The French Easter liturgy says, “L’amour de Dieu est folie” – the love of God is foolishness. For the person who seriously considers the depth and breadth of divine love, there can be no other conclusion.
From the human perspective, the love of God is foolishness.
It makes no sense in an ordinary human paradigm of love. The presence of human love is generally evoked by positive qualities we find outside ourselves. It is a response to something that attracts us. It may be the helplessness of a child, the beauty of a woman, the personality of a friend. People typically love because they see something to love. They find some quality in another person which calls forth feelings of desire and devotion.
God’s love is totally different from man’s.
It is literally otherworldly.
“You thought I was just like you,”( Psalm 50:21) God said. But He is not. Divine love isn’t precipitated by outside influence, but finds its cause within the mystery of God’s abundantly loving nature. The love of God is so different from what man generally knows that to call it by the same word almost seems irreverent. At the very least, the self centered residents of this world have diluted the word.
Generally speaking, mankind has so polluted the divine meaning of “love” that it must seem to angelic onlookers that humans have unmitigated gall to use so sacred a word to describe such a shallow and pale experience.
God’s love is in a class by itself. To attempt to impose a human paradigm of love on the God of the Christian is to reduce it to a whimsical emotion held captive by the behavior of its recipients.
To the extent that we believe our behavior has anything to do with God’s love and acceptance of us, we will forfeit genuine intimacy with Him.
When we really understand God’s love, only one response is possible – a lifelong and heartfelt “Thank you!” which will saturate our every thought and deed from that day forward.
