The Precarious Vulnerability of Love
Note from the author: I wrote this piece nine years ago; long before I knew exactly where life and love would take me. Somehow these words of mine speak deeply to my heart now, perhaps even more so than they did the day I wrote them from my twenty-four year old pen. I hope it speaks as relevantly to you as it does to me.
C.S. Lewis once wrote, “ To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
His point — love is not an action performed within the walls of self-protection. In order to love one leaves his or herself completely defenseless, fully susceptible to either the blessing or the curse of a friend. Love not only leaves us open to, but leads us fully into a brokenness for someone other than ourselves, softening our hearts to the whims of one to whom we would sacrifice even our greatest longings for. Whether that love is received and cherished or cursed, squandered, or worse, ignored, is of no consequence, for the very act of loving does something more for the lover than the loved, and that is it puts him or herself in position to see others from the best perspective possible: the eyes of our crucified Lord.
Enduring with patience and love through pain and suffering is the very image of cross. The vulnerability of Jesus is absolutely incredible. His is a love that endured every ounce of human abandonment possible. From betrayal, to denial, from accusation to mocking and crucifixion, Jesus put his heart on the line for a people who would not do the same for Him. His love lead Him to shed blood and the carrying of the brokenness of the entirety race of humanity. If love had a face, it was bloodied, beaten, and spit upon.
Humanly speaking, we are a fallen and carry within ourselves the disease of selfishness. Putting off ourselves and putting on Christ is miraculous, but in the realm of Christian relationships, it is also commanded. There’s a sense in which, if we don’t learn this love, this vulnerability, we cannot and will not know or accept the love of God Himself. This goes back to Lewis’ quote. In your attempt to keep your heart from being broken, in your quest to protect yourself from the violation that is to have your love given and completely spurned by another, you will ultimately lose your ability to love or be loved altogether. Your heart will become hardened, both to men and to God.
We all bring baggage to a relationship. That is, we all have sins of which to be forgiven and sins to forgive. We all do harm to one another, it is in our very nature to break one another, so there is a sense in which this command to love is impossible to carry out perfectly. But we must trust in God. We must believe that He who commands is also He who enables. The cross of Christ not only reconciled us with God, but reconciles us with one another. Where sin is, forgiveness should abound. Why? Not because it’s easy. Not because we’re able. Not because the sins committed against us are small. But, forgiveness should abound because the power of Christ, the very heart of Christ compels us towards a pursuit of reconciling our hearts with one another. And even if it is never achieved, even if the one who is loved bares no return, God’s Spirit inside of us should never cease to remind us of the cross, where our Savior became vulnerable and naked before us.
Clinging to the cross of Jesus is where we will find true love. Though naked and scorned and bloody we may become, being made one in his vulnerability is where we will find ourselves greatly loved. We will finally see ourselves as we are seen by Him, and perhaps, someday, the one we love will see too how they are seen by us. Pursuing each other, defenses down, forgiveness in one hand and truth in the other, is where this love is made flesh in us. Love is a journey toward Golgotha, ending at the foot of the beautiful cross of Christ.
