We have arrived again in the month of love. Well, at least in the month that claims to be of love. I have to say claims to be of love because of the way that love is now viewed. Unfortunately, love has been redefined so much by our world today that is as about as good for us as the Valentines candy you may eat. It is all sugary sweet, but it doesn’t do much for you.

Take your pick as to who is at fault here. It is so very easy to take a swipe at television and movies. You can start with the soap operas that in the course of a year have lovers swapping partners about as often as a normal person changes their socks. Then there are the movies. They portray love as something that is only sensual, sexual and superficial. Yet in this, they denigrate love rather than celebrating it.

However, I don’t think it is totally fair to lay this all at the feet of the media. How is it that we treat love on a daily basis? There are some of us who take the dangerous step of assuming that those we love know that we love them without our telling them. This is a dangerous assumption. For those we love may actually begin to think that we don’t. Still others treat love as disposable. We think that we can fall in and out of love or marry-divorce-remarry at will. Love and marriage becomes a quaint antique idea. We support the idea that the pre-marital virginity is as out of date as the Edsel by supporting our friends and children when they live in sin.

So, if love is not the sugary, sweet thing that our Valentine’s candy is and it is not the vulgar, cheap, almost pornographic idea of Hollywood nor the indifference of our own personal mentalities, then what is it? We could say that God is love. But what does that mean? Well, I can tell you what it does NOT mean. God is not some bodiless emotion that makes your heart sing. No, the God that we know of as love is much more real, much more concrete, much more human. The God that is Love is Jesus.

But this Jesus is not warm and fuzzy. The Jesus that is love is not the one that will simply be glad to take you where you are. No, the Jesus that is Love is the one that comes to you and for you. He comes in the flesh, with all of its limitations for your sake. But this flesh visit is not some pretty thing. It is a gory, bloody thing. We may not like it, but that is what love looks like. Do you want to know how love looks like? Look at Jesus on the cross. There is no fake, cheap, sugary love there. It is brutal, honest love. Love that puts the one loved before the lover. That is the manner of love with which God has loved you.

And this is not some one time love either. It is an eternal love. It is also a love that is renewed weekly. Our Lord LOVES you the Words of Absolution. He loves you enough to forgive you, even when you don’t really deserve it. He LOVES you in the preaching of the word that convicts you of sin and speaks forgiveness. He LOVES you in the body and blood that comes to you under the bread and wine of the Sacrament.

BEHOLD this love. Don’t forsake it. God doesn’t make you guess about His love for you! He makes is clear. In Jesus. In the Word. In the Sacraments. Behold this manner of Love that the Lord lavishes upon us!