Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
What is love?
I know there are some of you that read that and immediately responded “Baby don’t hurt me,” but the question remains: What is love?
The world says there is love for your family, love for your friends, love for your spouse, love for aesthetics. All different types of love based on who or what it is pointed at. Some languages even have multiple words for “different” types of love.
But this way of thinking looks at the bond more than at what love involves. Love is more than the person it is directed at; love takes form in the action. Love is not just the feeling towards another, but the actual serving you are doing towards another. Love forms when the person you love becomes more important than yourself and you act in response to that. Their needs outweigh yours, their struggles are yours, their success is yours. Love is acting in the best interests of another.
How fitting that during this “month of love,” on Valentine’s Day no less, when the world tries to paint love as transactional, or as simply emotional, or as something earthly and apart from God, that Ash Wednesday occurs. The start of Lent.
Lent is a season of repentance, of reflection. We reflect on the earthly pain that Jesus took on Himself. We reflect on true love. Not a love that requires something, that needs to be earned, but love that seeks out and serves the other, even at the expense of the self. Jesus gave everything – He became human, He went through temptations, He was punished, beaten, and killed – not for any of His own benefit, but solely for another, for the world, for you, all because He loved you.
We have one image of a true and perfect love – the love of God. There is no other type of love than this. Selfish love? Love that comes at a cost? Love
There is one type of love – the love of God. And that love is seen on the cross. That love puts others before yourself. That is the love that we should seek to uphold during February, and during every month. Love one another as God has loved you.
In Christ,
Vicar Boester