What happens to you when you experience suffering and loss in your life? What happens when those you love, hurt you? When we love someone we have to keep in mind we love a limited person. We have in our minds what we want that person to be; we have a fantasy of someone who has boundless energy to give us, boundless love to offer us when we need it, and boundless trust. We have built up in our minds someone who does not and cannot exist. And when that limited person shows us their limits, we want to run from them. When they show us their selfishness, their coldness, their half-heartedness and their mean spirit, we feel deeply hurt and deeply angry. We want to withhold our love for them, we feel abandon, so we want to abandon, we feel tossed aside, so we want to toss them aside, we feel hurt, so we want to hurt them.
In Ephesians Paul writes, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church--for we are members of his body.”
As we think about what Paul said, we must keep in mind that we are the bride. We are a nasty, hard-hearted, mean-spirited, selfish, ambitious, self-serving mean bride at times. We are limited, like those in our lives who have hurt us. Christ didn’t suffer, and die for a bride who is pure and spotless. Romans 5:8 states, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” When we hear the words sinner, do we really truly understand the full measure of it? Romans 1:29-32 says, “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” And what was Christ response to the list in Romans 1:29-32, while they were wicked, evil, depraved, greedy, self-serving, slanders, arrogant, boastful, heartless and cold to one another, Christ died for them. This is the church Christ died for in Ephesians. This is the bride who we are, and what has Christ demanded from us? “Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13:34) When another turns their backs on you, what does Jesus call us to do, “Love them as I have loved you.” When others treat you with coldness, what does Jesus expect of you? Love them as I have loved you. When others slander you, what does Jesus want from us? Love them as I have loved you. When they belittle you in front of others, how does Christ want us to respond? Love them as I have loved you. When you feel betrayed, what does Jesus demand from us? Love them as I have loved you. When someone shows us their limits, what do we need to do? Love them as Jesus loves us.
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