out of the tree and asked that He might have dinner with him, thus moving behind the greed that had made Zacchaeus a publican.[15] And because our Lord was able to accept the gift of Mary Magdalene, her true love was called forth.[16] So it is with us. Our offerings often are pitiful and ill-chosen, but He looks upon the heart and sees there that really we are trying to express our love despite our ill-chosen means of doing so.

If we are to partic.i.p.ate in the life of Christ and be the instruments of His love, we must learn to be hospitable to one another's efforts to express love. Parents need to look upon the hearts of their children and see deeply what they are trying to express. Husbands and wives likewise need to look behind the externals of behavior. What we do on the outside often fails to represent truly and adequately what is on the inside. We all need encouragement to love, and hospitality toward human attempts to express love is one of the surest ways in which we can partic.i.p.ate in the contemporary living of Christ in the world.

_Some Disciplines of Love_

Now there are some disciplines that we need to follow as we engage in the dialogue of love. First, there is the discipline of giving oneself.

It is the discipline of keeping oneself responsible for and to one another, responsible in facing issues and in making decisions. The only way to love is to communicate love by word and action. We may learn to use our power of being to speak and act the word of love. We should refuse to withhold it for any reason, including our fear of speaking it.

Of course, there is risk in giving ourselves. Our gift of love may not be accepted, may not be appreciated, and may even be exploited. In giving love we may be hurt because of the nature of others' responses.

But we will be stronger for having given it, and others may be called forth by it. Life cannot remain the same when love has been expressed.

Second, there is the discipline of holding ourselves to our own part.

This is the discipline of allowing others to speak for themselves; or again, the discipline of refraining from trying to carry on both sides of a dialogue. We are always doing this; that is, we speak to the image we have of the other person. We try to antic.i.p.ate his response and take away his freedom to respond and speak for himself. We choose our part of the dialogue in response to what we think his reaction will be and thereby rob ourselves of our freedom to be. There can be no communication between the images which two people hold of each other.

Communication is possible only between two persons who, out of mutual respect, really address one another.

A third discipline is to accept the demand in love and our obligation to meet that demand. The compulsive element in love is hard for us to accept. But we cannot separate law from love. Law is implicit in love.

Our Lord, Who is the incarnation of divine love, warned that He would not remove one bit of the law. He did not destroy the law, but by His love fulfilled it. It is really good that law is a part of love. Our own love relationships benefit from the presence of law in love, because law guides and protects our relationship. When we are "in love," or in union with one another, we are not conscious of the law, but it is implicitly present. We can be said to be "living above the law."

The law that is implicit in the relationship between a man and a woman who love each other is that they shall respect and act trustworthily in relation to one another; that they shall care for one another in all the ways that are necessary to their relationship. As long as love prevails, they are not conscious of this law. They do not need it. But if for any reason they should "fall out of" love, then they become conscious of their obligations to each other. Their relationship is now lived under the burden of law, and they will find it harder to observe than they did before. They now are being held together by their obligations, and it may be that while being thus held together they will again find each other in love. When they look back on this period some years later, they may call the whole experience love, because then they will see that the obligations of their relationship are a part of their love. Obviously, this is mature and not infantile love. Love that accepts responsibility and its obligations is love that is not primarily concerned about its privileges, although it gives thanks for whatever privileges it has. It recognizes itself not primarily as an emotion, but as a way of life; and it is more concerned about commitment than sensation.

By the employment of these principles that we have just rehea.r.s.ed, we can help our children grow in their capacity to love and thereby become more capable of a heroic commitment to one another. This kind of commitment should characterize the members of the Christian fellowship, the men and women in whose lives the Spirit of the Christ is incarnate.

We have seen that we need to be loved in order that we may love others and that we should encourage one another's love responses. Does this mean that our attempts to express love should be accepted without correction? What should the rose-growing father of the little boy have done? One view is that the father should have accepted the gift with thanks, recognizing only the child's intention. Certainly, his intentions should be honored and his gift accepted. But the boy also needed help in learning how to express his love to others. Here is something we are always having to learn. All of us have had the experience of doing or giving something that was intended to be an expression of our love, only to discover that the gift was not appreciated by the one to whom it was given, and we find ourselves saying, "Oh, I didn't mean it to be that way." With children and with one another we need to strike a balance between acceptance of the intention and guidance in choosing the means for the expression of love.