THE FACES OF LOVE

      When our dog, Nikki, died, I came face to face with a love. As I looked into her eyes, I cried like a baby. My heart was broken when each of my brothers died, and I didn't imagine then... that a deep emptiness would come over me from time to time to this day. This summer I will experience a joy that can only be borne of love when our Brooke gets married, and love demands that I think of our daughters and granddaughters... every single day. When Archer gets excited, a big smile breaks out on MY face, and when I had the chance to hold little Donald, I was filled with joy! These are faces of love to me, but there are more, I have a growing awareness of my love for my extended family these days, and I'm coming to realize how important my aunts, uncles, and cousins are to me. The Greeks called this kind of love "storge." It comes from family groups and work relationships, from schools and teams and military units. These relationships are often profound and storge love is very real. Indeed, C.S. Lewis noted storge love is the most natural and diffused type of love... because it transcends barriers (like race, age, gender, and income), and because it forms so naturally.
      Friends, on the other hand, are chosen, and even though I try to get above it all, I confess that I miss and love the dear friends that I've had in life. From Des Moines and Omaha to Chicago, Kalamazoo, and Peoria... so many people have opened their hearts and shared their lives with Sherry and me... and I miss them... a lot. The Greeks called the love of friend for friend, "philia" (as in Philadelphia), and it makes the world go round for many people. According to C.S. Lewis, in the ancient world, philia yielded the greatest emotional happiness for most men and women. He thinks that it has weakened in modern times... but I've known many older people who would not leave their community to live with a son or daughter... because they wanted to stay close to their friends, Eros, from which we get the word,"erotica," is actually more akin to being "in love," or even "being in love with love." This Wednesday we will be studying "Song of Songs," and I've already warned the class that it is at least PG... because sensual, desirous love, when it is appropriate, is a very powerful form of love. Storge, philia, eros. Affections that form, friendships that are forged, eyes that can't take themselves off of another's eyes. There are the kinds of love that we know... and then there is God's love, which the Greeks called "agape."
      Agape love is unconditional love, which means that it gives of itself, even if it is not rewarded or reciprocated. It is God's love... but we see it on earth from time to time. I see old men visiting their spouses day after day, even when their loved ones don't know them. I see daughters going way out of their way and putting their own lives on hold, so their dads can live at home. I see mothers and fathers who keep on loving their children, no matter how old, troubled, or ungrateful their kids may become. This is something of God's love, in my view, and so is heartfelt forgiveness, and new beginnings. In the passage that Luther called the "gospel in miniature," the Bible puts it plainly: for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. The Bible also tells us that Jesus voluntarily emptied himself of divinity to come down to this earth, where he experienced storge and philia himself, and where he gave agape love so powerfully that the world can scarcely take it in. Jesus touched the lepers, welcomed the children and wept for his friends... and when he hung on his cross, he was mocked and spat upon. But agape love never gives up... and so he said "Forgive them, Father," and "it is finished" before he died... and the Roman centurion proclaimed, "Surely this man is the Son of God." Frederick Buechner noted that the love for equals is a human thing- of friend for friend, brother for brother... and the world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing and it touches the world. The love for the more fortunate- the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man- is a saintly thing that bewilders the world. "And then there is the love for enemy," he writes, "love for the one who does not love you, but mocks, threatens and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love... and it conquers the world!" Amen,
      Jesus' face is the greatest face of love that the world has ever seen, but as Valentine's Day approaches, I want tell you about a face that I will never forget. In the fall of 1976 I spent 40 days in a treatment center for alcoholism, and during the weekdays we were required to attend lectures in a large group (that also included our families if they chose to be there). Monday through Friday, we would walk downstairs as a group of recovering (and humbled) alcoholics. It was the lowest point in my life because I knew that I hadn't loved much of anything except myself and my bottle for some time... but when I entered the lecture room, my wife, Sherry, was always there, with a smile and an encouraging word... and with our two little girls. She didn't drive and our home was a long distance from the treatment center. Public transportation in Omaha was difficult and time-consuming, and I had been an arrogant jerk for years... but she was there, with the girls in tow. It wasn't Calvary, but (praise God) her face radiated God's agape love, and even though I was not a Christian at the time, I had the very real sense that I was being forgiven!