What's Love....Got To Do With It?

I read this morning in the paper that December is the month where the greatest number of proposals for marriage occur.  Many would think that February and Valentine's Day would be the number one month for proposals, but according to the article and a quoted professional proposal planner December is five to six times more active in terms of interest in her services.  A jewelry businessman also stated that diamond engagement ring purchases were 50 to 60 percent higher in the month of December due to the expressed intent to propose marriage.

Now many would say without thinking that two people are in love and with Christmas, the winter wonderland some experience, the gift giving, family gatherings and the like that it is just a natural time to pop the question.  What I thought about, however, was deeper than the location, time of year or method of proposal.  From whence did love come?  We speak about love quite a bit - in music, with regard to foods we find particularly appealing, vehicles or new electronic gadgets we purchase and utilize and others.  We say we love many things, and in point of fact before proposing there has usually been an exchange of the very phrase "I love you" on numerous occasions.  But i'm not even talking about the statement of love, or the idea that love is a part of our every day lives.  What i'm concerned with is where did the whole concept of love come from in the first place.  We must preface the entire question with the understanding that love is a term that connotes more than just physical intimacy.  When we speak of love and marriage there is an implicit understanding of forever, of something that lasts, of giving of ourselves to another, of sacrificing for someone else.  Where did that come from?

It is hard to see from an evolutionary standpoint how it would ever have arisen.  For furthering a society, procreation is a requisite, and for safety it is well appreciated that gathering in groups is better for survival than going it alone.  It seems quite counter-intuitive to hold to a belief that the flourishing of human existence is maximized by sacrificing and suffering with another. It seems much more reasonable to hold to some sort of physical intimacy with whomever one chooses to be the best mate and more of a communal sense of responsibility toward rearing children.  No one particular set of parents, a group of adults all sharing in the responsibility of making each child the best possible specimen for the next generation of more advanced evolutionary bi-products.  Complex sociological concerns are not really the point of the post, but do bring light on the importance of the question.  If love as a complex set of emotions that drive human behavior away from the most beneficial evolutionary circumstances then it should be cast away lest humanity be passed over by another more capable of discarding such unnecessary notions.

Unless of course love is the ultimate expression of human existence.  What if love is actually the pinnacle of humanity, the core of what really makes human beings what they are?  As it turns out, my personal devotions for this month have me in the book of 1 John.  In the fourth chapter, and verse 4 it reads, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God."  Wait, love comes from God?  The source of the pinnacle of humanity was imparted to us from our Creator?  Yes, it seems the only way to understand what love is, why it is so important when it seems to contradict human flourishing it to understand that it comes from God.  Not only do we find in 1 John the source of love, we also see what it is to love (an example for our benefit and use in copying behavior that expresses love).  See here chapter 3 and verse 16, "This is how we know what love is: Christ Jesus laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers."  So here we have an action and an imperative.  Christ died for us, therefore we ought to lay our lives down for others.

This is repeated in Chapter 4 verses 7-12, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

More tomorrow on 1 John and love, but I hope we will all be spurred on to think carefully and deeply about what it means to love, the origin of love in human existence, and how we ought to display love in our own individual lives each day.  Knowing God and atoning sacrifice are central here, as clearly read in the last verses, which will be a great topic for tomorrow...