Herein is Love

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we aught also to love one another.

-1 John 4:10-11

But God commendeth His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

-Romans 5:8

 Have you ever thought about how odd the placement of the crucifixion is?  In the story of our lives, of the Church, as we know it, the crucifixion stands in the middle of the tale--at least from our perspective.  Truthfully, I often think of it as coming at the beginning, for it happened thousands of years before I was born.  Compared to other stories of great sacrifice, it's out of place.  It would be like Romeo drinking his poison for Juliet at the start of Act One or Gandalf the Grey saving the Fellowship from a Balrogh in the Shire instead of in the Mines of Moriah.  It's surprising, but it's not the same.  It's not what we'd expect.  Usually, we expect the greatest sacrificial acts of love to be made at the end of a relationship that has already proved rewarding.  Romeo and Juliet have shared stolen days and nights of true love before he drinks the poison, deciding he cannot live without her.  Similarly Gandalf has spent many years among the hobbits and been a close personal friend of many of the members of the Fellowship, traveling with them on their arduous journey and enjoying their companionship and help until the day he must fall with the monster to save them all from certain death.

But that's not how God did it.  He did not die to save us when we were most lovable and he had already reaped rewards from His relationship with us and our love for him.  He loved us before we loved Him.  In fact, He sent us His greatest act of love, the Cross, when we least wanted His love and most needed it.

Surely, this is love, not to give to others what they want, but rather what they need.  To love in a way that is necessary rather than in a way that is immediately appreciated and rewarded.  Those who love only for immediate reward get only that, as the Bible makes clear.  But we are commanded to love as God loved, to anticipate the greatest needs of the people around us and to act accordingly.  We may not always be right in our anticipation or our action, but we will be rewarded for our love will be genuine.