"Beyond 'Despite' Love to 'Delight' Love"

Jn.15:9-17; 17:20-26 March 9/03

More to Agape than Love Despite Unloveliness?

"Love is not love / which alters when it alteration finds / or bends with the remover to remove./ O, no it is an ever-fixed mark, / that looks on tempests and is never shaken; /...Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, / but bears it out even to the edge of doom." So said William Shakespeare in a famous sonnet (116). But what is love, really? Is it more than unaltering, unwavering constancy, almost unaffected by its object's condition?

        Three weeks ago we were considering the love expected of those who profess to follow Jesus, using the story of His compassion for a leper who asked for healing in Mark 1(40-45). That was the Sunday I used the story of St.Francis meeting the leper on the road and kissing the man's rotted lips before perceiving it to be an encounter with Christ. We applied it to the need to love those from whom society withdraws today, such as people with AIDS, which U2's Bono refers to as "the leprosy of our time". We emphasized the distinction between God's agape-style of love and the brand the world promotes called "eros": agape is unconditional, keeps on giving without expecting anything in return, is a choice of the will with no dependence on feelings, not an emotion but an action which always does the best for the other regardless of "desirability". Eros, on the other hand, is romantic love, passionate, changeable, emotional, responding to the appeal of the other, 'the love of the worthy'.

        That distinction certainly helps us appreciate God's action in reaching out to save us when we were lost in sin, totally corrupt and defiled compared to His absolute goodness and holiness. As Romans 5(8) says, "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." And Titus 3(4f) points out it was totally God's initiative, not our merit: "But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy." But to leave it there makes love seem kind of cold, detached, almost patronizing -- an act of sheer kindness despite the unattractiveness or repulsiveness of the one loved. It makes it sound like to say "I love you" or to sign a note "Love in Christ" means "because of God's mercy and largesse in overcoming my fallenness, I too am able to be positively disposed towards you despite any revulsion, animosity, or disgust I might otherwise feel for you which could get in the way." Yuk! How cold, how remote, how extremely chilling! Is that really what Christians mean by "love"? Is it just me or did somebody suddenly open a great door on the cosmos and suck out all the warmth?

        Maybe we can call that form of love "entry-level" agape, love that bridges the gap between opposites, God's astounding choice to save us when we had completely turned away and become fodder for the inferno. But Scripture suggests there is much more to love for believers once we find ourselves wrapped in grace and choose Christ.

"As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you" (Jn.15:9)

The last night Jesus spent in his earthly body with the disciples, the night He instituted the Lord's Supper before He was betrayed, He seemed to be taking pains to communicate to His followers how important love was. He said(15:9), "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.Now remain in my love." Maybe it'll help us remain or abide or "soak" in Jesus' flavour of love if we consider this in parts. "As the Father has loved me..." How did God the Father show His affection for Jesus? We catch glimpses when Jesus is baptized and transfigured: for a split second the curtain is pulled aside and the Director can be noticed in the wings applauding the main Actor. At Jesus' baptism, Matthew (3:15-17) tells us the heavens opened, the Spirit descended and lighted on Jesus, and a voice from above boomed, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." Not "disgusted" or "exasperated" or "disappointed" or "can hardly stand to be around Him" but "with Him I am well pleased". The Father takes pleasure in the Son. Matthew 12(18) quotes a prophecy from Isaiah 42(1) as the Father saying about Jesus, "Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight..." That sounds pretty positive, in fact excited - when someone delights you, you're not repelled by them but want to be around them as much as possible. Again at the Transfiguration on the mountain-top, God the Father caused a bright cloud to envelope Peter, James, and John, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.Listen to him!" (Matthew 17:5) The Father seems to be taking every opportunity to brag on His Son and let us know Jesus pleases Him. So although it's not a worldly eros-type of gratification, there's definitely pleasure and delight involved in the Father's experience of loving the Son.

        Let's look at the next stage in the transmission of the divine love. Jesus said, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you." How did Jesus love the men He called and trained over a three-year period? Traditionally, we've always viewed the cross as the supreme symbol of Jesus' sacrificial love. He repeated His love for them in John 15:12-13, "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.[and went on to say] Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Jesus "laid down His life" for sinners, but note, He calls us "friends". 1John 3(16) offers this definition of love: "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." Peter described it this way: "For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God." (1 Peter 3:18) He gave everything, including life itself, to cleanse us and bring us into fellowship with God. Because we were "dear" to Him, He paid a "dear" price!

