The Love Candle
Dr. Larry Thorson
John 3:16; I Corinthians 13
John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and
only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
I Corinthians 13
1 If I
speak in human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am only a resounding
gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all
mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but
do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give
over my body [to hardship] that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain
nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not
proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily
angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but
rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres.
8
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there
are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes,
what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I
thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the
ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a
mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know
fully, even as I am fully known.
13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is
love.
Today’s New
International Version Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society
Each Sunday I’ve been talking about a
different candle in the Advent Candle wreath and what it stands for. The Advent Candle wreath is designed to help
us get ready to celebrate the birth of our Savior and every week each candle
has a different word associated with it.
Hope, peace and joy are the first three candles. .
Today we look at what I call the love
candle. Now that title may give it a
different connotation than should be talked about in a worship service. That’s unfortunate but the word love is too
often associated in our culture with sex.
For example if we talk about someone making love to someone we’re not
talking about them sending a Valentine’s card.
But defining love is not so simple. Charlie Brown, the cartoon character tried to
take a stab at defining love when Lucy said to him "Explain love to me,
Charlie Brown", Charlie says. "You can't explain love. I can
recommend a book or a poem or a painting, but I can't explain love." Lucy
comes back, "Well, try, Charlie Brown, try." As is always the case, Charlie can't resist
doing what Lucy tells him to do, so he says, "Well, let's say I see this
beautiful, cute, little girl walk by."
Again, typically, Lucy interrupts...
"Why does she have to be cute?, huh?, why can't someone fall in love with
someone with freckles and a big nose? Explain that!" Poor Charlie says, "Well, maybe you are
right. Let's say I see this girl walk by with this great big nose...". But
Lucy interrupts again, "I didn't say great big nose." Well, by this
time Charlie Brown has had enough. He sighs that typical, woe is me sigh and
says, "You not only can't explain love, you can't even talk about
it."
The Greeks actually had at least four
words for our one word love which made things a lot easier. They had the word “storge”, which is a fondness through familiarity, especially between family
members or people who have otherwise found themselves together by chance. C.S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves says that affection or storge love has the
appearance of being "built-in" or "ready made", and as a
result people come to expect, even to demand, its presence—irrespective of
their behavior and its natural consequences.
For example a father might expect his son to love him just because he’s the
boy’s father regardless of his actions.
The Greeks also
had the word
“philia” which means friendship or brotherly love. It’s where we get the name
They had the word “eros” which means
passionate love with sensual desire and longing. It’s where we get the word “erotic”
from. That word has most often been associated
with the sex industry. The philosopher
Plato redefined the word to mean an appreciation of someone’s inner
beauty. That’s where we get the word
“platonic relationship” meaning a relationship without sex. Eros love was love that lasted only as long
as it brought pleasure.
Finally the Greeks had the word “agape”
which referred to a general affection rather than an attraction like eros
love. Agape love loves even when someone
has been mean to you. It loves despite
the circumstances.
My wife and I were friends in a Presbyterian
church college group where we met when we were in college. I had a philia love for her in our junior
year. We usually talked at church, hung out
at the same places as the other students, even went hiking together once when I
made a bunch of ridiculous promises like I’d come see her that summer and never
did. At that point it was clearly friendship
love and nothing more.
In the spring of our senior year
something clicked in my head and my heart that I wanted to marry her only we
hadn’t really been dating. Ok, that’s
tricky. I told the family that I was
staying with that I planned to propose to Martha. The wife of the couple looking very surprised
asked me if I had ever told Martha that I loved her. I said “No, that would sound like I was
serious about her or something”. I had a
lot to learn in moving from philia love to agape love.
The Apostle Paul has one of the best
definitions of agape love found anywhere.
In I Corinthians 13:4, from the passage we read earlier Paul wrote “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not
envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is
not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always
protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
I’ve officiated at 42 weddings thus far in
my career and you can’t imagine how many of those couples requested those
verses that I just read for their wedding.
