It was 1970, and along about the time I was playing the piano for my class, and singing “Pass it On” and the folksy Kum ba Ya,” we learned another song, “They’ll Know We are Christians by Our Love”….’remember that? The sound was influenced by the 60s movement . . . and certainly its message of peace-making was too. Huh-- a timeless message, I guess.
Christians and love . . . hmmm. Do ‘they’/folks know we are Christians by our love? Actually, research has shown that scores of people have turned away from Christianity because they have found the opposite to be true. Christians are more readily characterized as judgmental, hypocritical, homophobic, and cliquish. Oh, man. I believe this generation of Christians will have to answer for that one day.
And yet . . . no one ever loved like Jesus. He took time with people, he preferred the company of avowed sinners more than the overtly religious; he wasn’t afraid to show emotion, and he shattered all the first-century mores in his treatment of women and others who society spurned. People liked being around Jesus. And because of his ultimate sacrifice, and only because of that, we can know the love of God the Father, and communion of the Holy Spirit. The trinity – a perfect community – characterized by love.
Paul finishes out this portion of his letter to the Romans in most emphatic terms—expressing that NO ONE and NO THING could ever separate us from God’s love. Take a look:
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” [from Psalm 44, where the psalmist refers to Israel’s suffering as a nation … again, another timeless message?]
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8.35-39
When I was an English teacher, I stressed the value of good writing and passionate word choices to convey meaning rather than the over usage of the exclamation mark . . . ‘know what I mean?! Paul does a masterful job conveying in the strongest terms possible, covering all of the bases, that NO ONE, NO THING, and NO CIRCUMSTANCE will separate us from God’s love . . . EVER. Rather, even when life is at its most tumultuous, and rough waters are raging around our heads, God’s creative love can turn a situation for our good.
“We are more than conquerors,” Paul wrote. How can you and I be ‘more’ than a conqueror? If we win, isn’t that what we’re after? I think that we can conquer something, and still lose a battle; we can win an argument, and not feel at all satisfied; we can finally drop those last five pounds, and then think, ‘so what!’ Whereas with Christ, we can know true victory. It is complete.
Paul knew what he was talking about; he had earned the right to reference life’s trials—everything he mentions here, he had experienced. And so, he is not just trying to give us information, he is trying to persuade us that what he is saying about God’s love is not only true, but that because it is true, it can radically transform how we think and live.
Indeed, perhaps when we fully understand and embrace that
there is nothing greater than God’s love,
that he offers it freely to us, and
that nothing can ever take it away from us,
then others will KNOW WE ARE CHRISTIANS BY OUR LOVE.
Whaddaya think?
Christine