        But it wasn't just in the ending of His life that Jesus showed His love for people. His whole ministry was one non-stop sequence of healings, teachings, and encounters that communicated His intense caring for humans of all types, in every kind of predicament. John's gospel does single out one object lesson Jesus gave in the Upper Room, at the beginning of chapter 13: "Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father.Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love..." and then follows His stripping down to grubbies and washing the disciples' feet. Humble, practical, gentle, thoughtful love in action. In His prayer (Jn.17:24) He asks, "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory..." Jesus wanted those He loved to be with Him in heaven; love longs for the other's presence. Then a few hours later He's arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. Even there He doesn't withdraw into self-concern but says to the authorities, "If you are looking for me, then let these men go." (Jn.18:8) Even from the cross He's making arrangements for His mom to be looked after by someone else - Jesus was continually thinking of others, loving them to the end (Jn.19:26f).

        How did Jesus love people? Paul's letter to the Philippians (2:1) sums up His own experience of Jesus' love through the Spirit: "If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion..." Those are the qualities that drew crowds of thousands to hear this wandering rabbi - not a cold aloof "in spite of" love, but a love that delighted in people.

Love One Another Deeply

Jesus told us to "remain" or abide or soak in His love, to love each other as He loved us (15:9,12). The Father has loved believers "even as" the Father has loved Jesus: that much! (17:23) Jesus' heartfelt desire, His whole mission of making God known, according to 17:26 was "in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." (John 17:26) Are you following? Did the Father love Jesus with pleasure and delight? Oh, yes! Did Jesus love His disciples? Passionately, tenderly, to laying down His life! "And you're saying that God loves me with that same intense, pleased, delighted affection we see Him booming about at the river and on the mountaintop towards Christ?" That's God's Word, not just mine! Zephaniah (3:17), writing over 600 years before Jesus' birth, expressed God's love for His people this way: "The LORD your God is with you...He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."

        Delight, pleasure, rejoicing...the New Testament gushes with adjectives describing the richness of God's affection that we who believe can share. "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" (1 John 3:1) Lavished on us - not doled out with a teaspoon. Peter writes, "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart...live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble." (1 Peter 1:22; 3:8) [Remember - Peter had been the one who was headstrong and resisted letting the Lord wash his feet] Paul urged in Romans 12(10), "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.Honor one another above yourselves." No despising here, or being repelled, but real attachment, holding each other in high esteem, prizing the one you love.

"Delight" Love in the Old Testament

There are several examples of "delight" love in Scripture. Gen.29(20) tells us "Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her." He valued her so much, she energized him so greatly, that time flew by. It's not just a romantic love, as we see in the case of David and Jonathan, two of Israel's sturdiest, macho-est warriors: we're told Jonathan "loved David as he loved himself" (1Sam.20:17). When Jonathan is killed in battle, David mourns saying, "I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me.Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women." (2 Samuel 1:26) [that is, their camaraderie was more enriching than simply romantic love]

        The Song of Solomon has long been read as an allegory of the love Christ has for the Church. In it the lover exclaims, "How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights!" (Song of Solomon 7:6) Paul taught that husbands are to love their wives "just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her" (Eph.5:25). Neither the Song of Solomon nor the letter to the Ephesians "jives" with the notion of love as something cold or dispassionate; instead, the person who loves another very much enjoys them. The Psalmist could say, "the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love." (Psalms 147:11)

        The prophets Hosea and Ezekiel both use married love as an analogy for the caring, committed, pleasure-wrapped relationship God desires with His people. Ezekiel 16 describes Jerusalem as being born and not washed or cleansed or cared for, but instead "thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised." However as the Lord passed by and saw her kicking about in a rejected, bloody mess He said, "Live!" and made her grow and develop. That would classify as agape love in the "unconditional" sense -- love "despite" one's repulsiveness. But it doesn't end there. As time goes on, God symbolically speaking applies ointments, an embroidered dress, leather sandals, and fancy jewelry. As a result of all this cherishing, nurturing and coiffing, Ezekiel prophesies (16:13f), "You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen.And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD." Now the account goes on to tell how Jerusalem misused her blessings and turned away from God and was disciplined and be restored, but the point is God's covenantal love and affection lavished on His people builds them up, and makes them beautiful, delightful, and prized.

Mashed Potato Love

One South American pastor describes the love which we share as Christians as "mashed potato love". When the potatoes start out in the pot, they're very distinct, whether you prefer to cook 'em with skins on or not. But after you've boiled and simmered and mashed them they're changed into a smooth creamy pulp, all blended together. You can't tell where one potato stops and the next one starts, they're a unity, they're all one. Let's look again at John 17:21-23 and notice the "mashing" in love that Jesus prays will go on between Himself, the Father, and us believers: "...that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." Do you get the "mashed potato" picture? Father, Son, and Spirit blended in amongst believers just as we might whip margarine, milk powder, and lots of air in to make white, fluffy, creamy and desirable mashed potatoes. Perhaps that's partly why Jesus chose bread and wine as communion symbols: in the same way, the individual grapes are crushed and kernels of wheat are ground so that the end product is a strengthening, life-giving merger of all the individual fruits' goodness.

