by Audrey West

Celebrating God’s love for us and our love for each other

Long before computers, before text messages and e–mail, my friends and I passed carefully folded notes between classes and left cryptic messages in each other’s lockers. We mailed postcards as mementos of vacations and scribbled coded designs onto the covers of our notebooks. We didn’t sign these secret missives (lest they fall into the wrong hands!) but the handwriting was familiar, so we always knew who sent them. The notes were our declaration of friendship to one another, our bond of love.

One day an envelope arrived in the mail at my family’s house, addressed to me in an unfamiliar hand. I ripped it open to discover a hand–painted card with a message in elegant calligraphy:

There was no return address or signature, but it didn’t matter. Somebody loved me, and I had a custommade card to prove it.

Messages, affectionate and dear
Storytellers and poets speak of the time before time, when God was infinitely alone, before the seed of the universe exploded in God’s first mighty act of creation. God was lonely, they say. And so, the Bible tells us, God created the heavens and the earth and all the living creatures, including humankind. In God’s own image, God made male and female and breathed life and love into them. During that first cosmic week — in the beginning — God looked around and saw that it was good. Earth and stars, sun and moon, water and dry land, flowers and trees, fish and birds and creatures that crawl: creation itself was and is God’s first message of love writ large.

This creation message, God’s love note to the universe, came at a cost. Some theologians suggest that only by pushing aside God’s own being was God able to make the void that would cradle God’s creation; only into that opening could God’s voice speak the word that would become our world.

A pregnant woman knows what it’s like, this pushing aside of self, when her ever-enlarging womb compresses internal organs to make room for a baby. For a while, mother and baby share the same space, as mother’s body nurtures the life within, but the day will come when the two must separate, often with great pain. It is a costly love that gives birth to new life. It is a costly love that gives birth to the world.

Creation celebrates the creative love of its heavenly parent by glorifying the Creator. "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork!" (Psalm 19:1)

Lines of warm remembrance, envoys of good cheer
The God who loved the world enough to bring it to birth is the same One who nurtures and sustains all living things. Whenever we act in love toward others, caring for their needs or looking out for their interests, we tap into that ultimate love. When it is impossible to be with those we love, letters and notes, such as the anonymous card I received on Valentine’s Day, can be concrete expressions of that love. The Apostle Paul, for example, corresponded with his churches when he was separated from them, and nearly every one of those letters begins with an affectionate greeting. He writes to the Philippians, "I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you…. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart."

Today, in addition to written correspondence, we have many ways to express our affection even when we are apart. Instant messages and cell phones connect people across the globe; video cams make it possible for loved ones to see "face to face," even when separated by thousands of miles. My niece and nephew, four–year–old twins, like to send e-mails that are filled with nothing but smiley faces. My dogs, on the other hand, prefer to express themselves by wagging their tails with such vigor that cups fly off the coffee table, while my 84–year–old neighbor stitches a hand–sewn quilt out of my childhood clothing.

Whenever I’m preparing for a long road trip, my father calls from across the country to remind me to check the oil in my car, a gesture that I have learned is one of his ways of saying, "I love you." And I still have a note that my mother tucked into my suitcase more than 30 years ago as I left town to compete in an athletic event. It is good to know when somebody loves you, and important to let others know of our love for them.

Notes to say, I miss you so
That mysterious hand–painted card arrived in the mail when I was long past the age of mandatory valentines distributed in the classroom at school. There was no "special someone" in my life at the time, but the card made me wonder if I had missed the signs, and I was cheered by the idea that somebody, even somebody so far away as to require a postage stamp, was sending me a love note. The card gave me hope: I was loved.

There may be times, however, when no such card arrives. Human love may fade, whether due to illness or death or trust that is broken. The people we love let us down or, even worse, we let them down. There may be times when, instead of the wonders of creation, we know the darkness that covers the face of the deep; when the stars seem to pierce our hearts with their cold light rather than joining a celestial hymn of praise; when love seems to have left us far behind, when we yearn for a voice from God but hear only silence. We yearn for the comfort of human love and the certainty of God’s love, but all our efforts to find it come up short.

Published letters written by Mother Teresa and spanning most of her adult life give testimony to the deep longing that comes when God seems to be absent, even in the experience of a faithful woman who consistently testified to God’s love for people forgotten by the rest of the world. As she ministered to the poorest among the poor, Mother Teresa longed for affirmation that God approved her mission. Such affirmation did not come, at least not in the immediate way she had experienced in her youth. Nonetheless, she continued to love those whom she served.

For such a time as this, the promises of Scripture are a light in the darkness. "With everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer… I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you…. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it….For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you."

Reminding ourselves of these promises can make it possible for us to affirm with the Apostle Paul, even when things look bleak, "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38). Despite the limits of our experience, God’s love does not leave us. God’s love endures forever.

Thanks for being you
Valentine’s Day reminds us that our best love has its fullest expression when it is embodied in real live people. We love and are loved as individuals, unique and irreplaceable; that is, our love is not merely an abstract concept, but it is enfleshed and expressed with particular others. Those others evoke our love precisely by being who they are. When my best friend jumps for joy at the birth of her child, she celebrates this child, no matter how many other children may have been born before. When she weeps at the death of her mother, she weeps for this mother, not for generic mothers everywhere.

Our human loves cannot fully compare to God’s love, but they do help us to capture a glimpse of God’s love for each of us. Indeed, in God’s desire to embody God’s love for the world — and not for the world in general, but for you and me and all the other particular people who have come into being, as well as for the whole of creation — God dwells among us as the beloved Son, Jesus Christ. It is the ultimate gift of love that God would send God’s only Son into the world.

Jesus makes it possible for us to know, in the flesh, exactly what God’s love looks like. In his relationships with the disciples and with the people he met during his travels, in his demonstration of justice to the lost and marginalized, in his teaching, in his compassionate and healing touch, in his willingness to lay down his life for his friends, Jesus gives concrete demonstration of God’s love. And, most important, through his death and resurrection, Christ brings each of us and the whole of God’s creation into loving relationship with God: not because we are good, not because we have done the right things, but because God delights in our particularity and uniqueness. While we send flowers or cards to express our love, God sends Jesus.

Now and all year through
I spent several weeks trying to figure out who sent me that mysterious card. My girlfriends all denied it, and as none of them was particularly artistic (we were better at music and math), I was inclined to believe them. Besides, they could have left a card in my school locker, instead of sending it by mail. There was no romantic interest (that I knew of) and, in any case, none came forward to ask me out. Eventually, when all leads were exhausted, I lost interest in the hunt, but I never lost the joy of knowing that somebody loved me enough to paint a special card, just for me. Only years later did I discover who put in the effort to create and mail that Valentine’s Day card. It was my grandmother. And she lived next door.

From far or near, from God or from grandmothers, messages of love enable us to reach beyond ourselves in love for others. "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" ( John 13:35).

Audrey West is associate professor of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.