I write this on Ash Wednesday—the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent—which this year happens to coincide with the secular Valentine’s Day. It can seem like an odd juxtaposition to have these two days occur simultaneously. But I think when we give it some thought, love and ashes really do mix. (I blogged about this in 2018—the last time these two events coincided.)
In Christian contexts, it’s popular to say that love is a verb. What we mean is that love implies action from both the lover and the beloved. We who are the object of love don’t just passively receive it; we’re expected to actively respond to the lover’s advance, so that it becomes a two-way relationship.
Love is a grace from God—and while that grace is free, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us that it’s not cheap. While it’s never something we earn, it’s always something worthy of our utmost effort to maintain.
Of course, when we talk about love, it’s not long before we think of 1 Corinthians 13. It’s worth noting that Paul didn’t originally write this as wedding poetry. He wrote it as guidelines for a fledgling community of Christ followers to live by as they sought to live lie Jesus, and so the text focuses more on the agape (love of God) and philos (love between siblings and friends) than on eros (romantic love). But as today’s popular saying goes, in some ways, “love is love,” so it was a natural extension to apply it to eros as well.
You might want to take a look at “the Love Chapter” in your Bible as you read the rest of this article. Notice how full it is of verbs. Some say what love is; others say what love isn’t—but it’s all about action. Consider verses 4–6 alone:
4 Love is patient; love is kind; it is not envious or arrogant or boastful 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
There’s a lot of negatives in those two verses. It’s like love itself an elusive quality that’s hard to capture in words, so Paul chose to “define it” more in terms of what it’s not. (You can tell he wasn’t married, right?) On the other hand, people have done the same thing for centuries when they attempt to describe God. It’s known as the via negativa (“the negative way”)—or apophatic theology. So, since Scripture tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), maybe the Bachelor Apostle was on to something when he chose to walk the via negativa when describing love.
I looked up the antonyms for some of the words Paul says love isn’t. When I did so, I quickly gained sympathy for Paul. There were many choices for each verb. Finding just the right words to say, “what love is,” is challenging! If the poets and songwriters struggle to express what love is, I guess it’s sort of arrogant of me to assume I could do any better. Nevertheless, I’m a writer, so I persisted. For each negative quality, I picked a word or phrase that stood out to me on the list of antonyms. I did keep one negative although I changed it for our context.
If I were to frame 1 Corinthians 13:4–6 more positively maybe I’d say something like:
Love is patient, love is kind. Love is benevolent and humble, genuine and gracious. Love is not a narcissist; it is even-tempered and at peace with itself and others. It puts up with much, always believing in and hoping for the best. Love perseveres to the end.
I’m drawn to all the action words that describe love at this time because I’ve become keenly aware that—even after more than twenty years of marriage—it takes ongoing intentional effort from both partners to keep eros strong. The same goes for other philos relationships we have with siblings and friends (I’m learning that with my own brother in recent days) and it certainly applies to agape. After all, what relationship is more worthy of our best effort than our relationship with God? Still, it’s easy to settle into a passive acceptance of the way things are in our love relationships. But true love never settles. No, it always strives to find the “more excellent way.” Even if things seem to be good… they can always get better.
Ultimately eros and philos are echoes of agape—and agape is what is on display on Ash Wednesday and throughout the season of Lent and Holy Week.
Through our spouses (eros) and through our family and friends (philos) we see through a mirror dimly what (and who) we will one day encounter face to face (agape). If we are paying attention, we get opportunities daily to practice Jesus’ agape way of love through our human love relationships. During Lent, we come face to face with our limitations. We learn to stop denying them or feeling shame over them but rather to embrace them as part of us and even, after a while, to celebrate them, knowing they are the “shadow side” of who God created us to be. In the shadow of the cross, and all that Christ accomplished there, we know we can always count on God’s strength and grace to be sufficient whenever we feel weak, unqualified, incompetent, ashamed, etc.
So, while you won’t find Hallmark Cards to mark Ash Wednesday like you do for Valentine’s Day (as soon as Christmas is over!), I do think love and ashes really do belong together. If we were to choose a Lenten “theme song” the classic hymn, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, might be a good choice. Verse 3 speaks of how, at the cross,“sorrow and love flow mingled down.” This song reminds us that the cross is where our Lenten journey is headed. (The season of Lent ends as Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday—when Jesus enters Jerusalem and begins his Last Week on Earth.) Hopefully our Holy Week experience will be all the more powerful after we walk this Lenten journey mindful of where the journey will end. Along the way, I pray that we all learn to embrace our true selves more fully (both individually and corporately) and the agape love that is always waiting to embrace us.
