Transcending time and space

Last night, Michelle and I want to see the movie Interstellar. (There are no spoilers in this post, so read on.) At an emotional, pivotal point in the movie, two of the characters are having a intense conversation and one of them speaks these words that have stuck with me since I heard them: "Love is the one thing that transcends time and space."

Can love really transcend time and space?

If so, that leads to an even more challenging question: What is love?

To many in the world, love is an amorphous concept that involves emotions and relationship. Here are the first three definitions I found for love in the dictionary:

1) Strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties

2) Attraction based on sexual desire; affection and tenderness felt by lovers

3) Affection based on admiration, or common interests

But love is much more than an emotion; it is a person. Consider these words penned by John...

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 John 4:7-21 NIV)

Twice in this passage we read the words "God is love." While there are many places in Scripture where we read that God loves, these three words - God is love - are a game-changer. No longer is God just one who loves, God is the embodiment of love itself.

Love is much more than an emotion, it is a person. At it's core, love is someone rather than something.

So when the character in Interstellar says, "Love is the one thing that transcends time and space," she is absolutely right.

But God's eternal nature alone doesn't make love eternal. Love can't be love unless there is someone to share it with. Love cannot exist without more than one being present. This is where God becomes the embodiment of love: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit living together in perfect community. God is community, the soil in which love grows.

As beings created in the image of God, we are invited by God into community with God and each other. Through those relationships we are called to embody love. Love God. Love others. If God is love, then as image-bearers we must strive to be ambassadors and agents of love.

Yes, love does transcend time and space, but it also descended into time and space through the person of Jesus Christ. In Christ, we see what it means to be love from the one who is love. As members of Christ's body, we are partner's with God in bringing love into our relationships and communities.

shine!

Jason