Walking the way of love
When we think about the Way of Love that Jesus came to model and to invite us into, I think we all prefer the picture that Christmas gives rather than that of Easter. Here, the Way of Love becomes the Way of the Cross. At this time of year we are confronted with the cost of Love, what it costs to love truly. There is a common and current misunderstanding of love that sees love as toothless and harmless, a sort of doting senile comforting presence that we can call on when we skin our knees, need some affirmation, want help or assurance, a presence that always tells us we are wonderful. And we in our turn pay respect and homage to by invoking it during the sentimental seasons of our days and life.
This is not the picture of love we get when we follow the life of Jesus, especially during the days that lead up to Easter Sunday. Here we see love demanding the greatest sacrifice: holding to the truth and obeying the desire, wish, will of the one loved. (This brings us to another misunderstanding, it is not primarily Jesus’ love for us but His love for God; the love He shares with God that motivates His obedience and self-giving!) This is love holding to truth, because it is Jesus’ refusal to compromise the truth and witness of God in and to His culture that brings about the events which lead up to Easter. Love without truth is something else; infatuation, wishful thinking, sentimentality, nostalgia, all of which parade and masquerade as love in our current culture and, often, churches. Since Jesus refused to compromise His testimony to who God is and to what God is calling humanity towards — out of a love for God (and humanity) — His love led him to the cross.
Obedience to God — to the one Jesus loves — is the second important feature in this expression of love. We see this especially in the fact that the Gospels portray Jesus as provoking the antagonism that led to His end. In Mark, Matthew and Luke, the “final straw” is Jesus’ zeal for the truth which led to chasing out of the temple of God those who were trivializing it. “You have made God’s house of prayer into a den of thieves.” This unprovoked act of honouring God’s intent for the temple spurs the religious and political leaders of Israel into action, to get rid of this troublemaker.
We know the motivation was obedience in the intimate picture we get of Jesus wrestling with God on this topic — He asks to be “released” from His role in the coming events, but then He says: “Not my will, but thine be done.” Jesus acts not out of necessity, but out of a choice freely given. In this obedience to God He walks the road towards the cross and, by thus fulfilling God’s will, He offers to the entire cosmos the gift of God’s Great Restoring, Renewing, Recreating, Love. A True Love that calls forth obedience in true love, from those who would walk the way of love.
Rev. Oz Lorentzen is from St. Barnabas Anglican Church.