By Prof. Des Wilson
“If we say we love God, but hate others, we are liars. For we cannot love God, whom we have not seen, if we do not love others, whom we have seen.” (1 John 4:19-20, The Catholic Rainbow Study Bible.)
Love has been the theme of various homilies, songs, poems, prose works, letters and other scribblings or verbalisations by man. But there is a clear distinction between the love of God and that by man. In man, love has been defined as an intense feeling of deep affection. It has engaged the attention of humans, right from creation. As far as our Creator is concerned, He is the author and dispenser of love.
The Bible tells us that God so loved the world that He sent His son to the world to save mankind (John 3:16). And Jesus Christ, the channel for the expression of that love gave humankind a taste of that love which is often contrasted with the emotional feelings human beings often display. This is why God says that we must love Him with all our hearts and also love our neighbours as ourselves (Matt 2:37-39).
This love has some unique characteristics which stand it out from the promptings of the flesh which many have recourse to, but which they mistake for true love, that Bongos Ikwe yearned for in his song. This love which is captured in the Greek word ‘Agape’ is a selfless, unconditional and sacrificial love which is considered as the highest form of love in Christianity. Its key characteristics include the fact that it is; unconditional, steadfast, sacrificial and eternal (boundless).
It is a powerful, enduring force that offers all of us refuge, forgiveness, and strengthens us in a way that prompts us to love God and our fellow human beings in return.
The question that assails our sensitivities and beliefs is, Do we really love others as God loves us? If we do, why do we cheat and kill people as if these are the essential things we need to do for survival in this world? Why do pastors deceive their congregations to extort money from them? Why do teachers abuse their students as a written principle of success? Why do politicians misappropriate state resources to themselves so that the people can remain tethered to their apron strings? Why do we rig elections when we pretend to serve the people? No evil can be a substitute for good. These things don’t show love.
From what we know about human behaviour, the tendency for evil is inherent in all human beings, but it is the love of God through His grace that enables us to express this love through kindness, patience and near selfless giving, while seeking the well-being of the beloved, regardless of their unworthiness and the lack of the capacity to reciprocate.
This love is a divine, unearned affection that is deeper than human understanding. It inspires hope and transforms lives leading to a reflection that makes us think and believe that love is something that really comes from us without any spiritual mediation. But because we are naturally selfish, we believe, most times, that we are the only ones who can do for mankind what the Golden Rule says.
Love is a force that endures beyond time, death and any earthly power and postulations. It is transformative as it places us on a platform that leads us to forgiveness, and eternal life through righteous living in the manner Christ taught the world. Love indeed is based on action not mere words.
So when the legendary British singer Tom Jones admonishes us that ‘to live for today and to love for tomorrow, is the wisdom of a fool’, it is clear that love should be timeless and not limited to gains one might have in the future.
Shakespeare also reminds us in his Sonnets that love should not be constrained by human impediments. He says: ‘let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments; love is not love/ which alters when its alteration finds,/Or bends with the remover to remove. It is an ever fixed mark’.( Sonnet 116)
It is also to reflect the critical understanding of the role of love that St Paul waxed lyrical in his epistle to the people of Corinth when he counseled: ‘I may be able to speak the languages of human beings and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell’.
How many of our friends, pastors, teachers, politicians and rulers have ever measured the decibel of their phoney displays of love, and know it to be what it is: Noise? I therefore urge all of us to test our love with the example the Creator has shown us in this season when love came down to earth.
