Thoughts on Love in an Age of Imitation
Christ Crucified by Diego Velazquez, 1632
We like to think that we Love.
We believe ourself Love’s source, its most upright and enlightened citizen—even as we peddle and prefer its imitation. We are preoccupied with our current state, our next benefit, our own promotion and preservation. We cannot distinguish Love from its worst counterfeits: attraction, addiction, attachment, disorder. Too often, the Love we profess is hardly more than a cloaked selfishness.
But to Love is to employ a higher good, to tramsmit an external force. An act of real Love is pure; its motives free of self. For Love does not begin in us, and it must not end in us. We can only work as a conduit of its earthly passing. Love is of a different realm, a realm outside of self. Love exists where God exists. Apart from Him, there is no Love; without Him, we are utterly incapable of its exchange: “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8).
God is Love’s source and form. To Love, we must unite ourself to Him. He made this quite possible. He came down from heaven and gave us His very nature—as both the way of Love, and Love’s example—in the person of Jesus Christ, His Son. “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 loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:9-11).
To participate in the exchange of authentic Love, we must unite ourself to Jesus on the cross. We must bear in mind, always, that Jesus—who is Love, incarnate—freely endured every abuse and died upon a cross for our eternal good. Did He have to suffer and die? No. But He chose to, that our charred souls might have access to heaven—not because we deserved it, but precisely because we did not. For this is the nature of real Love. And if we desire such a thing, we must fix our eyes and heart upon God, Himself, bare and bloody, staked in the suffering of the cross. For Jesus on the cross is Love’s fullest expression, its complete and unfiltered reality. There are no imposters, here.
If we can’t even stare at a crucifix, how will we find the strengths to carry our own cross? For if we are to truly Love, we must do as Jesus did and directed: “And he said to all, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it” (Luke 9:23-24). To Love is to freely bear the cross, denying ourself in service to God and His other precious children. To Love is to die—willingly, even many times a day—for the good of another. Not a physical death, perhaps, but a death to our our me-first, me-only inclinations. "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Jesus gave His life for His friends and enemies alike.
And we can be sure He will not waste or reject our honest efforts at such Love—no matter how poor. For God wastes nothing He is handed. To persist in Love, offering up the pain of this cross on behalf of others, is to yoke ourself to Jesus. It is to participate in His same currency of salvation, to have the hope of tipping souls into heaven by the effort and merit of the cross. For is this not the kind of true Love our hearts long to exchange—that we might Love each other into heaven, just as He did?
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34).
