Irrational Love

Romans 5: 6-11  ESV

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time  Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. †

FACES ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE

It has been said that there are faces only a mother could love. Why is that so? Are there faces so repulsive that only one’s mother sees the beauty in it? If so, shame on the rest of us.

Could it be equally said that there are some souls that only God could love? I might think of a few, starting with names like Hitler or Osama bin Laden, because most people would like to think that God hates their souls, which I am certain is not true. God’s love for his creatures us unconditional and unaffected by evil, though people may reject or even eternally alienate themselves from that love.

It may be beyond us to contemplate how God can love tyrants and terrorists, but we can start by  considering what is it about mothers that makes them willing to love the otherwise unlovable.

Certainly, one of the most perfect images of love we have in this world is the love of a mother for her child. I certainly God’s love for us is very much like a mother’s love for her child—able to see beyond the ugliness of our sin—with perfect, pure, unconditional love.

What is more, Jesus calls us to live out that same kind of love, which becomes painfully clear when we hear him tell us that we are to love even our enemies:

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. —Matthew 5:44

Of course mothers love their own babies, but we are called to even greater love than that, and that is absolutely crazy, irrational. And here’s where love gets real and deep, because

LOve only Communicates AS love When it is  Irrational

Anything less makes sense. Mothers love their children (one could argue) out of instinct, for all mammals care for and nurse their young. It’s no virtue; it’s just genetics.

Or it is just fair exchange—you love your friends and they love you—quid pro quo. There are many reasons for love that exhibit mutual benefits, so for love to be known as love, it has to be irrational, or beyond rational.

To love the unlovable is divine love. To love our enemies is to love as God loves.

Verse 8 gives us Paul’s gospel in a sentence:

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Given that to be a sinner is to be rejecting God or in some manner hating God, it is clear that God’s love for us is beyond reason. Grace, which comes to us undeserved, is beyond rational.

Grace is Irrational

God has nothing to gain in loving sinners. God has nothing to gain in loving us because he is complete in and of himself and doesn’t need us, our love, or anything about us. That he sacrificed his only Son for our salvation is the supreme, divine, irrational act of love. God is not reasonable.

God is Irrational

This may sound disturbing, and it should, but God’s love is beyond reason. God loves you and me irrationally. Love is a greater law than reason.

Consider: After creating Adam and Eve and setting a very low bar on prohibitions (Come on—in the whole world just one fruit not to touch!) they fail even that. They’re booted from Eden and start a family. Murder follows, and then generation after generation of wickedness until God feels it best to clear the slate and sends the flood. More generations grow up and try to build their way into divinity at Babel, so God has to diversify them and spread them out from each other.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph grow up with God’s promises and are trained in loving God, but they’re still full of wickedness. God gives Moses the Law to teach people how to love him and each other, but while the ink is still wet they’re already building golden calves.

God tells them what righteousness requires and it’s a very high bar. Moses strikes the rock twice instead of once and he is banished from ever entering the promised land.

The tabernacle of God is surrounded by death for every violation, but God did not do justice; he kept forgiving Israel for its constant turns toward idolatry. He sought them out when they wandered and he punished them when they thought they knew better than God.

And in Christ, God loves the wicked, the evil, the blasphemous. God dies for the sins of the world because God loves sinners. That is irrational.

our job is to discover how we can be a part of the divine plan

So we accept that God loves us and saves us, and this is no credit to ourselves. We accept that we have new life in Christ and the forgiveness of all our sins, wickedness, injustices, and evils.

How then shall we live? Yes, we are grateful for God’s amazing, irrational grace, but how do we live in a way that meaningfully points to God’s kind of love?

After all, the world sees our witnessing as a form of self-interest or self-service.

   • “You Christians need everyone else to be Christians in order to reinforce your delusions.”

• “You make converts in order to pat yourself on the back for being righteous.”

• “You’re just trying to find a way to take people’s money and loyalty so you can control them.”

They’re fair arguments. As long as people see that we benefit from others becoming Christians, they will dismiss our witness as self-serving. Therefore,

Our witness must contain an Irrational Element

Grace is experienced through irrational love.

