What is love? A question dating back almost as far as 1993. No, but seriously, it’s only one of the most discussed topic in philosophy, religion and psychology. So what is it? It’s an idea present in every language and every culture the world over. Several languages have multiple words for it. The English language only really has one fundamental word for it: love. To adore is simply to love deeply, so it doesn’t quite count, in case you were wondering. No, our strongest feelings about everything from cheeseburgers to our favorite sweater to our brothers to our lovers all have to crowd under one tiny umbrella: love. But no matter how many words for love exist in other languages, the idea of love is universal. Or, so it seems. But the idea of love, despite having some bedrock commonalities across humanity, is being stretched and pulled onto things and places it doesn’t want to go. Places it wasn’t designed to. Places it doesn’t quite feel comfortable in, but many like it just so, so they intend to keep it there. Of course, I’m speaking poetically about the movement of words through cultural and philosophical currents. Love has been doing some real drifting on the waves as of late, but first, a real life example. Enough of this poetic stuff.
C.S. Lewis had a problem with a couple of words doing quite the same drifting in his day. Being both a proper Englishman and a scholar of the English language, Lewis held in high regard the necessity of precision in language (and a spot of tea at 3 P.M.). It was a dangerous thing to be imprecise with language, he argued, when we start making statements of status into statements of value. He cited the word gentleman. Gentleman seems inseparable in our minds today from nothing more than a very kind, well-mannered, chivalrous man. There is a spectrum of gentleman-ness. Some action could be more or less gentlemanly. That or this was not at all “gentlemanlike.” But, having studied the etymology of the word gentleman it originally wasn’t a statement of value at all. Early on in the history of the word, there was no more of a direct connection between being a gentleman and being a good person than there was between being wet and being a duck. Sure, most gentlemen were chivalrous and brave and loyal and so on, but it wasn’t a requirement for being a gentleman. Being a gentleman was a title, a status conferred upon you. You could be a totally selfish, unkind, bitter, evil person and still be a gentleman. Gentleman was an objective reality that did not have anyone as it’s determinant. One either was or he was not a gentleman; there was no middle ground. You either owned land and had an estate or you didn’t. No one would ever get upset if you said: “you aren’t a gentleman.” But, the expectations of being a gentleman caused some to “spiritualize” the word, as Lewis said. What really mattered was the behavior, right? That a gentleman was the image of a gentleman, yes? It’s not wrong to say that attitude is more important than title, sure. But they’re not the same. And molding the word gentleman to that broad, spiritualized definition, has now given us a word that Lewis called in his day “useless.” Anyone and everybody has their own opinion of it to the point where it isn’t even really able to be pinned down anymore. That’s when it becomes irrelevant. Fast forward to 2016 and “gentleman” is a joke, a byword for a young man doing a nice thing. It’s a token word of pet praise that at best women want in a man, despite being entirely unable to agree on one definition, and at worst is a kitschy joke. Now I really don’t care that the word gentleman has been beaten and abused into a deformed version of its former self. But a much more important word is in danger. As mentioned above, something similar is happening to love.
Love is also drifting on the ideological waves of time, and getting further and further removed from the shore. Love of course still occupies a very prominent place in our culture. It’s anything but a byword. It strikes terror and panic somewhere into someone’s hearts, and send hearts fluttering somewhere else, all on the same day and perhaps even simultaneously. But for too long it’s stopped being a statement of real and solid grounding of affection based on desire for one’s very best, and started being a mere verbalization of infatuation, attraction, or even manipulation. Today, love is stretched thin across many surfaces it was never meant to. Surfaces of lust, surfaces of petty one-night stands, surfaces of insecurity, surfaces of wobbling commitment, surfaces of understatement, surfaces of confusion, manipulation, and shallowness.
The bible is not silent at all about this. Love is a central part of the Word of God, and thus central part of Christmas. God, in essence, is love, as the Word says. While it defines Him, at the same, paradoxically, He defines it. So much so that the bible says He can give it. He can both actively love and exist as eternal and perfect love at all once. How is this so? This seemingly contradictory, difficult idea comes together in only one place. The Incarnate, fully-God/fully-Man Jesus Christ.
This Christmas, almost 2000 years ago, in a feeding trough for a horse, filled with hay for bedding, a poor, temporarily homeless girl of about 16 is struggling for her life to deliver the decisive, complete love of God. This is what the Apostle John meant when He wrote of the love of God. 1 John 4:9-10 reads: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Notice verse 10 there. That is absolutely crucial. That is the difference between understanding love and spinning your tires in murkiness. God is inherently love. It’s who He is. But seeing as He is self-existent, not needing anyone to make Him, He doesn’t need anyone else to make love for Him. Our definitions, based on sexual and emotional risings, on insecurity and skewed focus, will not suffice. Our deepest desires and passions manifesting themselves for any of a plethora of things is not love. God is love. So this last summer, love did not win. The love of God is taking away our sins in Christ, not paving the way for them to be easier, more convenient, and more socially acceptable. Yes indeed 1 John 4:8 says God is love. But 1 John 4:9-10 clearly shows us that Love is also God’s. God’s love is always telling us the truth and always looking out for our ultimate, eternal good. No matter how much our toes hurt in the process, no matter how much our hearts want to hate him and pull away from his holiness and purity, its for our good. And even more, He gives us a choice to make. To accept the singular, rapturing, all-encompassing love of God in cleansing us and repenting of our sins, or to keep trying to write the definition for love in the faces of failed lovers, systems, prophets, and teachers.
Our hearts were made to run on Christ.
Our sin makes us bound to run from Christ.
So Christ came to us.
In the heart of the believer, He is Immanuel.
Happiest Advent, and May God’s Love Shine In Your Heart.
