World's Greatest LOVE story

Contributed the following article to the February 2012 issue of VANAMUTHAM,

a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,

that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.

 

Romance has been fantasized across centuries.  Anyone who is in love feels that he has obtained the ultimate. He cares about nothing other than being with the one he is in love with.  He often forgoes food to be on time where his ‘love’ is expected to be, foregoes sleep thinking about all the ‘sweet little nothings’ that they exchanged over their last meeting and conjuring what he should speak when they meet again, and often forgoes a lot of his duties, be it at the workplace or school, and at home.  On the other hand, most people who have never fallen in love wonder if ever such a ‘love relationship’ will come their way.  That is one reason why masses throng to watch love stories in theatres, to vicariously experience ‘love’, although in the lives of a strange couple and that too fictitious.

Anyone who is bugged by romantic love forgets that he too had been born a baby someday, had longed for the loving attention of his parents and then wanted the joyful company of friends as he began to spend more time away from home since going to school.  Just as with romance, only some have got to experience the love of their parents and friends, while for others it had always been a ‘Mirage’ - a dream that never materialized.  Often children born to working couples, envy their friend who is received at home by his mom and entertained with an evening snack.

Most of us grow past our longings for love from parents, friends and even the romantic love and desire the mature love of a spouse.  Love of someone who is not always in awe of your charm and strength, but who loves you despite your shortcomings.  Someone who accepts you as you are and for who you are.  Experience is not the same in the marital landscape too.  Some come across as ideal couples, always proud of the other and always nice to the other.  However, most couples struggle to get along in their private lives, even when signs of strain do not show up outside.  There is a silent longing if this is what married life is all about.

LOVER PAR EXCELLENCE

Whatever your age is and your experience has been in your childhood, growing years, adolescence and adult life, you need to know that there is one who has always loved you.  He has loved you more dearly than a parent, longed to have a relationship more eager than a doting lover, and ever willing to support you several times over the most understanding spouse.

He is the God about whom it is said that he is LOVE personified.  Though we will not understand Trinity on this side of glory, we can see that there is love and community in the Godhead from eternity to eternity.  After the last supper on his way to Gethsemane Jesus makes these astounding statements while he prays.  He prays that “all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you” (John 17:21).  He tells the Father, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:22,23).  At the beginning, before He created earth and put man on it, we see that God said, “Let us make man in our image” (Gen 1:26).  We see of the Son of God harking back to the creation time, “Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him” (Prov 8:30).  Jesus is spoken of as the Only Begotten, who is in the bosom of the father (John 1:18, KJV).

This God who is Love, Joy and self-sufficient, decided to create man and love him as a Father, as a doting lover, and as his Husband.  He has across time spoken to man in endearing terms.  In Moses’ time, about 15 centuries before Christ, we see him talking to the Israelites, “There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”

During Hosea’s time, about 7 centuries before Christ, he said of his people, “I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. . . In that day, you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.”  During Ezekiel’s time, while Judah had walked away from God and was in captivity in Babylon, he reminisced, “I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, and you became mine. . . I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. I adorned you with jewelry” (Eze 16:8, 10, 11)

This love for man cost him everything.  We see that Jesus Christ who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness (Phil 2:6,7).  The Lord washed the feet of his disciples; the Master washed the feet of his servants.  As a matter of fact, He said that He no longer called them servants, “because a servant does not know his master’s business.” Instead, He called them friends, for everything that He learned from His Father He had made known to them. (John 17:14, 15).  We find that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that we through his poverty might become rich (II Cor 8:9).  To be reunited in fellowship with his Creation, he chose the path of humiliation on the cross.   Sin is real and a just God had to rightly deal with it.  Ahead of walking to the cross, He laid open his heart to show man the full extent of his love (John 13:1).  He declared his love, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit” (John 15:13, 16).  He cried at the thought of separation from God, and had to walk alone through that valley, so you and I do not have to be strangers to God and feel the pangs of separation.

CONSTANT COMPANION

The Lord who lives in unapproachable light whom no man can see (I Tim 6:16), who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens (Heb 7:26), had to himself make us holy so he can live inside us and make our bodies his temple.  The Lord who rent the heavens to come down to walk alongside man, yearns to live inside of us, even as much as anyone who understands the glory of having him on his side yearns for such fellowship.

On the eve of crucifixion, he told such men who were crest-fallen about his impending departure, “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. . .  I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him . . . we will come to him and make our home with him. . . The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 13:33; 14:16-21, 23, 26)

“I am going away and I am coming back to you. . . It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment . . . a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me. . . Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” (John 14:28; 16:7,8, 16, 22)”

TODAY, HE LIVES THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT INSIDE ANYONE WHO IS WILLING TO ACCEPT HIS LOVE.  WILL YOU INVITE HIM TO COME INSIDE YOU AND BRING HIS JOY AND PEACE TO FILL YOUR HEART?