"We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us--and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?" [1 John 3:16-17]
Lord, have mercy--thirteen-year-old me had it so wrong.
Maybe like all adolescents, eighth-grade me thought of love first and foremost in terms of feelings--or, more honestly, brain chemistry. Thirteen-year-old me would have said that you know "love" by that warm fuzzy feeling in your stomach, either when someone special walks in the room in second period English class, or the people in your family who make you feel good, too. (But of course, since this is junior-high we are talking about, it's not very cool to admit you love your family.)
Teenage me thought love was measurable by emotional highs and lows, like it was a matter of who made you feel extra happy when they lavished attention on you, or made you feel desperately low when they weren't in the room and you were left pining.
The writers of the New Testament (and the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures, too, to be honest) don't think or write in those terms. Love, to the biblical writers, isn't quantified in terms of how someone makes you "feel", or even how many milligrams of endorphins can be measured in your bloodstream. Love is about the conscious choice to give yourself away. And being loved is about someone else's conscious choice to give themselves away for your sake, too. Fluctuations in brain chemistry are simply not enough.
And that, dear ones, is why the writer of what we call First John can say that we know love most clearly at the cross, because it is in that event that Jesus "laid down his life for us." Jesus gave himself away fully, completely, and wholly--not holding an ounce back, but all the way to his last breath. And in a very important sense, Jesus had been giving himself away all his life long. The cross, then, isn't the only instance of Jesus laying down his life, but the epitome, the capstone, so to speak. But at every turn, whether sacrificing his religious respectability to hang out with the outcasts, giving up his time and energy when he was weary to his bones, spending his attention on others who needed him, or even in the end giving up his very life, Jesus was giving himself away all along. He didn't have to feel "peppy" about doing it, or have a warm fuzzy feeling about the people he was giving himself away for--I'm sure it wasn't easy, after all, to be praying forgiveness for his murderers. But the brain chemistry and endorphin levels aren't the issue--it is the willingness to put the well-being of others before your own, whether it is fun or easy at the time or not.
Laying down our lives, then, doesn't necessarily require that each of us has to stop breathing in order to truly follow Jesus' example. We don't have to die to lay our lives down--it might just be that we are called to the longer-term vocation of spending our lives for others moment by moment, year by year--in the ways we are dedicated to doing our work well for the sake of the people who benefit from our work, in the ways we give up our time and energy for our families, in the ways we put the well-being of others before our own. And of course, as John envisions it, others are called to do the same for us at the same time. So no one is meant to run dry or go empty--we are all continually emptying ourselves and being refilled by one another.
But notice here how John seamlessly moves from the love we meet at the cross to the love we are called to embody when others around us are in need. John says that we know what love is--what it really and truly is, and not the adolescent hormone-driven definition--in the way Jesus laid his life down for us, and then he immediately connects that with our calling to lay our lives down for others, including sharing our abundance with others. John even goes so far as to suggest that God's love can't really be in us if we encounter someone else in need and are unmoved to share our resources with them. Note here: John doesn't give a mention to how you "feel" about the person in need--he doesn't require feeling guilt, or pity, or condescension, or solidarity. Love is more than an emotional reaction--it is about the choice to give some of yourself away for the sake of someone who needs it.
Honestly, whether we "feel like" caring for others or not is irrelevant. The reason to share my table with another is not because I "feel like it" but because my neighbor is hungry. The reason to give my resources, or make room to welcome others, is not because it makes me "feel good" to do it. It is simply because the neighbor is the person God has sent across my path, and my calling is to give myself away to whomever crosses that path.
Today, the life-laying-down kind of love we know in Jesus also opens our eyes to see a million different opportunities for us to practice love all around us--where are there people before our eyes for whom we can give ourselves away? There is love. Just like at the cross. Today, how can you and I lay down our lives for the sake of others in our places of abundance? And how can we allow others in their abundance to lay down their lives for us as well?
Lord Jesus, let us love like you--really and truly.
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