I heard that fans of Star Trek tried to translate the Bible into the fictional language of Klingon…but they couldn’t do it, because there was no Klingon word for “love”. And certainly love is in the Bible quite a bit – we hear that word exactly twenty times in today’s readings alone!
A Christian’s love is different than a worldly person’s love, though, because a Christian’s love reflects God’s love. We can only truly love because He first loved us. We are able to love others because God first loved us. In fact, this supernatural ability to love like God loves is called charity. Charity is one of the “big three” theological virtues, along with faith and hope. In other words, these are virtues that direct us towards God. So let’s take a look at how God’s love is the source of our love.
First, God’s love is sacrificial. Jesus tells His disciples, “I give you a new commandment – love one another as I have loved you.” When we hear that, we probably think, “Why is that a new commandment?” After all, the Old Testament tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. But Jesus ups the ante – we shouldn’t just love our neighbor as ourselves – we must love them more than ourselves. God loved us so much that He sacrificed His entire life for us! So to love like God loves, we must be willing to sacrifice – and it starts in the little things: holding your tongue instead of saying a harsh word, letting someone merge into traffic in front of you, doing the dishes at home without being asked. These are sacrifices! And this forms charity within us.
Closely related to sacrifice is the fact that God’s love expects nothing in return. God received no benefit from dying on the Cross – it didn’t increase His glory, because He was already worthy of all praise. He did it for us, without any sort of benefit – and that should be our love as well.
Recently I met a delightful woman who took care of her severely retarded son for his entire life. She was telling me, “We were so blessed to have him for 26 years.” I thought to myself – “Blessed? Wow! Most people would consider that a burden, since she didn’t receive any of the typical joys of motherhood – she never heard her son speak a sentence, or go to school, or play sports…she never received a mother’s day card…he didn’t really even recognize who she was…but she considered his life a blessing!” That was disinterested, selfless love – love that looked for nothing in return.
Another aspect of God’s love that we can imitate is that God’s love is universal. God loves every single human being he created. As the old saying goes, God doesn’t make junk! Every one of us, regardless of talents or looks or age, is delighted in by God…His love is for everyone! Likewise, we as Christians must love everyone – regardless of what country they come from or what language they speak. Obviously you don’t have to like everyone, but we must be willing to give everyone the dignity and respect that they are owed because they are a child of the Most High God. Love that “picks and chooses” isn’t real love.
God’s love is also faithful – it never gives up. That’s hard, isn’t it? But God forgives us one more time…so we must choose to love once again. His love is endless – thus our love must never grow weary, either. When we were all children, our parents didn’t complain about one more diaper that needed changing, or yet another dinner that needed to be cooked…well, perhaps they complained a little…but love is faithful, day in and day out.
Finally, God’s love accepts us for who we are, but then challenges us to become our best. Notice that after Jesus forgives sins and welcomes sinners, He doesn’t just leave them in their sin – He always tells them, “Go and sin no more”. He is constantly inviting them to repentance. In imitation of that, we must say, “I love you for who you are – and I want you to become all you can be.” Ultimately, that’s what love is – willing the good of the other, wanting the other person to be fulfilled and happy and overflowing with life and blessings. We accept our spouses, our coworkers, our neighbors, our siblings for who they are, with all of their faults and flaws – but then we encourage them to be saints!
Of course, we can only love others as God loves them if we ourselves have experienced God’s love – not just intellectually, but actually having an experience of it. God delights in you. He rejoices in you. We must reject the view of God as a police-officer God who is only interested in catching you when you mess up. That is not God at all. Why would God create humanity if He were only interested in condemning it? Why would He die on the cross if He didn’t want us to be saved? His love for us is so intense that He hungers, He thirsts for you. God’s greatest desire is for you to spend eternity with Him – He would rather die on a cross than risk spending eternity without you – and He is orchestrating everything in your life: the good, the bad, and the ugly, to help make you a saint. The bad things in life are not signs that God doesn’t love you; rather, they are invitations to trust more deeply in the love of God that we see made real in Jesus.
So, let us recap. We must strive to cultivate the virtue of charity – that is, loving like God loves. This includes loving in a sacrificial way, with no desire for personal gain. Our love must be for all people and faithful, never giving up on them but accepting others for who they are while calling them to become saints. And we can only do this if we first have the love of Jesus dwelling in our hearts. The world needs God’s love – and with Him in our hearts, let us bring Him to them.
