What’s Love got to DO with it?
Does anyone remember the OLD, very old, TV show Love American Style? If you have been on this earth long enough, you likely have an early 70’s sounding theme song earworm now. You’re welcome. I imagine most would agree that if anything portrayed in the show was actually love, it was watered down pretty significantly. I recently read a familiar verse, 1 Corinthians 13. This time though, I saw it in King James Version. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” Not what I want to be described as.
The word “charity” stuck out to me; I had the word “love” firmly planted in my mind in its place. The fact is, as we have come to understand those words, neither seems all that adequate. Agape Love, the kind described here, is deeper. It is something within us that is compelling. It’s easy to think of love as an emotion or a kind and even compassionate sentiment. And charity alone can be done at arms-length. Make no mistake those are both good things but when Jesus says to love one another as I have loved you, He is talking about Agape that compels us to action, to service. Paul emphasizes that without this kind of benevolent love we are just making noise. There are many pictures of what this looks like. In the picture with this post, one image shows a very ill North American, Bryan, laying on a mattress in the grass. On that day, a kind man from the village, noticed that Bryan was ill and went to his home, grabbed the mattress off of his bed and carried it up the hill to where Bryan was. He laid the mattress on the ground for Bryan, sweat, dirt and all, to rest on. You have to understand that having a mattress at all is a luxury here. This man put someone else’s needs first and put his own mattress on the ground for Bryan. When you experience the fullness of Agape it changes you and calls you to sacrifice. That brings the kind of fulfillment that can only come through a heart of service.
So, What’s Love got to DO with it? Well, if its Agape love, it’s got to DO something. Here’s to not being a tinkling cymbal.