Agape.
"Like a cradle rocking, rocking,
Silent, peaceful to and fro,
Like a mother's sweet looks dropping
On the little face below, -
Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning,
Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow;
Falls the light of God's face bending
Down, and watching us below.
And as feeble babes that suffer,
Toss and cry, and will not rest.
Are the ones the tender mother
Holds the closest, loves the best.
So when we are weak and wretched,
By our sins weighed down, distressed,
Then it is that God's great patience
Holds us closest, loves us best.
O great Heart of God! whose loving
Cannot hindered be nor crossed;
Will not weary, will not even
In our death itself be lost, -
Love divine! of such great loving
Only mothers know the cost, -
Cost of love, which, all love passing,
Gave a Son to save the lost."
- Saxe Holm.
Agape, God's love for the created, the created's love for God. We've spent the last three days reading about the three natural loves, Today being the last day of the Love series, we look at the most important of them all, the love that keeps them as they are to be, Agape. Oh a love so great, a love that descended to the lowest of lows to dwell amongst mankind, to not only demonstrate and edify on the natural loves themselves but to also reveal the greatest of them all, unconditional love, blemish-less love. sacrificial wholesome and complete and completing love.
The natural loves, the love of affection, the sort of love there ought to be between near relations, the love within friendships, and the love between the sexes, as amazing as they are individually and in conjunction with one another, are not enough on their own. "The natural loves prove that they are unworthy to take the place of God by the fact that they cannot even remain themselves and do what they promise to do without God's help. Why prove that some petty princeling is not the lawful Emperor when without the Emperor's support he cannot even keep his subordinate throne and make peace in his little province for half a year?”- C.S. Lewis.
Natural loves are to be submitted to Agape or be transformed into Agape. As mentioned in the previous post, Eros, making these other loves the basis and most important is futile because they cannot stand on their own, especially in regards to the sustenance of the human mind, body, and soul. For in themselves lies the lack of durability, unwavering correctness, and permanence, they have the capability to die out with time, especially without the constant and intentional work and effort of the one in whom they reside, but in comparison to Agape, this love being the love of the creator of the other three natural loves is more than capable of self-sustenance, for it is the origin of all love and in it and only by it are all the other forms of love able to exist.
I've personally noticed that the natural loves are principles or traits that seem to originate from the greatest love among them, Agape. Let's see, shall we?
PHILIA AND AGAPE
In Philia we talked about the fact that when we have love for our friends we have love for plainly the fact that they are who they are, that in a circle of friends each man stands for nothing but what they are. I see this trait in the heart of Agape, in that with God's love for us, there isn't any trait or form of discrepancy with the way God loves us as compared to the way he chooses to love others. Aside from that the love found in Philia is not self-seeking, we mentioned that with Philia there is love between individuals that makes it easy for one friend to want only what's best for the other, it does not seek its own good but the good of another a well, that selflessness amongst many other traits has it's way in Philia too. And I can't think of any other way through which God's selfless love for humanity was displayed better than his ultimate sacrifice, that he sent his son to take on himself the infirmities of the world so as to grant his creation freedom from eternal demise.
STORGE AND AGAPE
When we spoke of Storge, we spoke of the way Storge is a form of affection that runs through family or different relations, we spoke of how this said affection causes people to be able to provide for the needs of those they have close relations with, their families in particular, despite the condition of the recipient, worthy of said assistance or not. I see the merciful and gracious hand of God as the point from which Storge gets its reference being still that the love of God is a love we are without doubt undeserving of but still are in the habit of receiving, (thank God for grace). Along with the unconditional and most often undeserving love we receive in Storge we see long-suffering and humility, traits of love spoken in the letters to Corinth, and those are traits of love as well found in the person of God himself.
EROS AND AGAPE
In Eros, we see that there is the tendency to count all things and all others as loss, within this strong urge to love each other above everyone else, the longing to be with and for one particular person forever is found as well. Agape, in the same way, is illuminated when we observe the love of the creation for its creator, in the Bible we see the greatest commandment to love thy God with all that we can significantly call our own, our minds our hearts, and our souls, the first commandment alike, that man shall have no other God but The Father in Heaven, so here again, we see the prioritizing nature of love that's offered to the creator by the creation.(Matthew 22:37,Exodus 20:3)
What then is Agape or Love itself? We know “God is love” and again “Not that we loved God
but that He loved us” (1 John 4:8, 10). We must not begin with mysticism, the soul's desire for
God and the wonderful foretaste of our enjoyment of God, which had been vouchsafed
[granted, made known] to some even in this life. The best mystics will warn us not to. We must
begin with God's love for the creatures. Love itself, God's love, is utterly disassociated from
need. It is manifested first in creation and then in redemption. The doctrine that God was under
no necessity to create is not a bit of useless and abstract scholasticism. It is essential, for it
reveals the nature of Agape: that which in itself is complete, self-sufficient, eternally blessed,
which has no wants to satisfy, creates what it doesn't need, creates because, being Love, it
desires to give, and gives seeing in the very moment of creation the necessity for the
crucifixion.
We know many ways through which Agape displays itself in the light of God loving us, but how is it displayed in the light of us loving God, aside from complete submission.
There is the love that we express in obedience (John 14:15-23). There is love for the humanity of our Lord, for the Holy Child or the Sufferer. There is also the unsatisfied love thirst or longing for God (Psalm 63:1).
"Man's love is perfected by becoming, in a sense, nothing. He is less than a mote in that sunbeam, vanishes-not from God's sight - but from ours, and his own, into the nuptial solitude of the love that loves Love, and in Love, all things."
Words from the Author.
So much has been said about love and the four ways through which it presents itself, as the origin of other loves, as the most natural of all the loves, as the highest form of love, and even as the most passionate of all loves. It's been fun for me writing, tiresome but in its own weird way, rewarding, going through a kind of a bitter-sweet moment as of right now, but sweeter though.
We've come to the end of the love series. And I'm super grateful to everyone that spared time to read any one of the posts, even all of them if you did, but if you couldn't read all of them consecutively, remember they will always be here. God bless and see you soon.
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