Groundhog Day aside, this is the month we think about love. There is a special day to help us do that. On that day we think of love in all of its perfection and beauty, love that is endless, love that forgives and builds up, love that produces strong and lasting relationships.
I’m talking, of course, about Ash Wednesday.
During the season of Lent, we focus on the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus. We focus on our sins, the cause of His suffering and death. So where’s the love? It is seen precisely in the fact that God would enter our sinful world, take on human flesh, and suffer and die for the likes of us. “In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation of our sins” (1 John 4:10). That is love in all its beauty and perfection. As the marriage hymn says, “O perfect Love, all human tho’t transcending” (O Perfect Love, TLH 623).
Perfect love never ends. Paul asks, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” (Romans 8:35a). If I may summarize Paul’s lengthy and all inclusive answer: “Nothing!” (8:36-39) Love given through suffering and death is not love easily withdrawn.
Perfect love forgives. God’s love in Christ transcends feelings and emotion. It acts. It suffered the wrath we deserved. It gives forgiveness we do not deserve. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).
Perfect love “builds up,” as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:1. This love not only takes away the filthy rags of our sin, it clothes us in the perfect garment of Christ. Covered in Him, we stand “holy and blameless and above reproach before” God (Colossians 1:22).
Perfect love calls us into an eternal relationship with God. Even in Lent we are allowed to keep one eye looking forward to Christ’s resurrection and the new life He calls us to through His Holy Spirit. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
This perfect love compels us to fall to our knees this Lenten season, acknowledging our unworthiness to receive such love. It compels us to recall again the actions of that love in the passion of Jesus. It compels us into action ourselves to love God in word and deed and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
You demonstrate God’s love in action through your support of Lutherans For Life (LFL). Your commitment as a sponsor member flows from your love for God and your love for your neighbor. You have a true picture of the scope of those we call neighbor. You see a neighbor in the embryo of the womb and of the Petri dish. You see a neighbor in those whose lives have been disrupted by bad choices and a crisis pregnancy. You see a neighbor in those deeply wounded by their bad choices. You see a neighbor in those our culture would view as “better off dead.” You see and you act through your giving and through your kindness and love. Thank you!
Oh, there is that other “love day” this month too. You know the one, Valentine’s Day! It’s okay to observe that one as well. Expressions of love and romance are good for the earthly relationships that God gives us. So—especially you guys—don’t forget!