Arundhati Roy's Booker prize-winning novel, The God of Small Things, begins with the preamble '..it really began in the days when the love laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.' What sort of love has laws attached to it, I ask myself. Answer: the humanly kind. Mostly the love we have for someone else has conditions attached to it, just like the laws of nature. We love a person only if he satisfies those conditions. If you do this I'll do that. We are nice to the people that are nice to us, we like people that like us, we greet, visit and talk to people that do likewise, and we love people that love us, or more rightly, appear to do so. And what happens when we don't get what we expected in return? We get hurt and we draw away from the person. We begin to love them less until hate replaces love. Popular culture, tv shows and books have us believe that this is what love is, and for it to be bounded by conditions is perfectly normal, positive and healthy even.
Yet, the Bible paints a very different picture of what love is and what it means to love. This is the other kind of love, the divine kind. Christian Love. Christian, because it is the only way you could ever have it. Divine, because it all starts with God; you cannot love like God if you have never experienced what it means to be loved by God.
1 Corinthians 13 is a very popular passage that gives one of the most eloquent and profound definitions of love ever written '..And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.'
Love never fails. Divine love, Christian love never fails. Why? Simply because it is unconditional. It is not bounded by your performance; how well you fulfil the requirements. God loves us not because of who we are or what we've done, but because of who He is. There is absolutely nothing we can do to make him love us more, or less, His love is steadfast, never ceasing. Unconditional.
Most Christians fully realise and appreciate all this. But here's the thing: if we believe God lives in us, how often do we show God's love, which is also in us, towards the people He created? How often have I done something without expecting anything in return? Very seldom, I have to confess. Most of the time my love for someone depends on how they treat me or what they have done/will do for me. Jesus told his disciples "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35). Not by what you teach and preach, not by how you worship and pray, not by your good works, but simply by your love. I ask myself, when people see me love, do they see who's disciple I am, do they see Jesus, can anyone distinguish my Christian love or unconditional love from the ordinary one? If not, then I need to be worried, very worried about what sort of Christ I claim to be following.
Could it be done? There are countless known (and countless more unknown) Christians throughout the world who make sure the world sees how their love is different, who are truly ‘shinning lights’ in a very dark world. Mother Teresa is very well known. Once a teacher to children of the dignitaries of India, she chose spend her life on the streets, showing God’s love to millions of poor, sick, homeless, and orphaned. And then there is Uncle John M., a missionary to Pakistan, who is not so well known. Had we wanted, he could have earned himself the Nobel Prize in physics by now. Yet, compelled by God's love, he has been on the dusty streets of Pakistan for more than forty years, telling people how much God loves them. I don't think he's ever expected anything in return.
If they can do it, so can I. So can anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ. Love shines through, love never fails, but only when its unconditional. I want to be showing that.
