As my fans (Mom, that’s you) might remember I once posted about unrequited love on Facebook. Quite a few years ago my unrequited love and I went to a movie. There was a beautiful scene where one of the characters was going on about how much she loved someone who would never love her. I was caught up in the moment and deep in thoughts about my similar circumstance when the object of my affection leaned over and whispered “Wow, she really loves him and he just doesn’t get it”. I have never in my life (and keep in mind that I have three brothers who are expert button pushers) wanted to do someone physical harm as badly as I did in that second. I was angry, heartbroken, frustrated, hurt, flustered and wryly amused all at the same time. I was hoping that my tears would be attributed to the movie, not my wealth of conflicting emotions and by the time the credits rolled I had sorted myself out and was cool as a watermelon (I’m not quite cucumber shaped). Looking back the whole thing makes me chuckle but at the time it wasn’t a favorite event. Thinking about the state of my heart, I can say with absolute certainty that there was nothing Christ-like about me in that instance.

Many of us have heard the words of 1 Corinthians 13 over and over again. It’s a very popular passage in church, at weddings and anywhere else conversations of love take place. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” I was certainly not feeling kind and I was definitely feeling irritable to say the least, but John 3:16 tells us that Christ-like, godly love is sacrificial; “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.” and, sitting in that movie theater, my only thoughts were of myself. How does God do it, how does He love us even at the cost of His own son? John 1:10-11 talks about Jesus experiencing unrequited love, it says “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” The one who created the world, loved the world enough to come as a sacrifice, wasn’t recognized by the object of his deep love. I can’t imagine the intense agony of being so deeply rejected!

When you were little did you ever pull the petals off a daisy, playing “he loves me, he loves me not”? If you were anything like me you counted the petals to make sure you always ended with love. I imagine Jesus doing the same thing but I suspect it would sound a lot less like my childhood play and a little more like this: “I love them, I love them, I love them”. My love is sometimes patient, it hopes sometimes, believes some things and endures to a point. I will admit that there’s nothing terribly impressive about my love. The Bible is full of verses about love that I can never measure up to. How can I repay, with my frail, inconstant love, such vast, all-encompassing love? This is one of the many things about God that blows my mind. I can love because He loves me (I John 4:19)! God knows what it is to be human, Jesus walked the same earth that I do and He understands this life, both from the eye of the creator and the created. He knows that humanity cannot truly love so He equips us with the ability to love like Him. Hebrews 13:20-21 shows us this in Paul’s benediction “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” This equipping is further illustrated in I Corinthians 2:9-10; “But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.” I love the glimpse of this precious gift that’s given to us in Romans 5:1-5; “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”  God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us; it’s so amazing it needs to be repeated.

There are days when love is hard to muster. There are moments when it would be much easier to deck someone than to respond with compassion. In these moments, if we’re really listening, I’m sure we can hear the Holy Spirit whisper “I love them, I love them, I love them and because I love them, so do you”.