All you need is love

Let’s first just take a couple of minutes to appreciate the Beatles! Whatever you think of them: Greatest Band Ever or Most Over-Hyped Band Ever. The fact they released 7 studio albums between March ‘63 and August ’66 is stunning! You’re lucky if your favourite band releases 1 album every 2 years nowadays.

Their appeal and popularity across the board is undeniable. Screaming teenage girls and cool student-aged guys, older married women and hard-working men liked the Beatles.

Not many bands have ever had that same type of success since, if any at all.

But the Beatles weren’t without their critics or their problems. Ultimately many people blame Yoko Ono and Linda Eastman, but mostly the former for the break up of the Beatles. But differing music styles and ideas as well as egos probably also played a part. A disillusioning trip to India for the band, except for George, wasn’t great either it seems.

How could a band who sang “All you need is love” have such difficulties and end up splitting. They all had wives or partners and they had each other.

Did they prove, that actually, you need more than love?

I guess another question is, how do you define love?

Is love just a warm fuzzy feeling you get when you’re around someone you like? Is love a choice? Do you choose to love someone and show it in actions? Is it both? Or can love even be defined?
 When I say “I love you” to my wife, what do I mean?

We live in a society that places a high price on love and looks for it in many places. Mr or Mrs Right, close-knit groups of friends, experiences, often sexual ones, or, family are the primary sources I would imagine.

When you listen to early Beatles tracks you hear a really clear message of love. There is a search for love, the perfect person to spend your life with.

“Love, love me do, you know I love you, I’ll always be true, so won’t you please love me do”

How about songs such as “I wanna hold your hand” or “She loves you” or “I saw her standing there”? All speak of seeing a girl and falling in love or want to hold her hand and walk with her etc.

Love is an important commodity, to put it somewhat crudely. The Beatles also famously sang “Can’t buy me love”. Money can’t buy you love. You know those mastercard adverts. I guess if there was one to speak of love it could go like this:

Flowers £10

Meal for 2 at a fancy restaurant £75

Flashy sports car £80,000

Finding true love, priceless.

There are some things money can’t buy but for everything else there’s Mastercard.

Love is something we all crave and we may even be willing to give up everything else to find it.

As human beings we long for it. We would maybe even go as far as to say that it is a fundamental human need.

We are cups, which need filling with love, but maybe we are slightly leaky cups that constantly need filling up with love. There is never complete satisfaction.

There is an element of truth in that, we are created for relationships, and I believe we are created ultimately for a relationship with the loving God of the universe. He is the only one who can truly satisfy us.

But to describe us a mere receptacles who need filling with love is to be quite selfish.

We are beings who are called to love others.

To give, not just to receive. Having good friends, being married and enjoying sex, having a boyfriend or girlfriend, belonging to a close family unit where there is real care and love is a wonderful thing. But all I am saying is that if we look to any or all of those to ultimately fulfill us, they will fall short. In fact expecting any of those relationships to be perfect and bring complete satisfaction puts an unfair pressure on the people in that relationship.

It is a relationship with Jesus Christ that can and will completely satisfy and then with that in place all of those other good relationships find their right place.

Interestingly enough Jesus summed up the Old Testament and Christian teaching like this:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength and love your neighbour as yourself”

That’s is quite removed from the modern idea that Christianity is unfeeling, judgmental and dull isn’t it? If Jesus is right, and if this was lived out, it’s actually wonderfully warm.

I know some of you will have come across people claiming to be Christians who have been all of those negative things. First, I am sorry that they’ve given that impression. Second, none of us are perfect and while Christians should be seeking to love God and love neighbour, they won’t always do it. My point is,

look at Jesus. He does exactly that, lives a life of perfect love. He is the One we seek to follow, finding that He is attractive is the answer.

In “All you need is love”, the idea that being where you’re meant to be, doing what you want to do and dealing with problems, are solved by love. If you have love you can achieve anything and everything.

In a letter written by one of Jesus’ closest friends we find this definition of love:

“This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4v10)

Also this:

“This is how we know what love is, Jesus Christ laid down His life for us, that we should also lay down our lives for our brothers.” (1 John 3v16)

Love comes from God and it is most clearly displayed in the fact that Jesus laid down His life to pay the price for our sins.

God is love. Contrary to popular belief that He is this kind of cosmic policeman in the sky just waiting to smite you, the Bible tells us that God is love. Not just loving, but actually love itself.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit in perfect loving relationship. It is the outflow of this love that means creation is here and is it the outflow of this love that means God wants us to be in relationship with Him and He has done all that is needed for that to be a reality.

In Luke 23 at the crucifixion we see Jesus giving Himself for those who would believe in Him. He has done it all. In another gospel He cries:

“It is finished!”

His work is done, sin has been paid for, relationship with God is now accessible through Him.

Luke mentions 2 very important aspects of what is happening at the cross.

The first is the darkness:

The darkness shows that in His death Jesus is paying the penalty for sins which are not His own. As the thief points out, Jesus is innocent.

But this is not some kind of cosmic stunt by God, it’s not child abuse from Father to Son, but rather God dealing with the problem of sin in Himself, within the perfect loving relationship of the Trinity so that we might be brought into fellowship with Father, Son and Spirit.

Second the curtain is torn:

This shows that what I have just said is possible. Access into the throne room of God, access into the place where God was said to dwell is not open. Only the High priest used to be able to go their once a year after a whole host of rituals.

Now the way is open through Jesus.

By trusting in Him, coming to Him for mercy and forgiveness, as one of the thieves does, we can enjoy a wonderful relationship with God.

Jesus’ interaction with the thief who sees His need and asks for mercy is amazing.

Jesus says: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

What wonderful words to hear!

Not only that but the soldier near the cross sees there is something completely different about this guy and the way He dies.

We often live like love is god. We search for it anywhere and everywhere as I’ve said already. We want something for ourselves, we want to be loved, we want to feel secure, we want to feel filled, we want to be satisfied.

We worship love.

But, the essence of true love is the giving of yourself for another. Love does not seek it’s own ends, love is patient and kind. Love is outward focused.

Love is not god, but God is love. God defines what true love is. It is self-sacrificial, it is self-giving.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails"

Replace love in that passage with Jesus or God and you’ve hit the jackpot. The definition of love is wonderful is it not?

It perfectly describes God. God is the only one worthy of worship.

If every human being lived this way, the world would be sorted. The problem is, the church this letter was written to were not living this way, they had lost sight of it.

The problem we have is that none of us live this way. We all seek our own ends. That’s why Jesus died, so that we might live for Him and learn to love this way and live this way with other people.

So, in a very real way, love is all you need. The Beatles were right!!! But only when you define love the way God does. When you see that God is love, it is wonderfully attractive. All you need is love, because all you really need is God.

(This blog post is pretty much the content of a talk I gave at Huddersfield CU mission week in February 2011).