Christmas Magazine: "Love Is A Lot Stronger..."

Love trumps everything else--always. I understand that better now...because I've been loved longer. A degree of wisdom comes with long and enduring love. Love sees things the mind can miss.

It took me a long time to discover that love is a lot stronger than I thought it was. I was so busy practicing my religion, getting my theology right, teaching the truth, and working for God that I almost missed love.

I INCORRECTLY DEFINED LOVE

I almost missed love because I didn't understand what it was.

I've often taught on the "concept" of love, defining it in terms of what I had learned. The problem with propositional truth about love, though, is that it's not love. It's like the difference between reading a book on lions and meeting one, or between looking at an advertisement for Florida oranges and eating one.

The song says we're "looking for love in all the wrong places." I suppose there's some truth to that, but it would be more correct to say that we fail to see love in those "wrong places." Love is everywhere, but we can easily miss it. You have to have experienced the real thing before you can see it in the "wrong places."

I once saw love in a prostitute's weeping for another prostitute who had been abused by a client. I watched love as a gay man nursed his partner, who was dying of AIDS. A friend of mine told me about love when he went to bars because that's where his friends were, and he felt more comfortable there than in church. You can find love in a cult where doctrines are wrong, and at a party where drunks are cursing. You can find love in a racist as he watches his child being born. You can find love in a Muslim mosque where a father weeps for his son, who just blew himself up thinking he was doing it for God. I've seen love in a liberal church that was feeding the poor and in a fundamentalist church that forgave and restored a sinful preacher.

Sometimes love is masked by harshness, lust, and booze; but if you know where to look, you can find it. Love hangs out in brothels, churches, bars, and missions. Love is in the homes of the rich and of the poor, in the smoke-filled back rooms of the powerful as well as the smoke-filled back rooms of the unpowerful. Love is sometimes emotional and sometimes unemotional. Love is sometimes harsh and sometimes gentle. Love can be a mighty river or a gentle stream; but mostly, love hangs out in the "wrong" places...or else it isn't love.

What matters isn't where you go to find love; it's what you're looking for. It's not really the wrong place that causes you to miss love but the wrong definition. It's not what's in your head but what's in your heart.

If you can't define it with the experience of your heart, you can miss love. I know.

LOVE IS SUBTLE

I almost missed love because love is quite subtle.

Hosea is one of the great love books in the Bible. It's the story of how Hosea--a religious professional--is called to marry a prostitute by the name of Gomer. Needless to say, that's not the best career move for a preacher. (Just try introducing that new wife to the deacons or the Ladies Aid Society at your church.) But Hosea was an obedient servant of God and did what God called him to do. He married Gomer. Three children were born into that marriage.

Then she left.

I guess Gomer remembered the "good times," the parties, and the gifts. For whatever reason, she left her husband and went back to her old life. Hosea was devastated. I can only imagine he was in the process of healing when God came to him a second time. God told Hosea to go back into the red-light district of the city to find his wife, who, having hit some hard times, had sold herself into slavery. God instructed Hosea to bring Gomer back home and to love her. And Hosea was obedient to God.

Donald Barnhouse, great Philadelphia preacher of another generation, used to say that all of life illustrates Bible doctrine. He wasn't the first preacher to understand that. Hosea understood it as well and used his experience to illustrate an incredible truth about a God who loves those who are unlovely. God loved the "prostitute" (his unfaithful people) with a love that would never let go even though, like Gomer, they certainly didn't deserve it. Consider Hosea's wonderful description, a powerful image of subtle love: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them" (Hosea 11:1-3).

They didn't know?

That's the nature of love. When love comes with power and authority--with flags waving and swords swinging--it isn't love. Love never chases, it woos. Love never demands, it requests. Love never shouts, it whispers. That's why love is so easy to miss.

I have a problem with the Christmas holiday. And, no, it isn't what you think. What really worries me is that the love that came down at Christmas was more quiet and subtle. I think Christmas bothers me because it's too loud, too clear, and too manipulative. Love is far more subtle than that.

"God so loved the world," the Bible says, "that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16). Love revealed itself in a stable and completed itself on crossbeams between two thieves. Love came to a small town and to a people who were conquered and weak. Love is easy to miss because love is not a thing; it's a person. Love is God quietly touching a world that is filled with hatred, envy, and death--by taking on human flesh and dwelling among us.

Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends....No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends" (John 15:13-15).

We all live in the "wrong places." After all, it's the only place we can live. And love is there, but it's not until you've been loved by God that you see it.

I DIDN'T THINK I NEEDED LOVE

I also almost missed love because I didn't think I needed it.

Paul said that a person who's doing fine should be careful, because it's easy to fall (1 Corinthians 10:12). I did fine for only so long before the wheels came off my wagon.

