If we live long enough we all face the grief and loss, the searing pain of a loved one leaving this world for their next existence, and it is indeed staggering enough to bring the strongest of us to our knees. How powerful it is to be confident of a loved one's faith in God when they pass from this world to the next. That eternal hope of being together again in heaven, in the presence of the Lord, bears the Christian through a dark place.
C.S. Lewis is the famous author of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, which is a part of his children's collection, the Chronicles of Narnia. He also was a famous atheist, profoundly wounded as a child, when at age nine his mother died. Lewis had decided in the pain of his child's heart that God did not exist. It is said that his friend and colleague, J.R. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings, was an influence in his conversion. Lewis told, in his autobiography, of his conversion, which happened as he rode in a motor cycle side car with a friend for a visit to a zoo, and pondered the wonders of our world. I think very little stirs thoughts of the wonder of God more that the consideration of the creatures which he gifted our world with. C.S. Lewis filled his books with these creatures.
A theme of Lewis's life was the pursuit of "joy." He longed before his conversion to understand and possess joy. The following is a quote from Lewis on hoping for something more:
"Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise.
At present we are on the outside... the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the pleasures we see. But all the pages of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get "in." We will put on glory.... that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch.
We do not want to merely "see" beauty-though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words-to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it." C.S. Lewis
Paul spoke the thoughts of God's heart on love in 1st Corinthians 13 That longing, that God shaped void within us that can only can be filled by God's love is the most powerful driving force in the Universe, for the definition for that longing inside us all is love. "God is love, " and the source of this, attainable by all, forever thing, whose value exceeds all other things. When we leave this world with our heart right before God, because of the gift of salvation, only available through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, we leave to bathe in those waters Lewis spoke of.
21st Century King James Version (KJ21)
1 Corinthians 13
1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become as a
sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
2. And thought I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and
though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,
but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
4. Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not, love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up;
5. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6. Rejoiceth not in inquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8. Love never faileth. But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues,
they shall cease: whether ther be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when
I became a man, I put away childish things.
12. For now we see through a glass , darkly, but the face to face. Now I know in part, but then
shall I know even as I am known.
13. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.
You can read more of the life of C.S. Lewis, who from a non believer became one of the greatest theologians the world has known. This is a good link, but nothing will tell you more than his own autobiography, Surprised by Joy.
One of C.S. Lewis's quotes that I really love is from his book, A Grief Observed. Lewis knew well the song of grief in his life. He speaks of the testamentary that each of our lives is before the Universe concerning love, the kind the world refers so often to, which is a cheap fake, and of that soul searing kind that makes us what God designed us to be. The thing about love is, it is so much more discernible under great adversity.
"God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It is I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down."
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
The Cupid persona upon which Valentine's Day was first established as a day to celebrate, the history of the holiday, how we came about pausing, spending money, and causing men such anxiety, is of no importance to me. However that four letter little word upon which hangs the truth and reality of the two existences which every person will know is the single most important word, idea, concept of, and the purpose concerning both our existences. It is also the driving force of my life in this world.
In this life, in this physical body, we exist in time. We mark minutes, days, years, periods, our childhood, adult life, old age, and all different kinds of measurements of our physical existence in the body we were born into time with. When that body completely fails us, time for us will be no more. Because, just as C.S. Lewis said, we are each a soul, we have a body, and we are an everlasting being, who will spend eternity somewhere. We will acquire another "body" when the physical creation of God that we now exist in returns to dust. I don't have any clear idea what it will be like, this new body, but we won't ever need a replacement for it. It will not be subject to disease or accident. I won't sustain any fender benders, wrinkles, or failed joints and organs. None of the typical maintenance I require now will be needed, and I will never get fat, or have my mind or thought processes be interrupted by illness, age, or accident.
I will begin my eternity existence, and there will be no more "endings" for me. Eternity is forever, and I try to grasp that concept, but so far the only reality and truth I have lived in has been the "time" reality. Of all that is significant in life, the thing of most significance, and which will determine where I exist in eternity, is love.
God, who has always been, not only in eternity, but who is eternity, desired to be loved and to love a being that chose to give themselves to Him in an act of volunteer love. The Greek language. which so much of the Bible was written in. has four words for love, and I am not speaking of "eros" love, which is such a wonderful thing for a man and woman to share, and will knit them together in a way that shared physical bodies does, and which produces such a profound relationship. That is the kind of love Valentine's Day was founded to celebrate. Next to the love of God, it is within marriage that the most gratifying emotional relationship a human being can know, is found. Its' success is achieved when it is practiced as God ordained.
Nor when I speak of this love, am I speaking of the instinctive "family love," known as "storage" in the Greek. How binding, sweet, and powerful is the love of family. I am having a luncheon today for friends, for whom I have great love. That kind of "friendship" love is also greatly satisfying to the human soul, and provides such a richness for our lives. In the Greek, that type of love is known as "philia," or brotherly love.
I am thinking of and expressing my thoughts on "agape" the Greek word for God's unconditional love. Nothing was created or exists for any reason other than God's unconditional love. God knew exactly what He was doing, what would go terribly wrong, and how He would restore what went wrong with His creation of free willed beings. He also knew what potential satisfaction and reward would be created within each free willed being, and He called what would be known from that, love. God is all knowing, and counted the cost, and oh how great a cost it was, before He proceeded to create each free willed being, including you. He considered the pain each of us would bring to Him in rejection of His love. He thought of what it would be like to exist eternally loving and being loved by you, you personally. After He contemplated these things, in His perfect knowledge and wisdom He brought you into being, knowing how wonderful and good heaven would be for you and Him. He also described in His Word to us Himself , His Identity, His very essence, in the three word sentence, "God is love." The purpose of each of us is love. We were created in His image of love.
In God's desire to be loved by you, He gave exact instruction just how that was to be accomplished. In His Word He simply stated "if you love Me, keep my commandments." Love is expressed for God by our seeking to do what He wants us, in His great love for each of us, to do. So many of us refuse to love God, and that is as far from my understanding as is the contemplating and complete understanding of God's love, its' depth, and its' entirety. Those thoughts leave me in awe.
This morning in Bible study with my dear friend Brenda, we read where the Apostle Paul asked of God, "what would you have me to do?" In that question Paul expressed one of the most visible and exceptional examples of a man's loving of God. When you love God your heart instinctively asks, what would you have me to do.
This world of time is full of trouble, full of lies and the liars who speak them, confusion reigns in a person's life without God. The person who chooses to live outside God's love, to carry forward by their own wisdom, makes a train wreck of their life, no matter how they judge its' worth themselves. Ultimately in their rejection of God's love, they condemn themselves to eternal separation from love. God offers all of us the opportunity to know Him as we exist in this world of time, and the next world of eternity, in His love. How can I know such a thing, and not share it every day with everyone I encounter? What better a day than Valentine's to tell once again of God's love.
I will celebrate all day long today, all the forms of love that the Greeks described, but above all else I will celebrate that God is love, and my complete knowledge, due to personal experience, of what it is to be loved by God. Because as God described, and every good Soldier knows, "no greater love hath any man than to lay down his life for a friend, and my Savior, Jesus Christ, laid down His life, in love for me. This is a beautiful day to celebrate God's unfathomable love.
