Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about loving like Jesus. It’s come up in everything from the letter from which I’m preaching on Sunday mornings (Philippians 2 at present) to our midweek small group discussions at church to even my recent dialogues about that controversial “He Gets Us” Super Bowl advertisement. I’ve been delving so, so deeply into what it must mean to actually, truly love like Jesus loved. The concept is under my skin in a way it’s never been before.
So as not to elongate this post any more than necessary, I’ll condense my recent musings about God’s love into the following paragraph: The love that God (as revealed in Jesus) had (and has) for humanity was genuinely no-strings-attached, all-inclusive, unlimited, unconditional, and not in any way dependent on reciprocation or expectations. And just as we wouldn’t want someone to equate a rebuke of sin with hatred, we shouldn’t equate love with acceptance of sin, either. Jesus is known for, and should be known for, his love above all.
Think about it
To wit, if you were to ask John, arguably the most intimate of Jesus’ friends, what the prime attribute of Christ is, he’d undoubtedly say “love.” From his Gospel account to his brief letters, this is obvious. Paul would agree, too — “owe no man anything, but to love one another. This is the fulfillment of all the Torah.” This emphasis capitalizes on a recurring thread of love all throughout the Old Testament which ultimately culminated in Christ himself: God and Israel, Ruth and Boaz as Bride and Redeemer, David and Jonathan as friends closer than brothers, and so on. Now, I recognize there’s a large swath of Christianity that would (intentionally or otherwise) put God’s desire for his own glory above his expression of love for us in terms of primacy or at least emphasis, but I would disagree. Love — the truest, most genuine love of all loves — does not require glory or “the reward of suffering” in return for itself, despite however greatly it may deserve it. It gives and only gives, whether it receives anything in return or not. This is love.
Paul’s own expression of this sort of love is captured in his letter to the church at Philippi; he wrote of being “offered” (Even novice Greek enthusiasts will rightly see this word spendo as being easily transliterated into English), a term we’d also translate as “poured out as a libation offering.” Just like the woman who broke the alabaster box over Jesus, Paul saw his life as a meaningful waste, if you will, a life that many onlookers would say was recklessly drip, drip, dripped upon the dust with nothing to show for it in return except a smattering of rag-tag assemblies of people in towns and cities bordering the Mediterranean. He didn’t profit from this unless you count multiple court dates and barbaric beatings as profit. That’s because he didn’t need anything in return. He was willing to be spent for others, just as Jesus was spent for him. This is love.
Interestingly, when Paul tells the church at Philippi that he’s planning to send Timothy after Epaphroditus depending on how things pan out for him, he describes Timothy as someone who would “naturally” care for their state. I’m not a KJV-only guy anymore for what I believe to be good reasons, but I think the older translation nails it here. The word for the kind of love that Timothy expressed is only found in this very place in the New Testament, and gives a sense of a love that says, “why wouldn’t I love this person?” instead of the more commonplace “why would I?” In other words, you needed to provide Timothy with a reason not to love, not a reason to love. And for Timothy, there appears to have been no reason to not love someone that would transcend the reason for loving someone, which is God’s boundless love for us, as seen in Christ.
Here’s a thought
As a somewhat relevant aside, I heard Tim Mackie say last week that while human depravity is indeed a real thing, it can be taken to an unhealthy extreme to the point where we miss who we really, fully are as humans. I largely agree. Though I fully recognize our fallenness and brokenness resulting in the need of a Savior, I think sometimes our tendency to look at ourselves as wretches and worms as opposed to deeply-flawed but brilliantly designed, exceptional creations of God might accidentally spill over into how we view other people. Think about it — if we disdain ourselves to the extent we think we’re worth little more than dirt, how do you think we’ll treat others? Such a paradigm is an unhelpful aberration of a doctrine of human depravity.
Keep in mind I’m not trying to displace Augustine or Anselm or anyone else here in a larger, more fleshed-out discussion of sin nature or original sin or any of that. My only point in this brief aside is that when I look at people now, I try to look deeper than “that’s another sinner in need of a Savior” and instead say “that’s an amazing person who desperately needs the Gospel; a person who has a story, a background, parents, a childhood,” and so on and so forth. In short, any doctrine of sin or depravity that reduces people to only their status is not well-orbed enough to be helpful. We need to see people as people. Only then will we be able to love them like Jesus did.
