Higher Love
There is a classic song from the 1980s that asks the following, pleading for a satisfying answer:
“Things look so bad everywhere; In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk blind and we try to see; Falling behind in what could be.
Bring me a higher love; Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring me a higher love; Where’s that higher love I keep thinking of?”*
With all due respect to Steve Winwood, the answer was provided almost 2,000 years beforehand by Jesus Christ. Commanding his disciples to “love one another” as he had loved them, Jesus extends his teaching by saying:
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
The greatest, or highest, form of love is sacrificial love, what the ancient Greeks called agape, and the most anyone can sacrifice is their very life. The Crucifixion reveals the full “length and width and height and depth of [God’s] love” Ephesians 3:18 for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). In the person of Jesus, God took on human flesh and endured every trial and hardship that could be experienced by human beings, even death on a Roman cross.
So, if the greatest love a person can give comes from sacrificing his or her life, something that is finite and will eventually end anyway, how much greater is the love of the eternal God for us that He would lay down His everlasting life (even for a moment) to reconcile us to Himself? It’s exactly that unsurpassable standard of love that makes Good Friday good.
As great as that news is, it gets even better. The events of Holy Week were not the result of a spontaneous decision made by Jesus. He was not guided by whimsy when he rode a donkey into Jerusalem, and he did not celebrate the Passover with his disciples on the spur of the moment. Jesus was consistently guided by obedience to the Father, which led him to fulfill every prophesied task that was set before him. In other words, the love that was so clearly demonstrated at the Cross (see John 3:16) had been present even “before the foundation of the world.” Ephesians 1:4
Not only that, but God had not kept His love for us a secret. Through the prophets Jeremiah and Zephaniah, among many others, God declared that He had “loved [His people] with an everlasting love.” Jeremiah 31:3 and would “quiet [His people] with His love.” Zephaniah 3:17. God’s love existed before the universe began, and it has been unfailingly active toward His creation ever since.
But wait, there’s more! God’s love has existed as long as He has (read: forever), but it wasn’t completed or depleted at the Cross. His love toward His people continues without end, outlasting time and space. God’s love is a unifying force, seeking to reconcile people to Himself. One day, when Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, appears in glory, our blessed hope will be realized (Titus 2:13), and then “we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). John provides a bit more description of what that reunion will be like:
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, not pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:3-4
The entire Bible is one epic love letter from God to humankind. It tells us that God’s love began before time itself and that it will never ever end. In other words, you can count on it to be available to you. There is nothing you can do to earn it, so you cannot do anything to lose it. So, this Easter season, take time to consider God’s love for you, both in what Jesus endured on the Cross and in the manifold ways that He demonstrates it in your daily life. Always remember, just as Good Friday was followed by Resurrection Sunday, no matter the darkness and pain that you may be experiencing, God can and will provide victory in the end.
Happy Easter!
WL
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*The song is ”Higher Love” by Steve Winwood (1986).