Having grown up in Bulgaria, I remember that chewing gum with little cartoon drawings inside were popular back home (I do miss those!) When I was in middle school a certain brand of chewing gum was called 'Love is.' Each cartoon picture inside the wrapping was of a cute little boy and a girl blowing each other kisses, giving each other flowers, etc. Kind of like the ones in the U.S. that are made into cute statuettes (check out the Hallmark store.) Each picture had a message starting with 'Love is' and had different ending to the sentence. 'Love is watching the sunset together' or 'Love is caring for the other's puppy.' I collected all of them. It was all nice and cute. But the truth is that growing up I've missed the point about true love. In today's Bible reading, especially through the calling to serve, Christ reminded me of the love He is teaching us. Here are 3 things:
1. Love is child-like: free and simple
The disciples were concerned that the kids were disturbing the order around Jesus. They misunderstood. Jesus hugged the children and blessed them saying that the kingdom of God belonged to such as these. It was said at church yesterday that children just know forgiveness and know God. Their faith is not complicated, it straightforward. We, grownups, keep saying that we want to grow loving Christ more. But sometimes I think we just complicate our relationship with Him. This passage reminded me that our love for God and others needs to be childlike: honest, free, simple (clear-cut.) That is how Christ loves us too. Has His love placed conditions on us? Considering our rebellious behavior towards God, our Creator, we would think it would. But no, He waived all conditions for love by dying for us! His love is free and clear-cut.
The disciples misunderstood something else about God's Kingdom. They thought it would be glorifying if they would be exalted. James and Jon asked Jesus to be seated one at the right and the other at the left of Jesus in His Kingdom. But Jesus said that if we really want to be great we need to become the least:
servants, serving all. This is exactly how Christ loves too! He said: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Wow! This also reminds me of the nature of God being the Holy Trinity. As much as it is a mystery to me, I see ‘Love’ in it. God in three persons submit to each other in a relationship and yet are one - a perfect union. God teaches us how to love by ushering us into a relationship with Him and with others, asking us to practice servantship, and making us one with Him and with each other.
3. Love is lavish
Mary broke all social protocol! I remember that her anointing Jesus’ feet was against some social norm so I looked it up: women of her time did not let their hair down in public. This was considered disgraceful. In addition, Mary poured out an expensive perfume, a year worth wages, to anoint Jesus (I'm thinking of a gallon worth of Channel #5 right now!) This seemed to people as a great waste. But she did it all out of her lavish love for her Lord. This is how Christ loves us too, but with the magnitude of God. In His love He anointed us lavishly with his blood! (Which will read about really soon.)
These are 3 points about love I was reminded today. I promise you I haven’t lived them out in my life. I am not sure if we will ever master love. But I am sure that The Master loves us! I believe the only way for us to get close to true love is through Jesus Christ. And the big bonus of His fellowship is that we are being lavishly loved. For me, that is the one thing that drew me to Christ most.
- What can we do to have more childlike love for Christ?
- In our lives, do we find ourselves performing duties for God and others or do we find ourselves serving them?
- Like Mary pouring out the perfume she owned, do we each have our unique way of loving Christ lavishly and what is it? If not, let’s pray to learn to love Him back lavishly.
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