“Beloved, let us love each other; because love is from God, and all who love are children of God and know God. Those who do not love do not know God; because God is love…. And we have come to the knowledge and belief regarding this love God has for us: God is love and the one who dwells within love dwells in God. And God dwells in us” (John 4:7-8; 16).
It’s cause and effect. Because the air is saturated with moisture, it rained. Because of the height of the storm clouds, water froze and fell as hail. We love because we were loved.
And shouldn’t we, after all? It’s an unconditional, all-encompassing love. It’s natural to respond in kind. In fact, it would be rude not to love. Cause and effect, right? You get a gift, you give a gift. Someone does something nice for you, you do something nice for them.
That’s, at least, what I always thought. That’s what I was taught.
It’s Sunday School theology. It made sense to us as kids. You should love your mom and dad, your friends, and, yes, even that boy or girl at school you don’t like. God loves us, and that’s why you should love them. Simple, right? It’s what we understood as children: good receives good, bad receives bad. You don’t say please and thank you, you won’t get dessert. Cause and effect.
Like a lot of things, I should have grown out of that. But, it’s easier, isn’t it? It’s the same thinking that the young man had when he came to Jesus asking “What do I need to do in order to gain eternal life?” For this desired outcome, I need to know the ingredients. To get a cake, I need eggs, water, flour, a certain temperature. For a garden, we need sunlight, soil, moisture, seeds.
This is the way the world works. And God should work the same way. The good go to heaven, the damned to hell. Christians, real Christians, stay healthy, have good jobs, and never have problems. Pagan, sinful people? Well, they’re like that man born blind the disciples saw. He must have done something. That outcome has a catalyst. That effect has a cause.
But Jesus went against the grain on that, didn’t he? The young man didn’t get a grocery list to tick off, did he? It was more than that. Same thing with the man who had been born blind, Jesus said it wasn’t because of things done or undone.
Turns out, it’s not cause and effect after all.
So what do we do with these words from John’s letter? We love because—isn’t that what it means?
A few sentences later, he says something mind-blowing. God, we read, is love. It’s equivalent: Love is God. Love is that stuff that makes up God. God makes up love.
So, if God dwells within us, love does too. We start to be made into God’s likeness, into God-stuff: into love. We are changed into love.
Filled with love, there’s no room for anything else. So, we love; because, love transformed us. And we find ourselves full circle, but in a new place. Our response to love caused us to be turned into, made anew into love.
Then we love; because, it’s who we are.
Love Incarnate, your very nature is to love us. It is the force that transforms the world, and the thing that death stands powerless against. Transform me, change me into your likeness until I every cell is love, and I can do nothing else but respond to this world in love.
I’ve never really thought of that scripture passage like that before. But from now on I will! We love because God redeems and renews us in love….that’s a lot more like Jesus than “we love because He loves us.” (Although that’s true as well.)