I have found my mind coming back to a set of interrelated questions lately—how one should love and why. Human society tends to train its members to love only what is best, only what is beneficial, and I find this idea embedded in myself. But I also find within myself a deep-seated dissatisfaction with it: This kind of love wishes away all that is not convenient; it really teaches us to love nothing but ourselves. In his Epistle to the Ephesians (Ch. 5, v. 2), Paul instructs Christians to “walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.” There’s a lot going on in the second clause, but don’t let it distract you from the simplicity of the first: “[… W]alk in love, as Christ also hath loved us.” This is the key to understanding how and why we should love: If we do not understand Christ’s love, we will never understand how or why we are to love.
Christ’s love never questions our worth, only our need. Christ does not love us because we deserve his love but because we need his love. A parent loves its baby not because it is strong or useful but because it is helpless; even so (as Paul writes in his Epistle to the Romans: Ch. 5, v. 6), “when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Thinking about our relationship with God, we should never entertain notions of worthiness. Paul writes (in his Epistle to the Galatians: Ch. 3, v. 22), “But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” All we can do is to receive, to believe, that Jesus Christ loved us and reconciled us to God through his life and his death and his resurrection, taking our sins upon himself as though they were his own, giving us his righteousness as though it were our own. Likewise, we should never allow ourselves to ask if someone else deserves to be loved. (Christ does not ask this of us.) We must always ask if they need to be loved. And the answer to that question is always yes.
Christ’s love is separate from desire: We see this in Gethsemane. He does not want to die, and yet he chooses to. Dying does not directly benefit him, and yet he chooses it. He acts on our behalf, not his own; he follows the Father’s will, not his own. Matthew tells us (in his Gospel: Ch. 26, v. 39) that, “[… Christ] went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” To love as Christ loved is not to act solely for our own benefit, not to prefer what is good for us over the needs of others, yet Christ’s example also shows that—by following the will of God, the love of humanity, even into suffering—we are working for our own ultimate benefit: The benefit of one human being benefits all; in an everlasting sense, any act of love benefits the lover as well as the beloved.
Christ’s love never ends. Shakespeare’s sonnet comes rather close to the truth: “[L]ove is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove. / O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken.” Christ’s love has no bound. We may transgress the law, we may transgress our conscience, but we cannot transgress Christ’s love—for none have yet found its border. Perhaps for this reason, Paul writes of those that have believed Christ’s love (in his Epistle to the Romans: Ch. 8, v. 38-39), “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Christ’s love is unconditional, inescapable, and it is offered to all. It is present for all in every moment. It may be rejected or disbelieved, but it can never perish. Christ loves you: Deny that fact and you may injure yourself terribly, irrevocably, but you can never change the fact. This is how our love should be: “[… S]tedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (as Paul writes in his First Epistle to the Corinthians: Ch. 15, v. 58).
The Gospel teaches us that all human beings are equal and should be loved—but, not because they are equally worthy of love, because they are equally unworthy. God doesn’t teach us to love one another because we merit it; he teaches us to do so because we need it. The need is all the reason we should require. The weight of this reason should persevere in our minds, regardless of whether it is convenient—regardless of anything else for that matter. Christian love is seeing those around us as God sees them, valuing them as God values them, caring for their needs as God cares for them. Luke (in his Gospel: Ch. 6, v. 35-36) records that Christ said, “But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” We are all unthankful and evil; we all need mercy. These are the principles which should guide our love.
(Photo by Aditya Romansa on Unsplash)
Comparing Notes 