…never having to say you are sorry. Blech! Who remembers that line from the 70’s tear-jerker of a romance novel/movie Love Story and spoken by Ali McGraw, the worst actress to ever grace the screen? Anyway, it’s a silly adage because, of course, love means ALWAYS having to say you’re sorry. I guess the point of the line is to suggest that you and your partner (of whatever flavor) know each other so deeply and entirely that a word of apology is unnecessary because the offended partner knows it already. Well, I am here to tell you that after 33 years of marriage, a heartfelt apology softens the hardest hearts created through miscommunication, anger, or doubt. So my recommendation is to apologize freely and frequently—it doesn’t cost anything and it creates…well…love.
If love doesn’t mean “never having to say you are sorry” (apologies for the double negative), what does it mean? We are directed in the scriptures to “love one another”. How? What does it look like? In John 13:34-35 Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Jesus gives us a clue how to love each other when he says “just as I have loved you…”. So how did Jesus love the disciples and others who sought him out? What did he say or do to them that showed his love? He certainly never said, “I love you” or at least there is nothing recorded to that effect. Nearly every interaction Jesus had with people, disciples or Samaritans, he spoke directly to their hurts, to what was causing them to stumble, physically or spiritually. While he healed many diseases and injuries, more often than not that was not the “real issue” plaguing the individual. Lurking behind their physical ailments was always something of a spiritual nature that needed attention.
If we are to love like that, addressing spiritual issues rather than physical, wouldn’t we be called out as judgmental? To think that we might see in another person some item of behavior or thinking that might need some attention, while all the time jockeying to see them in spite of the plank in our own eye–how dare we? How rude to think that some unconfessed sin in the heart of a fellow sinner might need attention! Healing the physical ailments was merely Jesus’ attention grabber, and while challenging, painful, and debilitating, they are not our real ailment in light of eternity. Our real ailments are those things that separate us from God. Our physical challenges in whatever shape they take on, do not act to create disharmony with the Lord but our sins do. So if we are to love people with the love of Christ, we must do what Jesus did that demonstrated his love.
A perusing Jesus’ interaction with people reveals that he invariably invokes change—change of heart, mind, body, spirit, attitude, belief, thoughts, ideas, world view. Never, ever does an encounter with the Messiah leave the person in the same state as before.
17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” 21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Jesus looked at the man, loved him, and zeroed in on his “ailment” —the idol of manna, money, or riches. The rich young man who professed to having followed the commandments since a youth, was challenged to re-think who (and what) he worshiped—The Living God or his riches. He went away sad but thoughtful nonetheless. We do not know how he may have altered his life or his bank account.
The woman at the well thinking she would have a quiet morning collecting and hauling water, instead encountered Christ who knew the issue on her heart and did not waste anytime but asked directly about her “husbands”. This is love? Not by today’s standards. We, as Christians living in a post-modern and hostile-to-the-faith world, are admonished for the sake of love not to challenge the behavior or language of others, but this is in fact counter to what Jesus did. Here is what Dr. R.C. Sproul has to say on the subject from his Tabletalk magazine: “On the one hand, it’s correct that we must always do what love requires. Love is the linchpin of God’s law, the very fulfillment of the commandments (Rom. 13:10). But love isn’t a vacuous feeling; it’s something objective. Love is defined by God Himself, for Scripture tells us that “God is love” (1John 4:8) And the God who is love has given us a law that defines and applies what love looks like in concrete situations. For instance, Paul lays out the principle that we must “walk in love,” but then he immediately tells us that “sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints” (Eph. 5:2-3). God defines love as being the rejection of sexual immorality, impurity, and covetousness. Anything that includes such things cannot be love even if the designations of love is claimed.” (“Principles and Situations” June 2016)
Peanut butter and jelly, hamburger and French fries, Baseball and glove, men and women…some things just go together and so too with love. Love does not “rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.” (1 Cor. 13:6) Love and truth are inextricably connected and inseparable. To attempt to do one without the other is unloving or untruthful. Love without truth is pablum, and truth without love is a poke in the eye. Truth is the message and love is the manner in which that message is delivered. Let’s be about Christ’s work in the way he would have done it, leaving no encounter with a fellow sinner void of truth steeped in love. And always ready to say, “I am sorry.”
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