About Love

About Love

In the Greek New Testament there are two words for ‘love’: philia – friendship love; and agape – benevolence and wilful delight in the object of love; agape is pure, divine love. And this is the kind of love we, followers of Jesus, should show to each other. When Jesus said, ‘Love one another as I have loved you’, He used the word agape.

What can we say about love?

1. Love is a costly affair – for God, for Jesus, and for us.

Many of us are familiar with the verse from John 3:16: ‘God so loved the world that He gave up His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.’  We may say then, that to give up Jesus, His son, cost God – it caused Him pain. When Jesus called from the cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’, both Jesus and His Father must have suffered extreme pain. We do not know whether God cries, but we do know that Jesus did.

When Jesus died on the cross His pain and love were so great that it ripped the curtain of the holy temple in Jerusalem apart – thus opening the way to the Holy of Holies and to the mercy seat, where the atonement was no longer available to the people by the blood of bulls and unblemished lambs but by the blood of Jesus which cleanses us all from unrighteousness.

For Jesus and His Father, to love was a costly affair.

We also suffer because we have loved. When my husband died it was more hurtful than I ever experienced in my life. Many of you have also paid the penalty for loving too much.

2. What is the quality of God’s love/agape?

A Swedish theologian, Anders Nygren, wrote, ‘God does not love that which is already in itself worthy of love, but on the contrary, that which in itself has no worth acquires worth just by becoming the object of God’s love. Agape has nothing to do with the kind of love that depends on the recognition of a valuable quality in its object. Agape does not recognise value, but creates it. Agape loves, and imparts value by loving. The man who is loved by God has no value in himself; what gives him value is precisely the fact that God loves him. Agape is a value-creating principle.’

In other words: When we are loved by God, His love makes us precious – how wonderful is that!

3. What about agape love in us?

We have received this divine love as a gift from God. In Romans 5:5 we read: ‘God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.’ We are the Temple of God the Holy Spirit and God’s love is in us – so let us use it!

4. Love one another

In order to understand how this is possible let me tell you a story:

‘In the Finnish woods we have a few monasteries, mainly Russian orthodox. They came to Finland during the winter wars, escaping the Russian army.

There was a story of one such place. The brothers were getting older, nobody visited them anymore and the abbot was getting desperate – they would eventually have to close and disappear from history. They would fail in their mission to spread the Gospel.’

(A bit like some of the churches these days – attendants get older and fewer in number and they cannot afford a minister and one day they may have to close their doors.)

But let us go back to the story of this small monastery:

‘So, after much praying, their leader, the abbot, decided that something has to be done about their dire situation.

So he went to see one of the holy men, an elder who lived alone, and asked him, what should they do? The Holy man looked at the abbot and said, smiling:

“Oh – did you not know that the Lord Jesus himself decided to move into your monastery!”

So the abbot, full of joy and gratitude, ran back to his monastery and told the wonderful news to all. And they wondered, which one of us is Jesus?

From that time on, they all treated each other with love and respect as they would have treated the Lord Jesus himself.

And the word went out: “You should see and feel how beautiful and holy people are in this monastery.” And their numbers grew and they had many visitors, who were all treated with the same respect and love – if they were Lord Jesus himself.’

What about us? Some time ago I read a book by Umberto Eco where one sentence stuck into my mind – he wrote that Jesus still walks along the byways and streets of our world; he is in the shopping centres and market places and what does He think? He is thinking:

‘All these people here are my children and they do not know it.’

So – how can they know about Jesus? Through you and me!

We are asked to treat every person the way Jesus treats you and also how you would treat the Lord Jesus Himself – with honour, respect and love.

It is not easy – I have a tendency to jump at people and then run away because I do not want to get hurt. But I am learning, every day. I keep telling myself: be nice, show love – people do not hate you if you only give them a chance of being loved.

Let us learn to love, because we all, being previously unworthy, have been made worthy by the agape-love of God.

The way to love your neighbour is clear: Love them all as they were Jesus Himself.

And let us remember Jesus’ words: Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. You see, Jesus is with us, to the end of age.

And thus, by walking with one another in the compassion of Christ we draw divine grace into ourselves and others.

Amen.