Love Personified

What is love? What would love look like in human form? Hugh Halter examines how Jesus personified love.

Questions for Discussion and Personal Reflection

  1. When in your life have you sensed that love was given, then withdrawn?
  2. Why did Hugh suggest that Jesus is exemplary of true love?

It seems like the, the biggest deal to Jesus was love, um, but it seems like people are afraid of what, uh, of actually saying that. I think most people think love is, uh, is fleeting. It moves and changes and you, you put it on some people, and then you withdraw it because it doesn't really work. Um, love is not something that's stable. It's something you might get to experience every once in a while, but, uh, it's not sort of, it's not always there. It's not given freely. Um, you hardly ever experience love without some condition, but that's not true. That's not right. If love was a person, I would think love would have to be, uh, somebody that would always sit at the table with you regardless of whether or not you had a good day or a bad day. Um, love would actually have to show up in questions, somebody that actually asks you about your life, kept asking you deeper and deeper questions, actually cared enough to, uh, to sit there for a long time and actually get to know you. Um, and love would probably have to be somebody that, um, you know, like a true friend. Like, you know, if you have friends you always accept who they are. They can behave really weird, they can have weird idiosyncrasies, um, stuff that you might make fun of in somebody else. A true friend is somebody that you actually go, "Oh, that's just Bill, that's just Sue," but you actually accept them, so it would seem like, you know, somebody that really represents love, they'd almost have to be able to, sort of, giggle at your weirdness or your faults or your sin, even your sin. They'd actually have to be able to smirk a little bit and go, "Yeah, I know, I know you struggle with that." So that's why Jesus sort of made sense for me as a person of real love. Jesus was that type of guy. I don't know. To me, that's a great picture of love.