        Boundaries are essential in our personal lives; the Lord knows we all have limitations on how much we can do as individuals even in His strength. We can't say "yes" to every demand that comes our way or we'll be run ragged and soon no benefit to anyone; we need to prayerfully discern what are true "calls" from the Lord with regard to others' requests. That's why the church is a body, made up of many differing members. But within that framework, Jesus is saying the Father's love for us shows through in the transcending of our individual concerns as we care for one another. When you really love someone, you identify with them, you feel their loss as your own. When one member of our fellowship suffers an economic setback, or a devastating illness, or a personal loss, or some wonderful promotion or blessing, we all feel it. When we truly love one another with the love of Jesus and the Father, the boundaries of self-centredness kind of melt away, we feel each other's pain, we want to bear one another's burdens (Rom.15:1; Gal.6:2). That's why when David's son Absalom rebelled and deposed his father and was eventually killed in combat, David in love mourned deeply and wailed, "O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you— O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Samuel 18:33)

        In Christian "mashed potato" love, the other person becomes so dear to us we try to imagine what it must be like for them in what they're going through; love puts us in their place, walking in their moccasins. What would I feel like if that were happening to me? How would I respond if ice broke my oil line, involving me in a massive environmental cleanup costing tens of thousands of dollars, and I found out the fine print in my insurance policy didn't cover it? How would I feel and respond if I were faced with that surgery, that excruciating back pain, that prospect of not being able to come back to my own home but have to go to a nursing home? Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (15:13) The Father's taking-pleasure-in-the-Son love remaining in us causes us to rejoice with those who rejoice, to weep with those who weep, to delight in a fellow-believer's progress. It moves us to stop thinking about just ourselves and think of us - together - as a unit. That's what moved the early believers to not view their possessions as their own but voluntarily plonk a portion of their profits at the disciples' feet for distribution to those in need (Acts 4:32-37).

        We see the apostle Paul pouring himself into the lives of believers in the churches he planted. He said to the Corinthians, "I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well.If I love you more, will you love me less?" (2 Corinthians 12:15) And to the Thessalonians, "We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us." (1 Thessalonians 2:8) Love mashed them together, the barriers between persons fell away. So Paul could say in the so-called "love" chapter of 1Cor.13(4), "Love is patient, love is kind.It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud." The other person matters so much to us, is so dear to us, we're no longer preoccupied with ourselves, we can be totally "there" for the other person. Far from being some magnanimous action of charity or largesse toward someone we pity but are partly repelled by, Jesus' love in us prompts us spontaneously to true compassion and empathy, "feeling-with" the other, wanting to share whatever we can that would help alleviate their predicament. We're "in it together". They're so dear to us, the cost of laying down our lives in that respect hardly even registers with us consciously.

Retrieving a Buddy

Stu Weber (Locking Arms) tells the story of the deep friendship of two soldiers in the trenches in World War I. Month after month these two buddies lived out their lives in the cold and the mud, under fire and under orders. From time to time one side or the other would rise up out of the trenches, fling their bodies against the opposing line and slink back to lick their wounds, bury their dead, and wait to do it all over again. In the process, friendships were forged in the misery. Day after day, night after night, terror after terror, these two soldiers who'd become particularly close talked of life, of families, of hopes, of what they would do when - and if - they returned from this horror.

        On one more fruitless charge, "Jim" fell, severely wounded. His friend, "Bill", made it back to the relative safety of the trenches. Meanwhile Jim lay suffering beneath the night flares. Between the trenches. Alone.

        The shelling continued; the danger was at its peak. Between the trenches was no place to be. Still, Bill wished to reach his friend, to comfort him, to offer what encouragement only friends can offer. The officer in charge refused to let Bill leave the trench. It was simply too dangerous. As he turned his back, however, Bill went over the top. Ignoring the smell of cordite in the air, the concussion of incoming rounds, and the pounding in his chest, Bill made it to Jim. Sometime later he managed to get Jim back to the safety of the trenches. Too late; his friend was gone. The somewhat self-righteous officer, seeing Jim's body, cynically asked Bill if it had been "worth the risk". Bill responded without hesitation, "Yes, sir, it was.My friend's last words made it more than worth it. He looked up at me and said, 'I knew you'd come.'" Let's pray.