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I give you a new commandment, that
you love one another. Just as I have
loved you, you also should love one another.
John 13:34 (N.R.S.V.)
How many times a day do you say, "I love you?" I've done a little research on this and have determined that people can be divided into various categories. Some say, "I love you" many times. When one partner goes into another room, he or she says, "Honey, I'm going into the other room; I love you." I think this behavior is based on the theory that during the separation one of them might have a heart attack and die. It's nice to know that the last words uttered were, "I love you." Other couples virtually never say, "I love you" to one another. They think it's unnecessary, redundant. They said, "I love you" when they were married, and that should cover it.
Whether spoken often or seldom, we might ask, "What is being conveyed when we say, "I love you?" This is not an easy question to answer. Sometimes it is held that love is basically a feeling. When love is understood primarily as a feeling, one will frequently hear the following complaint from a spouse: "I love you, but I'm not in love with you. If I'm not in love with you, I need to fall in love with you all over again." Falling in love is thought to be something that happens involuntarily, like one might fall into a ditch. The absence of the feeling of love is felt by some to be such a severe problem that it is sufficient reason for separation and divorce.
I've also been doing informal research on greeting cards. I have discovered that there are several themes that are prominent in cards of love. One of the themes is, "dependence." A card will read something like, "I would be nothing without you. I wouldn't want to live my life if it weren't for you. As a matter of fact, if it weren't for you, I would immediately go to the nearest bridge and jump off." Why would someone want to send a card like that?
There's another theme in these cards: the idealizing of the beloved. "You are the greatest person since Jesus Christ." Sentimentalizing is also a frequent theme. Sometimes two or three of these motifs appear on a single card. I go through some of these cards and ask myself, "Who buys this stuff?" Dependence, idealizing, and sentimentalizing are sometimes thought to be "love".
It might be good to come out with a new line of cards. A card might say something like, "Dear One I Love: You really make me mad - quite often. Sometimes I'd actually like to slug you. However, despite the tension between us and despite the hostility I sometimes feel toward you, I really value your integrity and love" - and so on and so forth. We could call these the "realistic" card line.
The Greeks had different words for specific kinds of love. When they were talking about the love of physical desire, they would use the word "eros". They would employ the word "phileo" to speak of the love of friendship, hence our word, "Philadelphia", the "City of Brotherly Love."
Jesus said, "Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another." If one wants to speak of love from a Christian perspective, one looks to the life of Jesus. Sometimes young people have wrist bands with "W W J D". These initials stand for, "What would Jesus do?" These words remind the young person to live his or her life in accordance with the life of Christ. The word for love used in the passage we are considering is "agape." It is self-giving love.
Here are two characteristics of the love shown by Christ. First, to love as Christ loved is to sacrifice for the other. The word "sacrifice" has fallen on hard times. "I'm not interested in sacrifice. That's just a way to oppress me. I'm interested in self-fulfillment." Jesus did not go to the cross saying, "I'm going to the cross, and it's going to give me a great sense of self- fulfillment." I wish there were some way of tabulating how many hearts have been pierced, how many lives ruined, and how many families destroyed because someone was on a determined quest for self-fulfillment. The goal of self-fulfillment is a goal for a society no larger than one. As soon as a group is formed - a family, a church - sacrifice is inevitable, and sacrifice cannot always be equally shared.
Second, "Love as I have loved you" involves commitment. Jesus was committed to his disciples even though he often felt pain because of the disciples' behavior and ignorance. Many times relationships are sustained on the basis of sheer commitment. Maintaining commitment should never be done out of weakness or fear or because somebody is intimidated. It is a freely chosen path. Love as commitment in a marriage persists even in the absence of warm feelings of love. The test of love between people is their relationship when romance is gone. It is a commitment to regain something of the emotional closeness that may have been lost. This feeling of warm emotional intimacy can almost always be recovered in a marriage if both partners are strongly committed to this goal.
The question becomes, "Where do we receive the strength to love as Christ loved?" Jesus said, "Love as I have loved you." Christ not only gives us the model of love; he brought us this love. Christ has sacrificed for us; Christ was profoundly committed to us. We are embraced by the same kind of love that God calls us to show to others. We are given the strength to exhibit sacrifice and commitment precisely because these qualities have been extended to us in Jesus Christ.
Love in all its forms has its place. There is a place for feelings of love - even sometimes dependence, idealization, and sentimentality. There is an important place for the love of physical desire and the love of friendship. However, the love about which Christ spoke is the love of self-sacrifice and commitment. As Christians we are called to undergird love in its various manifestations with this self-giving, sacrificing, and committed love. May we both receive and give this love. Amen.
The above is based on a sermon given by Carl Bickel on May 10, 1998.
© 1998 Carl O. Bickel