We continue a devotional journey focused around portions of Carl E. Braaten’s book “Justification.”
Here we touch on the essential difference between agape (love) and Eros (love). Eros is motivated by the value, beauty, and loveliness in the object of our desire. As such this type of love may be expressed to God, because God is absolutely good, true, and beautiful. Eros may also be expressed to human beings in a romantic or sexual way.
As was noted yesterday, agape love (God’s love) is for people “irrespective of their inherent value.” It is free…spontaneous…unmotivated. Eros love is wonderful but it is conditional and it comes from our needs and wants. Agape love is…it is…without the need to put value on things or to have things a certain way. God’s love breaks in to embrace all without any action or quality presented by the ones who are loved. As the body of Christ, the Church is gifted to be a physical presence of…an image of such agape love. As you all know, we fall far short of that love. And yet, the Holy Spirit continues to pull us into this loving relationship with our God and by that power we are also pulled into the possibility of such an adventure in love that goes beyond the limits and boundaries of Eros love.
Connection: It is easy to love our own kind or that which will give us something in return. That is love…on one level. The world knows this love. Today we are invited to consider a love that blows us out of the water of our baptism into a whole new relationship with the world around us. It may be the beginning of the end of the way things are and the beginning of a glimpse of what is to come.
Lord lead us into this day as though your love does indeed transform our vision and our lives. Amen.
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