Wednesday, 01 October 2008

Thoughts On Love

No, not that kind. Something much greater. One of the things that I appreciate when I'm at Hope College or Center Lake Bible Camp is that the gathering of believers in one place often invites deep conversations about anything, but especially theology. I soak that stuff in like a sponge. I realize now that wherever I end up once I'm on my own, teacher or whatever, that's something I'm going to seek.

A bit of Center Lake came to Ludington a little over a week ago, and it was a blessing to spend time around my friends, even if we didn't do all that much. One of the things I've seen in this past summer's SMTs is they're thinking, growing, and seeking to grow in Christ. I witnessed at camp a couple times the types of discussions that ordinarily I would only take on with the likes of the Bible Studs, which impressed me. They weren't afraid of the heftier stuff from the Bible and to take on the bigger questions (example: would God love Satan? Oh, and let's talk about why.) and really sit down and think about something, look at the different viewpoints, argue and debate, maybe not necessarily agree, but just THINK. I still laugh the first time Isaiah and Andrew cornered me with that question when I was on break. I definitely didn't finish my letter to Ross that afternoon, but it was one of the best-spent breaks all summer.

It happened again in Ludington-a real whopper of a discussion, with a conversation that actually spilled over into the biggest Facebook message thread I've ever seen. What is love, in the context of Christanity, God, and Christ?

We stayed up too late, talked too long, and wandered too much between topics, and never seemed to find a definitive answer. So what to do? Isaiah and I have what I call the longest Facebook message exchange. It was grand. For simplicity's sake, I'm not going to even try and delineate who came up with what thoughts. It was definitely between two people firing on all cylinders as they thought this through and it was the second time around after an intense discussion between anywhere from three to six or seven people.

Love is a tough to define. Is it an action? A noun? Both? Something different? Something even more nebulous than that? My initial thoughts were to simply look at Christ because as I was reminded by a professor at Hope, the best example of life and how life is supposed to be lived is Christ. He is, after all, the only example we have of what a sinless life looks like. Adam and Eve would have had that, had they not messed it up. The critical difference is, however, Adam and Eve are not God incarnate. Therefore, there is a different dimension of love embodied in Christ and Adam and Eve, had they still been without sin, still could not have possibly known themselves, simply because they are not God. What also makes their love different is the love they had for one another as husband and wife. As a man, Jesus never had a wife. While He DID embody perfect love, it is fair to say that we saw no examples of Him directly loving a woman how a man loves his wife. The closest thing is the love God has for His people, His Church, the Bride. It's even greater than the love two people have for one another, but again... it's still different. So once again, we're back where we started, to the big question: what is love? The great mystery. O magnum mysterium.

The big argument on the beach was action (verb), commitment (noun), or emotion (something possibly between the two). Love is definitely a guarantee as part of God because who He is, as demonstrated by His forgiveness of sinners, with Christ right in the middle. Forgiveness is an action, but what would drive that? Perhaps emotion, but we also have to remember God's emotions are not the same as human emotions. Human emotions can be incredibly impulsive and blow with the wind (think of the temperamental child and you get the picture). Though we don't have a God who is cold as ice and feels no emotions, He isn't like us, either. His wisdom is infinitely greater than ours, so anything with emotions has to be considered differently, though emotions could be considered to drive God's actions (though understanding them is a challenge in and of itself). See how the combination of God's infinite knowledge and wisdom, combined with the emotions operating on a different level makes things difficult?!

Jesus definitely showed emotions in chasing the moneylenders out of the Temple. God was angry when flooding the world when the people were sinning. Then there's commitment... how would that work? By not abandoning His people? He made that promise more than once, both to the Israelites in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy and by Jesus in Matthew. It's pretty clear, and the commitment is whole-hearted. As the Bible shows us, when the Israelites followed His commands, they were blessed. When they turned away, they also were punished. God's commitment is completely there, and it drives His actions, whether it be blessing or judgment.

That said... it's probably so multi-faceted that trying to peg it with any one term is so unfair that it would never do it justice. That and the Bible pretty much gives us the heads up that since it's an attribute of God, it's likely going to be hard to define. Jesus will be a good clue since he taught us HOW to love, but since He Himself is fully God (indeed), and fully human (you better believe it!), well... but since He IS God, we're back where we started. See?! This is tough! Love, as viewed through the lens of Christ, God, and Christianity, is near impossibly to nail down with a good, clear definition.

Another mystery we'll have to be just merely okay with waiting until Heaven to perhaps have the answer revealed. If we bother to ask God while we're there, that is.