What do you and I really need? As the sun broaches the horizon each day, what will bring us to the end of the day satiated, our souls full and our lives fulfilled?
Jesus indicated that we need, above all, to love God, neighbor, and ourselves. Multiple song writers and movie makers, including Paul McCartney and John Lennon, try to show us that “all you really need is love, sweet love.” Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs certainly points to the significance of love as part of our need for belonging.
But what does it mean to love God, neighbor, self? Indeed what would it look like to love life? Or your spouse or dogs or nature or music? What would we paint if we did a portrait of love? What steps might I take, what settings in my camera, in order to photograph love? Would I take a picture of the sun caressing the earth with the first light of day? Would I paint a mother nursing her child? Or is love’s meaning as elusive as the breath of life?
I of course can’t answer the question of love’s full meaning. Paul’s attempt to define love in 1 Cor 13 shows clearly that we can only approximate the definition of this most significant quality of life on earth. That “love chapter” reminds me of a word from Frederick Buechner who points out that Jesus, in describing the kingdom of God, says repeatedly “…the kingdom of God is like…, or the kingdom of God is like…, or the kingdom of God is like…”—as if to say that you can’t really say what it is like.
Oh to be sure I reckon you can say a few things included in the meaning of love. Love for God would mean among other things that you enjoy God, listen to the One you love, walk and talk and laugh and cry and do life with God. And love for your family or your neighbor would certainly include responsiveness to your loved ones’ needs for fun and food and fruitful interaction. Above all it would I suppose be safe to say that love means presence. You can’t very well say you love nature, for example, if you sit in front of a TV all the time; love for nature or nature’s God or your family or church means you’re present in those beloved places.
But maybe, in the end, you can only say what love means and looks like by pointing to people who embody love. I can see love for nature in Ansel Adams’ photography; I can hear love for beauty in the music of Bach or Mozart; I can absorb love for God when I receive the bread and wine of communion; I can embody love for my dogs when I take them for a walk or sit with them as I read a devotional; I can experience love for my wife when I eat her biscuits and gently kiss her on the back of her neck with a “Thank you;” you and I can know love for God when we listen and learn from people who exemplify that love.
And perhaps the center of it all, the meaning of Christian love is seen preeminently when we turn our eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and find that all the vain things that charm us most dwindle into a mist vanishing at dawn, in the light of His glory and grace. Jesus shows what it means that God is love.