Love is for Everyone
What does it mean to be loving in our witness? Wow, what a loaded question in our world today, right? Loving has come to mean so many things. It’s become fairly common to say that we love our spouse and we love chocolate. Same word. Same expression and yet we mean something quite different. Hopefully.
Love has come be heavy with a lot of expectation. If I walked down the street with a camera and a microphone and asked people to tell me what it means to love others, I would probably get so many different responses and peoples responses would have extra things added into them to make sure that I knew that they were on certain sides of certain issues that are present in our cultural or political moment. So those extra things get tossed into the definition of love and sort of complicate and weigh down love. It’s hard to strip all that away and just get…at…love.
This is where scripture can be such a grounding rod for us. In John 15 Jesus says Just as the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; remain in My love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.
If you’ve spent enough time in church and you’ve heard enough sermons you’ll know that there is a difference between our modern English and the original language of the Bible especially around the word love – in Greek there is more than one word for love. Here, Jesus uses the word agapē which describes the love that God has for Jesus. It is a selfless love, it describes a sacrificial love, it describes a love that doesn’t expect anything in return, it describes a love that comes from a choice not an obligation and a love that is concerned with the greatest good of the other. Jesus says, that this is how God loved Him. This is how Jesus loved His disciples and this is Jesus expectation of how his disciples will love others.
Nick, does it really say that? Aren’t you stretching that original verse that you quoted? Sure, that’s how God loved Jesus and Jesus loved the disciples but is it really the expectation of how the disciples of Jesus should love others? Yes. John 15:12 – This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Must be one of those other “love” words, right? Nope, same word: agapē. Selflessly, sacrificially, don’t expect something in return, not out of obligation but because you want to. And that verse couldn’t make the expectation more clear.
Why should we do this? Why would Jesus want us to do this? Why would it be important for our witness to be agape love? Let’s allow scripture to be the grounding rod once more. John 13:35 – By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.Agapē. That is bearing witness. That is bearing a loving witness. That is bearing a loving, active witness.
We can add all our extra adjectives into loving that are rife with our cultural and political moments. We can fall prey to the powers and principalities of this world. We can decide that we’re tired of being peacemakers and loving our enemies and turning the other cheek. We can give our tithe so that all can see how giving we are. We can pray on the temple steps so that all can see how pious we are. We can speak in tongues and have faith that move mountains. But without love our witness is bankrupt. Without love we cannot claim to be a disciple. Without love we cannot claim to even begin to understand the relationship between Jesus and the Father. A LOVING WITNESS IS ESSENTIAL.
We have to remember that the job of Jesus is to sort our the wheat and the weeds - not ours. Our job is to witness and that witness needs to be loving or it is not a witness of Jesus.