Broken Signposts: How Christianity Makes Sense of the WorldSample

Broken Signposts: Love  

Human beings are made for love—love that we give and love that we receive. Though our expressions of love differ in various ways across cultures, there seems to be a universal longing to discover and experience ‘true love’. The type of genuine love we seem to most yearn for is not merely romantic feelings; rather, it is something solid, unconditional, permanent, and life-giving. 

‘Love’ gives us a sense of being part of something larger than ourselves. Love is where we find delight, meaning, security, and it is vital for human thriving. When we offer and receive genuine love it is like discovering a signpost that points the way to a safe home or to a warm and comforting embrace. Love captivates our senses and fills us with a sense of wonder and wholeness that painters, poets, and songwriters have tried to capture down the ages. It is also these same types of artists who capture most poignantly the ways in which love is a broken signpost in our world.

When the love of God for his creation goes into action it looks like the story of Jesus that John is telling: Jesus had always loved his own people in the world, and the Gospel illustrates that he would love them right through to the end (John 13:1). Jesus’ example of love-in-action—to the utmost—resulted in the laying down of his life. There was nothing that love could do that Jesus’ love did not do for them, and indeed, for us and the whole of God’s creation. 

Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet as he himself was preparing to go to his death was an advance sign of his greatest act of love. The ‘foot washing’ signposts his ultimate act of self-giving love: the love of God that goes to the cross.

John is clear that God’s love in the arrival of the Messiah is the divine response to the human longing for true love. Jesus took upon himself the worst that evil could do—absorbing and defeating it. He released the grip of sin and the anguish of violent human obsessions and self-absorptions. And, now through the gift and work of the Holy Spirit, his love continues to overflow into God’s new creation as we pour out genuine love-in-person to others. This theme of love brings into focus the reality of love, which is about humans being called to share the love and life of Jesus himself.

Love each other as I have loved you. You are my friends if you do what I tell you (John 15:12-14). God’s love is always personal and on the move in human relationships as we welcome, console, encourage, repent, forgive, delight, and celebrate with others. We are who we most deeply are, and we become who we most profoundly need to be, as we receive the love of others and through our mutual and humble giving of love to others, both friends and enemies alike.   

Questions to consider: 

In what ways is love a broken signpost in today’s world? Reflect on the ways in which the gospel of Jesus and the power of the Spirit answer the deepest questions of human life and the search for ‘true love’. 

Living it out:

Take notice of the ways you discover or experience God’s genuine love today. Record or journal your observations. Consider how the ‘foot washing’ narrative might prompt you to demonstrate love for others.