The point, please. My Ramen Is getting cold
My point is that I think it’s easier said than done. I thought I was doing pretty well at this until this morning at pickleball (yes, I’m an early-onset octogenarian. I figured since I already wear hearing aids and am most comfortable in a peer group above my age range, I might as well go whole-hog and embrace it), when another player reacted very poorly to my calling a ball “in” from the sidelines when it was out. I thought the outer black line was out, but I misread the court and the inner blue line was the actual parameter of the pickleball court, not the outer black line (there were a lot of lines since it’s a multipurpose court). I was totally wrong, and when someone else pointed it out to me, I quickly admitted my mistake, apologized, laughed at myself, and said something like “Hey, I was just keeping you on your toes” or something to deflect. Dumb mistake. Newbie. All good. Let it go. But this dude…he wasn’t having it.
Mad Max 4: The Pickleball conflict
He briefly chewed me out for saying “in” since I wasn’t playing at the moment, and he was so mad he couldn’t even speak straight. I thought a vein was going to pop even though his vitriolic diatribe only lasted like, 6 seconds. I didn’t respond well — I said, “got it. Since you asked me so nicely.” Which didn’t even make sense, since he didn’t actually ask me anything. Thankfully, I don’t think he heard me, despite the fact that I tried to make sure he did, because I shouldn’t have said anything. I know this. It was wrong. I was being a smart-aleck instead of being like Christ.
Then it swelled up, involuntarily — my recent forays into the idea of Christ’s love seemed to take on a will of their own and invade my mind. My reaction was to think about how Christ would have handled this and how he would continue to handle this. I began to think about this guy (we’ll call him Max, sure) and what his story might be. Max was really competitive; maybe his life stinks and this is the only place where he can feel like he succeeds. Maybe this is the only place where he feels he has some control. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t like the 37-year old playing on his turf where “hard knocks” is the price of admission. I don’t know. Maybe Max is just a mean ol’ guy. I don’t know. And that’s exactly the point: I don’t know. So I should have just shut up and loved him.
Like, really actually loved him. But here’s what’s frightening: when I began actively evaluating and scrutinizing my ongoing response to Max from the bench as I watched him play, I saw myself secretly, half-consciously wishing he’d lose the pickleball match. I became acutely aware of my impulse to smirk or inwardly cheer when he whiffed a ball or messed up a spike. I wasn’t over it. I didn’t love him. Not really. Instead, I indulged in a desire for carnal vengeance wearing a mask of righteous justice. I wanted God to pay him back for treating me poorly and not being gracious to my silly error. In short, I hated him, though I would never have called it that. I didn’t love him. I was his enemy rather than his friend. All because he lost his temper for a second.
Yeah, Britt, you kind of stink, dude
So I resolved — I will love Max like Jesus loves him. I will offer him a cup of cold water if he’s thirsty. I will retrieve his pickleball if it rolls by me, not make him walk to get it. I will be kind. I will be gracious. I will be gentle. I will be like Jesus. Not with the goal of “heaping coals of fire on his head” (one of the most miscarried passages of Scripture anyway) but because I want to love him with no strings attached. No expectations. No requirements. I won’t insist that he treat me right. I’m going to treat him right. I’m going to love him no matter what. Not tolerate him. Not put up with him. Not “grin and bear it.” I’m going to love him. Like Jesus did. No matter what.
In conclusion
I think this whole “you don’t have to like them but you have to love them” is, generally speaking, utter garbage. No, really, it’s nonsense. It’s complete and full galaxy-class foolishness. I challenge you find me the person who feels truly, totally, no-strings-attached, fully loved by you who thinks you don’t like them. It won’t happen. Can you imagine someone saying, “Jesus loves you. He may not like you, but he loves you.” That’s messed up. Jesus didn’t like sin, and we shouldn’t either, but we need to maintain a distinction between the value (love-worthiness?) of a human and the sins they do or don’t commit.
We should resolve to love people like Jesus loves them. Love that person fully. Love that illegal immigrant or drag queen or president or enemy fully. Love the person you mistreats you fully. When they yell at you. When they steal from you. When they hurt you. When they lie about you. When they mistreat you in any way. Look past the hurt you’ve received and love them. Look past the indignation you feel and love them. Cheer just as loudly for them when they win as you would for someone you “like.” Love them all.
Now, don’t pervert that instruction. This doesn’t mean not holding people accountable for their actions. It doesn’t mean not calling people to repent so that they, too, can experience the love of Christ. It doesn’t mean being “soft on sin” or any other other ridiculous assertion. What it does mean is that we don’t resort to vindictiveness and anger as a first response to being wronged. It means we don’t dehumanize people with whom we disagree. We love them.
As people who are being transformed by the renewing of our minds, it’s imperative to understand that loving like Jesus isn’t optional. It’s the very essence of what it means to be a Christian.
