The Meaning of Love

Friday, I sang at a funeral. Saturday, I sang at a wedding. The shift was enough to give me whiplash. At the funeral, I saw a beautiful elderly woman weep for her departed husband of 50 years. Long ago, they had vowed "till death do us part" and they meant it. Their deeply-rooted love had stood the test of time and survived the storms of life. For now, their hearts are separated by death, but that kind of love will live on into eternity.
At the wedding, I saw two young, intrepid hearts being fused together. This was a love that was risking everything and venturing into the unknown. A love that seemed fresh and giddy. I witnessed love in two distinct forms, at the funeral and the wedding. I am realizing that love is hard to nail down and it takes on many forms.
I started this blog to explore the dimensions of love in order to understand the love of God. And if our highest calling as Jesus-people is to love as He loves, then it would be good to know the very meaning of love. Or else we could easily miss the point and waste our lives.
1 John says "God is love." But it would be backwards to say that love is God. The question remains: What is love?
The problem is that our culture is constantly inducing us with a candy-coated, commercialized version of love that involves everything from Valentine's Day to Paris. This idea of love is often smothered in fanciful poetry. Mark Twain said "Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." That sounds nice, but is it reality?
Without a doubt, it is impossible for one word to encapsulate all that love entails. We use the word "love" like a Swiss Army Knife, depending on the context. The Greek language has four different words for love. Love is divided into these categories: fondness, friendship, passion and charity. Apparently, love is each of these and yet it is also altogether all of these. Love is irreducibly complex. It takes on different roles, but each role shares a symbiotic relationship with the others.
Many Christians cite 1 Corrinthians 13:4 ("Love is patient, love is kind...") as being a definition for love. However, I see it more as a description of the effects or fruit of love. It's a litmus test. It describes love in action without defining the essence of love itself. Love is patient, but patience is not the end-all definition of love. Love is unselfish, but unselfishness is not entirely love either. In that same chapter, Paul says that you can give away everything you have and even sacrifice your life, and yet still not have love. Interesting. So, love is not sacrifice, but it does sacrifice. Some people think that love is merely a duty that is indifferent. I disagree, and so does Paul. Love cares, it doesn't just go through the motions.
It's scary that it is possible to do what love does, and yet not have love. For instance, we can kiss someone to express our love, but we can also kiss someone without loving them. Just like actors. With this in mind, I ask myself "Do I honestly love God or am I just following a script?" I don't want to settle for the idea of loving God, but I truly want to love God. I think it starts there. God can work with that fledgling desire.
If this sounds confusing, welcome to love. Love is confusing. Our hearts often stump our heads. But, the Bible tells me to love with my heart and my mind. So apparently, love is both passionate and intellectual. We are also told to love with our soul and our strength. So, love is both inward and outward.
If nothing else, I know that love is more than words, more than saying "I love you." The love of others is tested when we are most unlovable and most unlovely. In the dance of dating, we try to show our best side. But, in the end, we find out who truly loves us when we hit rock bottom and have nothing to offer. Real love sees us at our worst and doesn't walk away. True friends and companions will stand by us through our hell, even if they get burned.
This mirrors the love of God.
We often emphasize the physical pain in the crucifixion of Jesus, which is bad enough, but Jesus suffered something far worse. He endured temporary separation from God the Father and beheld His wrath for the first time ever. We cannot even fathom this unprecidented travesty. Separating joined human hearts, whether by death or divorce, is a terrible thing and was never meant to be. But, separating all-loving God the Father from all-loving God the Son was like splitting an atom, it was heartbreak and devastation at its worst. They had experienced a special bond from eternity past, and it was severed at the Cross. But as much as the Father and Son loved each other profusely, they also loved us irresistably. Even when we were at rock bottom. To them, we were a treasure that was worth the painful journey. God is love and there is no greater love than His. And that great love exposed itself to great heartache and humiliation. That's what love does, and it does it gladly.
Here's what I've learned so far: Love is complete when there is gladness in the giving, and it finds happiness in the happiness of another. For the Christian, it is enough to know that it makes God happy when we show love. Someone will probably say that we should give even if we are not glad to do it. That is true sacrifice heeding the call of duty, and it is certainly admirable. But when it comes to a relationship, there is nothing so dead and cold as a kiss without love.
Whenever I go to a wedding, I inevitably think about getting married. The question always arises "How will I know when I'm in love?" Answer: I'll know I'm in love when I'm glad to give up my life for that person and when their smile makes me smile, as God is smiling over the both of us.

This is not a treatise on love, but an incomplete thought. I am exploring out loud. Thank you for reading.
To be continued...