We must find a way for our witness to embody God’s irrational love.

We must do mercy above and beyond justice.

We must love our enemies and practice unconditional forgiveness.

Nothing is more Irrational Than Forgiveness

Forgiveness is not just. It is not fair. It does not make sense. To the outsider, forgiveness is totally irrational. It is a perfect way for us to witness.

Jesus has already made it perfectly clear:

if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Matthew 6:15

There is no option clause to our forgiving others.

It is required; it is absolutely necessary.

It is our most Christlike, godly love.

It is completely irrational and a perfect witness.

It is the hardest sell in Christianity, because it doesn’t particularly feel good and we can’t sell it for it’s wonderful benefits. It is selfless and self-sacrificing, which is what guarantees that it is in the realm of agapé love rather than fair exchange.

We don’t like forgiving and it may be the hardest thing we ever do, but followers of Christ have no option:

On October 2, 2006…

On October 2, 2006, Charles C. Roberts walked into an Amish schoolhouse armed with three guns. There were 26 students in the schoolhouse. He allowed the 15 boys, a pregnant female student, and three other adult females with infant children to  leave safely, but held the remaining 15 girls captive and tied their feet together. His deranged rationale for his actions was that he wanted to exact revenge for something that had happened in his past. Notes that he left behind indicate anger toward himself and God for the death of his newborn daughter almost nine years earlier. Authorities were alerted, and soon arrived on the scene. Not long after police arrived, Roberts started shooting, killing three children and himself. Two more children died later from their injuries.In the face of such tragedy, one can only imagine the hurt and anger the loved ones of the victims might feel. In an extraordinary demonstration of forgiveness, members of the Amish community, including family members of the deceased victims, attended Robert’s funeral and comforted his widow. The Amish community did not stop there—they also offered financial support to Robert’s widow.

“Immaculee Ilibagiza survived the Rwandan genocide…

Immaculee Ilibagiza is a survivor of the Rwandan genocide that took place in the mid-nineties. Political tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes resulted in the massacre of hundreds of thousands of members of the Tutsi tribe and of members of the Hutu tribe who opposed the genocide. On Easter Sunday 1994, when Ilibagiza and her family were gathered together, Ilibagiza’s older brother, Damascene, begged their father to take the family and flee to safety. They made the fateful decision to stay. On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying the Rwandan president, a Hutu, was shot down, and everyone on board was killed. Soon after, a killing spree began that targeted the Tutsi people. Ilibagiza and her younger brother, Vianney, managed to make their way to a local Hutu pastor’s home, who provided protection from the chaos that was surrounding them. When they arrived, they learned the heartbreaking news that Vianney could not stay. Ilibagiza and seven other women hid in a small (1 square meter) bathroom for three months. When Ilibagiza and the seven other women were finally able to leave their hiding place, Ilibagiza learned that her family had been murdered. Ilibagiza herself lost 22 kilograms (50 lbs) during her ordeal. While our human nature desires revenge, Ilibagiza chose to forgive the people who killed her family as she felt the bitter feelings of rage destroying her. Though not easy, she was determined to let forgiveness, rather than hate, rule her life. Eventually, she met one of the murderers face-to-face and told him directly that she forgave him.

if you want to be healed, you must  forgive

We don’t like having to forgive. It doesn’t feel good, at least not in the short term, but if we want to be healed, we must forgive. Every grudge we hold is an open wound—a constant, nagging source of insecurity. Many people lead with their grudges, like having an open wound on display for everyone they meet. They lead with it, keep the wound open and pour salt into it from time to time. That is what happens when we refuse to forgive.

Again, our witness must contain an irrational element—a sign of love beyond all suspicion of self-interest or self-empowerment—and perhaps the best irrational sign we can give the world is simply to be unconditionally forgiving.

Like our mothers are to us. Like God is revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

May we come to love others as our mothers loved us—and may we embody the same, irrational grace/love that God so joyously pours out to us all.  †