I'm a little bit better at loving from a distance. Like the scientist in his lab, I like to watch, listen, observe, enjoy, learn, and love those around me as though they were my uncomprehending subjects. I rarely reach out to my mentors for comfort, but I do look at the actions of those in similar situations before me. Even when I recognize the craving to speak to someone about some personal affliction, I ignore it.
Now, I'm not a robot. Close up, I'm awkward and floppy and I frequently trip over my own faltering words. But I hate feeling--and more importantly, looking--vulnerable. Call it pride, call it insecurity, the outcome is the same. Distance is usually a relief.
But one of my best friends and confidants is very, very far away from me right now. So far that she's nearly inaccessible. I hate that. The other, too, is about to be much further away than I'm comfortable with, and I hate that too. But it's good.
Because quite frankly, this whole "distance love" thing is selfish. I like my bubble and I like my bubble to be my business. But Christ doesn't call me--or anyone else--to love in my own mind and never express it to the object of that love. That's how a marine biologist loves a sea anemone, not how one human being loves another human being.
Nor, as it turns out, is that how an infinite being--THE Infinite Being--loves a finite being. We don't know why God sent his son to save us. Does an omnipotent superpower need to take on the sin, suffering, and torture of a corrupt world in order to save it? Goodness no! But he did.
Why? The only answer we're given is love. Such love, for the whole world, that a Father who is Love, would send his only Son, whom He loved, into a world that was going to murder Him, in order to save that same world that was going to murder Him, because He loves it. Convoluted, is it not?
And confounding. He could have loved us as an observer: rejoiced at our joy, smiled at our happy curiosity; grieved when we grieved. Instead the Creator shed his almighty form, clothed himself in the skin of his creation and loved us up close. Personally. Uncomfortably. He chose to love in person because he was love in person.
The Great Commission compels us to go into all the world, not hide in our hermit caves. We are called to mimic active love. As the body of Christ I'm supposed to take his perfect message with my messy self into the messy world and deliver it by touching wounds with healing hands, wiping away tears with compassionate fingertips, saving souls with words of truth, and maybe, just maybe, by allowing the world that hates Christ because they don't know Him to steal, kill, and destroy my physical self on account of that message of love that refuses to stay passive and silent.
That is the love of Christ. It is an honor to love like that.
"Go, and do the same."
Best wishes,
Nicole
