A Kindom of Love

Until the last few years my conception of love was tainted with a bit of romanticism and selfishness. I unknowingly looked at love as something that made me feel good, brought me pleasure, met my deepest longings, and somehow would raise me above all of the hardships and trials in this world. Although these may be by-products of love, it is also true that becoming a true loving human being will cause suffering, pain, sorrow, and bring trials and hardship into our lives.

I was contemplating this idea the other evening, and asking God, if love is so wonderful, why does it suffer so much in this world. Why is true love opposed and crushed if it is the highest way, and the most fruitful way of being? Why have I found it so difficult to be a God-like lover? Why is love so needed by all of us, but so hard for us to give? I think the New Testament offers some unpleasant answers to these questions, and like most things I am just beginning to understand some of it.

When Jesus stands before Pilate he declares that his Kingdom is not of this world, and that if it was, his army would be fighting (John 18:36). In my opinion, he was not saying his Kingdom was at another location, but that his Kingdom was not based or advanced by military force. Remember, Jesus is about to be crucified (willingly) for the sins of the world, so he must be contrasting God’s way of conquering as opposed to Rome’s. Rome rules by putting their enemies on crosses, and God conquered by putting himself on a cross.

Love suffers in this world because it is by nature opposed to the ways and means of this world; it does seek to conquer, but by self sacrifice, truth, mercy, and for the good of everyone. Love takes an enormous pouncing in this world, but by truth, patients and longsuffering, overcomes and heals. Love is the conquering underdog in this world. Love comes to it’s own but its own hardly recognizes his presence because it is so foreign to the darkness we are accustomed to. We hate it because his light reveals our contemptible condition, but the darkness allows us our subjective fantasies born in selfish, contrived ideas of what is divine.

Loves is like a meteor that reaches the atmosphere, and the resistance to its entry sets the rock ablaze with a violent flame. God’s Son comes into the world and the result of our resistance to him was scourging and a cross, and though his light was put out for 3 days he was raised into his former glory and was, is, and will always be the light of the world. Rome no longer rule with crosses filled with enemies, but God rules with the sacrificial cross of his Son. This is the light we must follow. God gives us your spirit and courage to be as your Son in this world of resistance. TOTT