Hard Love
For the last four months, Pastor Anson has walked our church slowly through 1 Corinthians 13 on Sundays, examining what the Apostle Paul describes as “the way of love.” We have gazed on each inspired word in Paul’s description there, catching a glimpse of the incredible beauty, expanse, and costliness of true Christian love.
We have seen that love is selfless – it does not envy, boast, or insist on its own way. We have seen that love is self-sacrificing – it keeps no record of wrongs, it believes all things, bears all things, and hopes all things. We have seen that without love, we are nothing – there is quite literally no path to spiritual maturity apart from love.
Even with all this training, the following passage from Luke’s Gospel still caught me off guard this morning, as Luke offers us some of Jesus’ own words on the topic of love…
“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
“If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:27-36, ESV)
Three things that astound me here in Jesus’ words…
1. True love is hard.
The act of being stricken on the cheek by an abuser is no small thing to be quickly walked past. It is the height of personal insult; an action that communicates purely and acutely the precise opposite of love. Indeed, it is how we communicate hatred, offense, and supreme indignation. For someone to do this to you, the natural and normal reaction is to recoil into a posture of defense and protection. Physically and emotionally, every fiber of our instincts moves quickly and instinctively to prevent such pain from crossing our cheek again.
Against all of this, Jesus here teaches us that true love resists all those very strong instincts to remain present in the relationship. True love stands firm, in the hardest way possible, by remaining open to another insult and another injury by the same hand. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, it bears all things – and not simply with those that we want to love; but even our enemies who stand before us to strike and hurt us with all their might.
Make no mistake, this type of love is not easy, it is not natural, and it is not fun. Nothing except obedience will hold us fast in these moments for this type of very hard, but very real genuine Christian love.
2. True love is costly.
While turning the other cheek is undoubtedly the hardest command here for us, I am equally struck by the costliness of these – “give to everyone who begs of you” and “lend, expecting nothing in return.” As a missions pastor, I have read many books on the concept of “helping without hurting”, and they all boil down to one central truth – often, giving to people in need does nothing but increase their dependency and thereby continue their need into the future; that inadvertently, we can actually hurt people when we give, because we cripple their independence and self-reliance. These lines of thoughts hold much sway in modern approaches to missions, benevolence, and generosity.
And yet, Jesus here presses into that “sound reasoning” with a clear command – give anyways. If they are begging, whoever they are, give to them. And when you lend, lend without expecting anything to come back to you. There is a big part of me here that wants to stop Jesus and explain that lending by definition expects something in return! If a banker has no expectation and makes no attempt of getting his principal back with some interest, he is just being taken advantage of!
I think that is the point. True love costs. It has real expenses that flow out to the deficit and harm of one in order to bless another. Be it emotional costs or real financial ones, there is no way to love without a real opportunity and willingness to walk away with less than you walked in with. True love isn’t looking out for its own interests, its willing to pay them away for others. It is costly.
3. True love comes only from the Father
Perhaps the most surprising and important phrase in this entire text is the final one, when Jesus offers the foundation for all this costly, painful love. He concludes all of these commands with a summary statement that encompasses them all – “Be merciful” – and then he tells us why – “even as your Father is merciful.”
There it is. The only way to embody and live out this costly, painful love of our enemies and abusers – it’s by gazing at the love of the Father. When we stop to consider the kind of treatment we deserve from God – we will always walked away absolutely stunned by his mercy. In the face of our sin, he sent his own son to the cross. In the face of our selfishness, he continually offers us more grace. As we act so unloving and indifferent toward him, he persistently pursues us with a never-giving-up, all-consuming, unstoppable love. His mercy knows no limits. And here is the point – it should deeply impact our hearts and our behavior.
Out of his mercy grows our own, and out of his love flows our love toward others. It is as the apostle John says, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
Today, when you’re struck across the cheek, when someone begs for a dollar, or when something borrowed is finally due to be returned, remember the love of the Father toward you. Remember how Jesus handled your debts, your needs, and your sin. Perhaps, as you gaze at his hard love for you, you can extend the same to your enemies as well.
“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35