Today is the Day of Love as romantics everywhere celebrate their deep feelings with roses, chocolates, cards and jewelry. In the animal kingdom, however, amore is expressed differently. For one species of dance fly, the male presents a balloon of silk bubbles to his prospective mate while bowerbirds construct elaborate piles of vegetation that can be up to 6 feet wide and 3 feet high. Although I like the name, I’m good with candy.
What a blessing it is to have the capacity to both love and to sense love in return. Since the Bible tells us that God is love, this is obviously part of what it means to be created in His image. We love because He first loved us.
Sadly, our English language only provides one word for this complex emotion when four Greek ones are employed in the Bible. God is still the source of each but what they look like and how they are expressed are vastly different. While eros describes the romantic love emphasized on Valentine’s Day, agape is the term most used for God’s love for us and to describe how we are to love others. Agape wants and does what is best for others even at great personal cost or sacrifice. In order to keep eros from selfishly destroying relationships, agape is needed to selflessly serve and suffer.
Brother Myron Augsburger is a Mennonite pastor and author who has traveled extensively sharing Jesus with others. He once recounted that while studying at Richmond’s Union Theological Seminary, he had the privilege of hearing the world-renown theologian Karl Barth as he visited the campus. After his presentation, a student asked Barth to share the most profound thought that ever entered his mind. Barth responded, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
This basic rhyming couplet from our popular children’s song perfectly summarizes the Bible’s 66 books and encapsulates the greatest truth human beings can ever hear or accept. For when we do, it humbles us to think of our transcendent Creator caring about such a tiny creature of His design while also inspiring us to enjoy and live into His love, to love Him back, please Him, and bless others. Only when we receive and accept His agape love can we truly agape others in a similar way. God demonstrated His infinite agape love for us by sending Jesus to die for our sins and to make it possible for us to spend eternity with Him. That’s true love.
In 1 Peter 4:8, the Apostle uses agape to command us to, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” As I write these words, the snow is piling up outside giving us a vivid illustration of the second half of this verse. Just as snow gradually covers all the mole trails, frost heaves, and anthills, so agape love smooths out the shortcomings of others.
But snow does more, further illustrating agape love. Over time, the snow’s moisture seeps into the soil and softens the hard dry frozen earth steadily reshaping it. As it does so, it percolates down through the soil layers to refill the aquifers below. This process is known as recharge and replenishes the water in our wells we will need next summer to take showers, wash dishes, grow crops, and fill pools. This clearly demonstrates for us in the natural realm what God’s love does for us in the spiritual realm. His agape love percolates through our souls recharging our oft-depleted emotions enabling us to then love others. In a similar fashion, the love we show each other can have a comparable effect to sustain relationships during hot dry spells.
As we celebrate our love on Valentine’s Day, let’s remember God’s agape love for us shown most clearly in Jesus. Let’s allow His love to percolate through our souls, and let’s snow His love and ours on others as well. Loving blessings, George