Lent 4
March 26, 2006

Love Story
by Donald Hoffman


Art Linkletter used to have a TV show where he 
interviewed young children. They always seemed to 
say "the darnedest things." One time he asked a 
little girl of about 6 or 7, "What does love look 
like?" The little girl answered "It's when I let 
Johnny get in front of me at the drinking 
fountain line." Art Linkletter said, "Well, you 
must love Johnny very much." But the little girl 
said, "No, I don't even like him." [from a story 
on PRCL-L in 1997. Sadly, I didn't write down the 
source.]



Remember that little girl. Because I suspect she 
knows a little about what love is.



I nearly always point out in weddings that "love" 
is a confusing word in the English language. We 
use those four letters L-O-V-E to mean so many 
different things. "I love what you've done with 
your hair." "I love the mountains at this time of 
year." "I love my mommy." "Bye! Love ya!" Maybe 
we don't really know what love is.



And our ideas of love keep changing. Romantic 
love, for instance, is a Christian invention. 
Romantic love never really existed before the 
middle ages. But THEIR  idea of romantic love was 
completely divorced from sex. Dante Alighieri, 
famous still for writing the Inferno, was 
happily and faithfully married to the same woman 
all his life; but that didn't stop him from 
loving Beatrice "pure and chaste from afar." But 
go to any bookstore in 2006 and pick up a 
"romance" novel, and you'll discover that 
pure-and-chaste-from-afar ain't what it's about!



So it shouldn't be surprising that when we learn 
about God's kind of love, that, too, is different 
from anything that existed anywhere else.



God's love is different.



Now most of us know what our twenty-first century 
idea of love is. In addition to the sex, it is 
fuzzy, sentimental, unthinking, and unrealistic. 
It's exemplified by those greeting cards with 
pictures that are all out of focus. Romantic love 
assumes that when the right girl finds the right 
boy they will live happily ever after. (Yet our 
rates of divorce and separation and abandonment 
are the highest in history!) Romantic love now 
has lots of momentary good feelings but no 
staying power.



Thirty or thirty-five years ago there was an 
immensely popular movie called Love Story. It 
starred Ryan O'Neal. One line, one statement from 
that movie became so well known that everyone in 
America heard it over and over that year.



A couple years later Ryan O'Neal was in another 
movie. Barbra Streisand bats her eyelashes and 
quotes that famous line: "Love means never having 
to say you're sorry." And O'Neal responds, 
"That's the dumbest thing I ever heard!" He was 
right.



And most of us have experienced a different kind 
of love, which we often call Mother Love 
(although fathers feel it, too). This kind of 
love is protective, unwilling to risk, unwilling 
to trust, fencing in the beloved, never taking 
chances. "Don't ever cross the street unless 
you're holding Mommy's hand!" "Don't talk to 
strangers."



When it is at its best, Mother Love has the 
interest of the beloved at heart: "I don't want 
you to get hurt. It's a dangerous world out 
there." When it is at its worst it is grasping, 
possessive, dominating. I once knew a couple in 
their 90's who still dominated their 65-year-old 
daughter. It was very close to slavery.



God's love is different.



God's love begins with a gift: "This is how God 
loved the world," says that famous verse, John 
3:16, "God gave Š."



Well, we almost understand that. On Valentine's 
day, or your anniversary, or for no reason at 
all, haven't you wanted to prove your love with a 
gift-flowers, or candy, or a diamond ring?



And we also understand the desire to put our love 
into action. Real love has to be doing something 
for the beloved.



But the depth and intensity of Love is shown by 
the thought, planning, consideration, cost, and 
effort behind the gift. And compared to God's 
gift, all other gifts become minuscule, invisibly 
small. This gift is enormous! This gift is 
humonguous! This gift is incredibly extravagant!



Not Imelde-Marcos's-shoe-collection extravagant! 
More than that! Not King-Tut's-Treasure 
extravagant! More than that!  Not 
half-my-kingdom-and-the-hand-of-my-daughter-in-marriage 
extravagant! More than that! Much much more than 
that!



God's divine love took incredible risks, awesome 
chances. This was God's only son. He should have 
been fenced into the back yard. He should have 
been warned about crossing the street. He should 
have been surrounded by legions of angels, 
bearing him up in case he might stub his toe 
against a stone.



What kind of parent was God to not protect the 
only son? What kind of love was this?