The world in which we live is extremely dangerous. It's unforgiving, uncaring, and harsh. We encounter so much pain, death, and sin in the world that sometimes I can hardly stand it. The world is far more dangerous than I thought it was when I was young.

Forgive me if I sound glib. I'm not trying to provide answers to the problem of pain and evil. I don't have the answers. But I do know one of them. The world in which we live is the only kind of world where, when it gets dark enough, you can see the light. It's the kind of world that will cause you to look for something better. The prayer that falls from the lips of those who have felt pain, been brushed by death, and struggled with sin is both honest and powerful: "God, the ocean is so very big. My boat is so very small. Have mercy on me."

When my father was dying, his physician said to him, "Mr. Brown, you have about three months to live. We're going to pray, and then I'm going to tell you something more important than what I just told you." They prayed, and then my father's doctor told him about Jesus and Jesus's love.

I almost missed the experience of love because I was doing fine, thank you very much. It was only when I was no longer doing fine--when my sin had almost overwhelmed me and when I grew sick of the lies and the pretense, realizing just how truly helpless I was--that I found love. Or, perhaps, love found me. When it did, I realized I had always known there ought to be a God like that somewhere.

I THOUGHT I HAD TO EARN LOVE

I almost missed love because, once I knew I needed it, I thought I had to earn it.

Love, if it's earned, is not love; it's reward. Love, in order to be love, must be directed toward one who is unlovely. The Bible says, "While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:6-8).

Everything we know about the world suggests that if we work hard enough, we'll be rewarded. In school we did our homework, studied for tests, and were attentive...and got good grades. At work, if we perform well, we get bonuses, compliments, and promotions. As children, if we were nice, we got praised; and when we weren't nice, we got punished. I know, I know. It doesn't always work that way, and things aren't always fair. But we all know that it ought to work that way, and more often than not it does.

It stands to reason, then, that God's rewards are given to those who work hard at being obedient, religious, and pure. Right?

No! That lie is from the pit of hell and smells like smoke. Therein is the reason so many miss God's love. The church is the one organization in the world where the only qualification for membership is not being qualified. The less qualified you are, the more qualified you become.

Now, that's crazy. And it would make us more comfortable if God got it right. In fact, the church--God have mercy on us--has been working hard at trying to remedy God's error. Jesus came for the sick...but if you get well, he'll like you a whole lot more. Jesus came for the sinners...but if you want to be blessed by God's love, repent of your sin and get rid of it. Jesus came for the outcasts, the rebels, and the lost...but we, in our effort to fix God's mistake, turn them away.

The most important and difficult truth of the Christian faith is: "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (l Timothy 1:15).

For a long time, I believed the lie that if one is good enough, one can be loved by God. I still struggle with it. But when I believe that lie, I miss the incredible and unconditional love of God.

LOVE IS STRONG

One other thing must be said: Love sometimes appears weak because it's so subtle that it whispers, and because people keep trying to earn it and therefore never experience it. But love is not weak; love is a lot stronger than you think it is.

Paul wrote that three things will last forever: "Faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Love is incredibly strong because, once you experience it, you can never "un-experience" it. You cannot stop love, and you cannot keep it from re-creating itself in you.

John the apostle wrote, "We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment" (1 John 4:16-17).

Paul wrote that when God starts something in the life of the believer, he will bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6). What that means is this: what God begins, he always completes; so just the fact of its beginning is the absolute promise of its completion. That, of course, includes love. Paul also said that the love of Christ controlled him (2 Corinthians 5:14).

When John wrote about the incarnation of God in Christ, he said, "In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:4-5). "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known" (John 1:18). And John is the one who told us that "God is love" (1 John 4:16).

At the coming of Christ, love was let loose in the world...and nobody can stop it. God--the awesome and sovereign creator and sustainer of all that is--is love. God is not loving; he is love. God does not act in a loving way; he is love. God is not sometimes loving and sometimes not; he is love. The darkness has no reality of its own; it is only defined in terms of the absence of light. The Light has come, and everything that is dark will be destroyed in its wake.

Someone has said that as long as there are exams, there will be prayer in public schools. That's true, but let me tell you something else that's true: as long as there are sinful people who want to be forgiven, marginalized people who want to be accepted, frightened people who want hope, anxious people who want peace, and dying people who want life, there will be love--God's love, available to those in need.

God has also called those who know him to that same message--to live and to give in love. Only those who have been loved can love, and their love is measured by the degree of the love with which they have been loved. And here's what we know about God's love for us: "I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).

You can't stop love.

Adapted from What Was I Thinking? © 2006 by Steve Brown. Used by permission of Howard Books, a division of Simon & Schuster.