There is a Love that Never Forsakes

A couple of days ago, my uncle died. He had been around a while, but I haven't seen him since I can remember. He and my aunt have been divorced for about fifteen years I guess, but she's always loved him. Through all of the alcoholism and drugs, abandonment and prison time, she never gave up on him. Never. Quite often, my aunt would invite him over and many times let him sleep under the roof of her home because he didn't have anywhere else to go. Despite the divorce long ago, she's very distraught with his departure because, as she told my mom, "You know, we've always been connected." To me, that's something truly peculiar, perfectly divine. I can appreciate something like that: a thing that can endure any number of hardships and difficulties, yet remain intact and transcendent throughout.

A while back, I posted my thoughts of love being like a chisel. I wonder, especially in this context, if love might also be like a furnace. In the same way that gold is melted down by the fire in order to be purified, perhaps lasting love can do the same. It's for the same purpose that a chisel shapes the heart, yet the fire doesn't just chip off the rough edges, it removes everything that is impure. That "connection" isn't just some cosmic fate intervening in the lives of two people. That is the expression of our hearts that God has designed, the manifestation of love.

In so many weddings, I think 1 Corinthians 13 is often overused and sometimes trivialized. If you're unfamiliar, it's the quintessential passage in the Bible that depicts the type of love that God desires for us to both give and receive. Along with a list of attributes, the passage describes the importance of love, that it is the greatest thing that people can express to each other. At one point, Paul says that "love never ends." I'm sure my aunt can attest to that.

During the very last moments of Jesus' life on the cross, he uttered some words that may seem impossible to believe: "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (see Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34). How could the Father forsake the Son? Aren't they essentially one in the same, both God? It would seem an impossibility, a mystery of mysteries. Yet, if we realize that Jesus is actually referring to Psalm 22, our mystery may become less of one, and we may learn a little about this "connection" that bound my aunt and uncle together, despite so many things that insisted on breaking them apart.

Psalm 22
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.

3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried and were rescued;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

6 But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me;
they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
8 “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him;
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

9 Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother's breasts.
10 On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother's womb you have been my God.
11 Be not far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.

12 Many bulls encompass me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.

16 For dogs encompass me;
a company of evildoers encircles me;
they have pierced my hands and feet—
17 I can count all my bones—
they stare and gloat over me;
18 they divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.

19 But you, O Lord, do not be far off!
O you my help, come quickly to my aid!
20 Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dog!
21 Save me from the mouth of the lion!
You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!

22 I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
23 You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him,
and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted,
and he has not hidden his face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to him.

25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will perform before those who fear him.
26 The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the Lord!
May your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before you.
28 For kingship belongs to the Lord,
and he rules over the nations.

29 All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
even the one who could not keep himself alive.
30 Posterity shall serve him;
it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
that he has done it.

What an interesting passage! David, an ancestor of Jesus, experienced a similar, albeit much less, type of hopelessness as Jesus experienced on the cross. This is the very reason Jesus quotes it with his last few breaths. As we read this section of Scripture, it alternates from complete desperation to God's transcendent love that rescued his people, back to utter hopelessness and self-loathing, and then back again to God's patience in deliverance. We see this several times, finally ending in an abode of faith and hope. Yet as Paul described in 1 Corinthians 13, the greatest of these is love. Verse 24 in Psalm 22 says, "For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him." Although strained at moments, they were connected.

I thank God for my aunt and uncle. I am sad to see that they are torn and that he is gone after such a difficult journey of life, but I praise God for their picture of a love that doesn't forsake.

"So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."