I John 3:16-24
With
music and lyrics by Mick Jones, backup from the New Jersey Mass Choir, and what
one critic called, “Its dreamy,
hypnotic feel … due in part to Lou Gramm's soulful lead vocals,”[1] a certain 1984 rock anthem by Foreigner says,
“I gotta take a little time, a little time to
think things over
I better read between the lines, in case I need it when I'm older
I better read between the lines, in case I need it when I'm older
Now this mountain I must climb, feels like the
world upon my shoulders
Through the clouds I see love shine, it keeps me warm as life grows colder
Through the clouds I see love shine, it keeps me warm as life grows colder
In my life there's been heartache and pain
I don't know if I can face it again
Can't stop now, I've traveled so far, to change this lonely life
I don't know if I can face it again
Can't stop now, I've traveled so far, to change this lonely life
I want to know what love is, I want you to show
me
I want to feel what love is, I know you can show me …”
I want to feel what love is, I know you can show me …”
(I’ll spare you the
air-guitar solo.) Now, I know that’s a
corny introduction, but the question is really out there, in popular culture
and in people’s hearts: “How do you know what love is?” Or maybe I could rephrase it to ask, “How do
you know if you are seeing love or something else?”
I’m not a big fan of Disney movies of the past few years. They market to little girls in a shameless
way, and fill their minds with princess images that they may need to unlearn as
they grow older. It’s cute, but… Frozen, in particular, seems to have
caught the elementary-school imagination.
I will say this for it, though: Frozen
does have some substance and part of it is the way it addresses this
question. (Bear with me if you already
know the plot. I want to summarize it
for everybody else.) The main character is
a princess whose older sister rules their land.
The younger sister falls in love at first sight with a visiting prince
and asks permission to marry him. The older
sister says, “No, you don’t even know him.”
They have a falling-out over that, and there are complications that push
the ruling sister out of the picture and leave the younger sister to be saved
from dying by the kiss of her true love, which is how we all discover that the
prince really did not love her, but was only trying to marry her for her
kingdom. The older sister was right
after all. And, because this is a Disney
movie, there’s a loyal, slightly clumsy hero in the wings who has been
undervalued up to that point who steps in and saves the day. He restores the older sister to the throne
and marries the younger sister and they all live happily until the sequel comes
out in a year or two.
So how do you know that love, not just romantic love, but
any type of love, is genuine? According
to the first letter of John, we do that by measuring it against the love of
Jesus. If it reflects the way that he
has loved us, it is real.
“We
know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down
our lives for one another.”
[I John 3:16]
People do find
themselves unexpectedly called to risk life itself for one another. When they are ready to do that, look to see
Jesus’ love there somewhere.
Time magazine named as its “Persons of the Year”
for 2014 “The Ebola Responders”. The
article where they did that pointed out not just the horrors of the situation
and the bravery of the responders but also their motivation for stepping in at
great risk. It says,
“Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, says the proverb, but
rather the hero’s heart. Maybe this
is true in any battle; it is surely true of a war that is waged with bleach and
a prayer.
For decades, Ebola haunted rural African villages like some
mythic monster that every few years rose to demand a human sacrifice and then
returned to its cave. … This time it reached crowded slums in Liberia, Guinea
and Sierra Leone; it traveled to Nigeria and Mali, to Spain, Germany and the
U.S. It struck doctors and nurses in unprecedented numbers, wiping out a
public-health infrastructure that was weak in the first place. One August day
in Liberia, six pregnant women lost their babies when hospitals couldn’t admit
them for complications. Anyone willing to treat Ebola victims ran the risk of
becoming one.
Which brings us to the hero’s heart. There was little to
stop the disease from spreading further.
Governments weren’t equipped to respond; the World Health Organization
was in denial and snarled in red tape. First responders were accused of crying
wolf, even as the danger grew. But the people in the field, the special forces
of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Christian
medical-relief workers of Samaritan’s Purse and many others from all over the
world fought side by side with local doctors and nurses, ambulance drivers and
burial teams.
Ask what drove them and some talk about God; some about
country; some about the instinct to run into the fire, not away. …
MSF nurse’s assistant Salome Karwah stayed at the bedsides
of patients, bathing and feeding them, even after losing both her parents—who ran
a medical clinic—in a single week and surviving Ebola herself. ‘It looked like
God gave me a second chance to help others,’ she says. Tiny children watched
their families die, and no one could so much as hug them, because hugs could
kill. ‘You see people facing death without their loved ones, only with people
in space suits,’ says MSF president Dr. Joanne Liu. ‘You should not die alone
with space-suit men.’”[2]
There is no doubt that
people there were acting out of the noblest type of love.
In less dramatic situations, the
principle is the same. Again, here are
the words of I John 3:17.
“How does God’s love
abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need
and yet refuses help?”
The Bible says that over
and over and over in so many ways.
Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan. It’s interesting to recall that one of the
first responders to the ebola crisis was called, “The Samaritan’s Purse”. And the next verse,
“let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action,”
when the first college
chapter of Habitat for Humanity was formed, at Duke University in 1988, with
Foreigner still playing “I Want to Know What Love Is” in stadiums all across
the continent, the students chose to plaster that verse across the back of
their T-shirts so that it could be read while they were digging or hammering or
sawing.
So if you really want to know what love is, look where it
is most needed, and when you see someone sharing themselves, that is what it
looks like. And if you look and see that
no one has stepped in, don’t be surprised if you hear the Holy Spirit announce
that no one has responded yet because God has saved that job for you – with his
help, of course.
“And
this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus
Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him,
and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit
that he has given us.” [I John 3:23-24]
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