"If you love me, you will keep my commandments," says Jesus just prior to his arrest and death in today's reading from John. There is a lot of talk about love in the Bible. We hear that God is love and that God loves the world. We are told to love God and neighbor. But I wonder if our understanding of love isn't sometimes overly colored by our culture's notions of romantic love, of love as an intense feeling.
As a pastor, I regularly conduct weddings where couples ask me to read from 1 Corinthians 13 with its soaring words about love that conclude, "and the greatest of these is love." These words are certainly appropriate at weddings, but often not for the reason that couples assume. Paul, like Jesus, is not speaking of a warm and mushy feeling, but of an absolute commitment to another, of doing what is best for the other even when you don't feel like it.
In Jesus, we are called into relationship with God, a relationship built on love. But I know that I often attempt a very childish relationship with God where I expect God to give me lots of things in return for my occasionally saying, "I love you." But Jesus shows us the meaning, the depth, and the cost of love.
Help me, O God, to love you with more than my words, to do as Jesus calls me to do.
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