The Love of Easter

It was yet another day that found me analyzing my relationship with my boyfriend. My idealism, combined with my selfishness and self-centeredness, has made for quite a dynamic romantic relationship. “Sometimes the way you communicate doesn’t make me feel like you care about me”, I complained him. He listened and then replied in his soft, even-keeled tone of voice. “If I didn’t care for you, I wouldn’t still be in a relationship with you. You can be difficult sometimes”.

Yes, I can be difficult. There is my almost constant analyzing of everything in my life and in his life. His life is under scrutiny dating me. From how he could have worded things better so he wouldn’t have hurt my feelings, and how we need to learn to manage conflict. There is always something that needs improvement! The constant analyzing and scrutinizing isn’t for a weak man. And then there’s been the more hurtful things I’ve said, such as “I’m not sure yet if I will be happy married to you”. For some reason I had this idea that my future husband would somehow be “everything” to me. This illusion led me to unnecessary discontentment and disappointment in my relationship – at least at times. But somehow, I don’t think I’m completely alone here. What about the single men and women who have spent years dating various people and yet can’t seem to find someone who meets everything on their ‘list’? Could the problem be in them, rather than in the supposed fact that God hasn’t brought them ‘the one’ yet?

You see our desire to not be hurt often leads us to control others. It keeps us from loving. We are afraid of being let down…afraid of going through pain...afraid of being disappointed. So instead of letting ourselves love someone, we try to control it all. We try to control the environment or the situation. Or worse yet, we try to control the person we’re dating. This control attitude could be manifested in your work as well. Maybe you control your co-workers. Maybe you make a list of rules for how a job should be done. I know I’ve done this in my love life. I had my rules and my ideals. I assumed if everything fit my ideals, I would have the perfect relationship. I wouldn’t get my feelings hurt. I wouldn’t ever threaten to leave my husband as I’ve seen other women do. I wouldn’t fight and argue. I wouldn’t have the issues I’d seen in other marriages that I feared and didn’t want to happen to me. And while there is an element of truth in the thought that rules can protect us, maybe sometimes we skew the truth and forget what is most important. Maybe we depend too much on our rules than we do on something greater that we need to come to know.

That something is love. That something is God’s love for us. That something is the power of true love that has its source in God. Of ourselves we can never truly love. We read about this love in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, what is known as “the love chapter”. First, Paul magnifies the importance of love. He gives various examples to do this, and then gives the ultimate example by saying we can even give our bodies to be burnt and yet, that will be useless if we don’t have love. We start to realize how worthless our efforts are when true love does not attend them, and then we get a definition of love. We read that “Love suffers long” (1 Corinthians 13:4).

Why must love include suffering? First of all, we live in a sinful world. As long as we are here there will always be pain, and there will always be suffering. Sin hurts, and we ourselves are sinners. Without the transforming power of Christ living in us, we will inevitably hurt others and bring some level of suffering into their life. But I believe the phrase “love suffers long” is an illusion to something even deeper. The fact that love suffers long tells us that love is something different than we’ve ever experienced. In any potential relationship or job opportunity, we look at how it will benefit us. We weigh our options and see what will cost us the least and reward us the most. But love is completely the opposite! It goes against our selfishness. It goes against looking out for ourselves. It isn’t something we possess, because we don’t naturally care for anyone except ourselves. And so, before we are told anything else about love, we are told that love suffers long. What does that mean? Well obviously, we don’t naturally want to suffer. But how does love suffer? Paul isn’t speaking about people staying in abusive and life-threatening situations, and he isn’t suggesting that we suffer just for the sake of suffering.

I didn’t understand this until after being in a relationship. He has “suffered long” with me. I could tell him everything that frustrated me about him, but he wouldn’t leave. I could take my anger and bitterness out on him, when he had nothing to do with it at all. I would blame him, and suppose he was the problem, when many times, it was something else. One time when I was sick and vomiting he came and stayed with me, ended up taking me to the emergency room, and stayed with me all night in the hospital. He got about two hours of sleep that morning before he had to go to work. That’s a form of suffering, if you ask me, because I value my sleep. I could go without telling him,“I love you too,” and he wouldn’t let it bother him. I remember him saying, “It’s okay, I know you love me you don’t have to tell me”. And after I broke up with him at one point, he didn’t hold bitterness against me. Instead, he looked at his own character to see what he had done wrong, and how he could love me better and win my trust back. His has been a love that, “Believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7).

As humans, we don’t like suffering. We don’t want to hurt. We don’t like giving of ourselves if we aren’t going to get something back. But the message of 1 Corinthians 13, the message of the Gospel is that true love is willing to give of ourselves even when it inconveniences us or isn’t always appreciated or reciprocated. The message of the Gospel is that love is completely selfless. In saying that love suffers, I believe Paul is trying to get the idea in our heads that true love gives without wanting to receive anything in return. Maybe it would be nice to receive something in return, but not receiving anything in return won’t keep us from showing love. Therefore, it is willing to suffer. This same idea was expressed by Jesus when he said, “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). I believe Paul is also pointing our minds to the Person who has suffered the most for us! He is saying: “Remember how much Jesus suffered? That’s what love is! He suffered and died because he loved us. Remember Him saying, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do’? Well, that is what true love is. And that is the type of love that you need to have for each other”.

This Easter weekend we are reminded of what took place at the cross. We see a love that was willing to suffer and did suffer. It shows us a Man who was willing to be spat upon, whipped, falsely accused, murdered, and rejected by his own people, because He loves so deeply and so perfectly.

Any true, genuine love is a reflection of Christ who suffered the most. It is only by looking to the cross that we can find a real tangible example of what true love is. There is no greater example of love. There is no better definition of love than the cross of Calvary. It is here that we are humbled. It is here that our selfishness and self-centeredness is exposed. It is here that the walls we put up to protect ourselves and keep others out of our lives can be broken down. It is here that we find true transformation and the power to love like Jesus. May the love of Christ touch your hearts this Easter, and may you be enabled to love others in a new, deeper, more Christlike way. Happy Easter!