At the end of it all, we just don't understand. 
"God so loved the world, that God gave God's only 
Son Š."



We can't even get out of it by saying, as I've 
heard people say, "Well, God was planning to 
raise Jesus from the dead," as if the torture and 
pain and suffering didn't matter.



But even assuming all that, this was something 
God had never done before. God didn't know FOR 
SURE  that Jesus could be raised. God didn't know 
FOR SURE  that God could die and come back to 
life. God was taking an incredible risk.



Love is lots more complicated than our movies and 
novels and 55-minute TV shows can wrap up. Even 
while we're learning love from God, we know we'll 
never completely understand.



And the existence of that love, the giving of 
that divine gift, forces us to choose. Not so 
much because God is a jealous God, as we read so 
often in the Hebrew scriptures, giving a gift and 
demanding allegiance. No the choice is inherent 
in the gift.



Suppose you're given a boat. You can't use it 
unless you get it wet. As the teenagers say, "Uh, 
duh!" Boat ... wet ... they sort of go together, 
don't they? Wetness is inherent in the gift.



Suppose you're given tickets to the Spokane 
Symphony. You can't go and simultaneously attend 
a Gonzaga game. Uh, duh!



You can't be in two places at once. Choosing 
heaven forces you to give up hell. Turning on the 
light drives out the darkness. "You can't serve 
God and money." You can't pledge allegiance to 
two different countries.



The Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke seem to 
picture a great courtroom scene at the end of 
history heaven, where the Righteous Judge will 
judge each of us. The Gospel of John seems to 
indicate that the judgment takes place in this 
world, has already taken place, and that you and 
I are our own jury and our own judge. No one is 
thrown into hell or snatched into heaven. 
Everyone of us walks into one or the other with 
our eyes open.



There is definitely nothing "pure and chaste from 
afar" in this kind of love or in responding to 
it. You are forced to live in the real world of 
choices  that really affect your life. The gift 
has already been given, the love has already been 
communicated to you. You can no longer be 
indifferent. "Not to decide is to decide." "I 
won't commit myself," is a commitment. 
Agnosticism does not exist.



I'm sure you've seen the guy at the ball games 
who held up the hand-lettered sign:



       John 3:16



I know it's irritating. I know it's simplistic. 
I've even heard that it had no spiritual motive 
but the desire for attention. Still, I can 
sympathize with the idea. It reminds us of the 
gift. It reminds us of the love. It makes us 
confront our choice, our judgment. How do we 
respond to the knowledge that God loved us when 
we were unlovely and unlovable? Will we walk into 
the light, or hide in the darkness?



Max Lucado tells a story in his book A Gentle 
Thunder. A friend of Lucado's named Kenny had 
just returned with his family from Disney World.



       "I saw a sight I'll never forget," Kenny said. "I want you to know

       about it." He and his family were inside Cinderella's castle. It was



       packed with kids and parents. Suddenly all the children rushed to

       one side. Had it been a boat, the castle would have tipped over.

       Cinderella had entered.



       Cinderella. The pristine princess. Kenny said she was perfectly

       typecast. A gorgeous young girl with each hair in place, flawless

       skin, and a beaming smile. She stood waist-deep in a garden of

       kids, each wanting to touch and be touched.



       For some reason Kenny turned and looked toward the other side

       of the castle. It was now vacant except for a boy maybe seven or

       eight years old. His age was hard to determine because of the

       disfigurement of his body. Dwarfed in height, face deformed, he

       stood watching quietly and wistfully, holding the hand of an

       older brother.



       Don't you know what he wanted? [Lucado asks.] He wanted to

       be with the children. He longed to be in the middle of the kids

       reaching for Cinderella, calling her name. But can't you feel his

       fear, fear of yet another rejection? Fear of being taunted again,

       mocked again?



Don't you wish Cinderella would go to him? Guess what? She did!



       She noticed the little boy. She immediately began walking in

       his direction. Politely but firmly inching through the crowd of

       children, she finally broke free. She walked quickly across the

       floor, knelt at eye level with the stunned little boy, and placed a

       kiss on his face.



God does the same thing for us. God comes to us. 
God gives that gift to us. God proves God's love 
for us in that while we still were sinners Christ 
died for us. (Rom. 5: 7-8.)

--
(Comments to Don at crestnch@televar.com.)
Creston Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Creston, WA, USA