I always ask them to imagine putting their name in the place of the word
love. For example “Larry is patient,
Larry is kind. Larry does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud.” Is that true?
Yes, yes it is very true…sometimes.
Just ask my wife of 31 years, I am a very kind person…sometimes.
But agape love, loves even at times when
the other person doesn’t. Agape love
makes the extra effort for the sake of the other person. I read a story recently about a man who was
determined to revitalize the romance in his marriage? He normally left his
factory job sweaty and dirty, went home, entered by the back door, took a beer
out of the refrigerator, and sat down to read the paper and watch TV until
dinner. But on this particular night, he was determined to let his wife know
that he was still very much in love with her. He showered and shaved before he
left work. He dressed in some clean and sporty clothes. He was determined to do
what a lover would do -- he stopped at a florist and bought flowers -- he went
to the front door, rang the doorbell and waited for his wife to answer. When
she opened the door, he held out the flowers and said, "Honey, I love
you."
She took one look at the flowers,
and then at him, and then burst into tears. "Oh, I've had a horrible day.
Billy broke his leg and I rushed him to the hospital. Just as I got home, the
phone rang. It was your mother and she's coming for two weeks. I tried to catch
up on some laundry and the washer broke down. There's water all over the
basement floor, and now you've come home drunk!"
Agape love is loving even when you
sometimes get nothing in return. When my
wife and I were engaged she told me that she loved me. I asked her would she still love me when I’m
fat, bald and 50? She said she
would. I asked her would she still love
me if I didn’t make a lot of money. She
said she would. Then I decided to really
push it and asked her would she still love me if I didn’t get a job and she had
to support us the rest of her life? She said something to the affect “Of course…
but I just hope whatever girl you marry will still love you.”
Let’s get back to the love candle and
how it helps us get ready for the birthday of our Lord. In John
That
is the greatest definition of love ever written or spoken. The Apostle Paul said in Romans 5:7-8 “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous
person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God
demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ
died for us.”
Christmas is about a demonstration of
the greatest love ever demonstrated for anyone.
Christ died for us. It’s also a
demonstration of the best way to live; to give of your life away to someone
else. If I was to die for you, it would
be noble but I’m a sinner and my death wouldn’t save you. Only the death of Jesus can save us.
But giving of ourselves away is what the
spirit of Christmas is all about. It’s one
time of year when we have to think about what the other person really wants and
needs right now in their life. My wife
is in a difficult masters program and works three jobs as well as being a wife
and mother. What she needs right now is
more time. If on Christmas morning she
could unwrap my present to her and found inside an extra day a week I would
have found exactly what she needs. So I have a difficult challenge this year
but the challenge forces me to think about what she’s going through.
Part of what Christmas is about is
thinking what the other person wants and needs right now in their life. It’s taking our eyes off ourselves for at
least a day and looking out for someone other than our self. That’s agape love.
We often talk about the pain and the
sacrifice Jesus went through on the cross.
I’m sure it was beyond horrendous.
But we rarely say how happy and satisfied making that sacrifice
ultimately made him feel. No way could
he have been comfortable on the cross but no way could he have lived into old
age knowing he could have saved us from destruction but didn’t. The psychological pain that would have caused
him could have eventually rivaled the physical pain of the cross.
That’s the pain we feel when we live
only unto ourselves. That’s emotional
pain that Jesus came to remove from our life. While Christmas has lost a lot of its
spiritual meaning in many people’s lives today, the one message it continues to
sing is the heart of its meaning; agape love, the giving of oneself to another
regardless of what we get in return.
May Jesus continue to be in your
Christmas this week. Open your heart and
invite Jesus to come into your life if you haven’t already done so. You will receive of all your sins as a gift
from Christ. Then may your actions this
Christmas reflect agape love, giving to someone who has no ability to pay you
back. The love candle, the love of Christ.