Rick Cole

This past semester our Bible study has been centered around “Hard Questions.”

Interestingly enough, the night we were dealing with the topic of premarital sex was the night before the Collegian’s article on Love and Sex came out. I thought it was very interesting and we used some of the issues brought up in the article to discuss in our studies.

The last installment of the Collegian’s series was especially poignant, I thought. The question of what love is and the hope of finding true love, a love that is more than biological, more than just a drive, love that does stand the test of time touches us all very deeply.

Is there a love beyond reason or are we just mammals who do it like they do on the Discovery Channel?

You would think that if love is just biology then it would never rise above a sense of self-preservation and gratification. But then why do I see and hear of instances of love shown in self-sacrifice?

If love is there just to meet my needs, why do I see it meeting the needs of others even those who are enemies?

Just recently, I finished a book by a Romanian pastor by the name of Richard Wurmbrand. He tells of his experience in the communist prisons in Romania during the 1950s and early 1960s.

He tells of the torture and pain and sickness and hatred that grew in the men who were locked up there for years but he also tell of the giving and self-sacrifice that was apparent in that place, beyond all reason. He himself contracted tuberculosis and it took several years for any medicine to be allowed inside. When he received it, he gave away to others who needed it more.

This is love beyond biology.

One of his fellow prisoners was a doctor who had been severely beaten by another prisoner. When that man was sick, the doctor tenderly met his needs.

This is love beyond drives.

Back in February I sat in a hospital room while a husband sat and held the hand of his dying wife.

Both of them were 97 years old and very feeble. But there was love in that room, love born out of 72 years of commitment to each other.

Jesus tells us that there is a love above all.

He said it this way: “I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. And here is how to measure it – the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends.”(John 15:12,13)

Jesus tells us there is a love that is more than biology, more than erotic arousal.

It is a love that goes beyond those we love and who love us back.

We don’t see it much because we tend to be selfish.

But it is there.

Not only does he tell us but he showed us too on the cross. Romans 5:10 says we were restored to friendship with God by the death of His own son, while we were still his enemies.

Maybe that’s why God is restrictive in this wonderful gift of sex.

Maybe it’s only in the context of two people sacrificing some of their freedoms and rights for each other in a covenant relationship that sex plays the role that it is supposed to play.

Maybe God knows we are like the little boy who had never seen a circus.

One day he heard that one was coming to town so he begged his dad to let him go. His dad finally said yes and gave him the money to go, even though the family was very poor. Off he ran to town.

On the way, he saw the circus parade passing by. He was thrilled to see the clowns and acrobats and animals.

As the last clown passed by the boy reached into his pocket and gave the clown his money and headed home. The boy thought that he had seen the circus when he had only seen the parade.

Maybe God knows how easy it is to settle for second best when it comes to love and sex and not see all that He has to offer.

Is there a higher love?

I know there is. I see it in Jesus who loves me and gave himself up for me.

And I see Him in my wife and friends who love me even when I’m unlovable and not very sexy.