Rooted and Grounded in Love

Reflections on Ephesians 3:14-21

I want to share with you a story about two old men who had dedicated themselves to being serious Christians for many, many years. One is named Epiphanius and the other Hilarion. I came across this story in a wonderful book by a professor of mine, Roberta Bondi, who wrote To Love as God Loves.
One day Saint Epiphanius sent someone to Abba Hilarion with this request, “Come, let us see one another before we depart from the body.” When he came, they rejoiced in each other’s company. During their meal, they were brought a fowl; Epiphanius took it and gave it to Hilarion. Then the old man said to him, “Forgive me, but since I received the habit I have not eaten meat that has been killed.” Then the bishop answered, “Since I took the habit, I have not allowed anyone to go to sleep with a complaint against me and I have not gone to rest with a complaint against anyone.” The old man replied, “Forgive me, your way of life is better than mine.”
Which was a better way of life, refusing to eat meat, or forgiving others and making things right with those you have offended? Dr. Bondi comments, “No amount of pious behavior or Christian discipline can replace love.”
Love is essential in our life. It is human nature to love. To love badly, as many of us do most of the time, is not natural. It’s a sign of how far we have fallen from our original design, as those made in the image of God, who is Love. Remember what Saint Paul wrote, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” To love is what our life in Christ is all about.
It is only for love that we can stay strong in our faith and resist the temptation to give up on being a Christian. It is only for love that we can sacrifice our own wants for the sake of those who we love. It is only for love that we keep doing what is right when all we seem to get for our effort is frustration and rejection. I remember hearing a musician who has been very successful say that when he is talking to those just starting in the music industry, he tells them that if they don’t love the pursuit of fame, then they won’t make it. Fame, for him, was frosting on the cake. His love, his passion, was making music and sharing it with others. Going platinum and selling out arenas was more than he ever dreamed of, and he knows that kind of fame is fleeting. Our love is in the pursuit of being like Christ. Whether or not we become the next Billy Graham or Mother Teresa is peripheral to the pursuit of being like Christ. That’s all we should really be passionate about, loving like Christ loved.
Paul prayed that the Ephesians be rooted and grounded in love. To be rooted in love means receiving nourishment for your soul. The root is what feeds the plant. To be rooted in love is to be nourished by love, to gain and maintain a soft, compassionate and forgiving heart. Without being nourished by love, our hearts will ossify, will become jaded hearts of stone. Without being rooted in love, we die.
To be grounded in love is to be able to hold on in times of chaos and uncertainty. When you are grounded in love and you are in a situation where you don’t know what to do, then love. When everything else has failed, love. When faced with a confusing situation, or you feel trapped by circumstance and your back is against the wall, love. When problems mount and you don’t know which way to turn, love. For those grounded in love, the default action in every situation is to love, to do what love requires in the moment.
So, the goal of the Christian life is to increase our understanding of the breadth, length, height and depth of God’s love. The breadth of God’s love extends to all people. The length of God’s love extends across all time. The height of God’s love fills the heavens and lifts us to the heights of joy. And the depth of God’s love stretches down to those who are at their lowest point, and even into hell. Yes, God’s love is even in hell. God’s love remains for the unrepentant sinner. For those who long to be in the love of God will be in bliss, while those who have rejected the love of God will find that even after death it cannot be escaped, for neither life or death can separate us from the love of God. And so while those who sought to love in this life enjoy the fruits of their labor in paradise, spending eternity with those they love and with the God of love, those who rejected love in this life will be in torment, for from a distance they will eternally gaze on those who loved them, and God who loved them, and will realize what they lost. This is what Saint Isaac the Syrian said about God’s love many centuries ago:
“I also maintain that those who are punished in Hell are scourged by the scourge of love; what is so bitter and vehement as the torment of love? It would be improper for a person to think that sinners in Hell are deprived of the love of God. The power of love works in two ways. It torments sinners and thus, I say, this is the torment of Hell; bitter regret.”
It is hard for us to comprehend that God’s love even extends into the pits of hell. It is hard for us to contemplate that while we were yet sinners, enemies of God, unaware of God, that God loved us even then. It is hard for us to understand that God allows the rain to fall on the good and the bad, that God allows those He loves to be tested while those who turn their back on God, He seems to favor. It is hard for us to understand how it is that God gives blessings to those who surrender to His love at the moment of their death as well as for those who have served God for many years. We don’t understand how it is that God throws a big party and pulls out all the stops for a repentant son while those who are always faithful receive no special recognition. But the greater our comprehension of the mystery of God’s love, the greater capacity we have to love God, one another, and ourselves. As we find in Scripture, “We love because God first loved us.” As we look at the heroes of the faith, those we look up to as role models for how to live the Christian life, we find that their deepest desire was to love God and love people. The Christians we most look up to are those who have an amazing capacity to love; to love God, to love others, to love life. If we dare to try to live up to the examples before us of the true Christian, the place to begin is to contemplate the breadth, length, height, and depth of God’s love for us and for all creation.
The Holy Spirit helps us. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to the Church in order to guide us into all truth. So it is the Holy Spirit that assists us in comprehending what is incomprehensible. It is the Holy Spirit within us that enlarges our heart so that we can be filled with the fullness of God, that we might contain the uncontainable, just like Mary who carried in her womb the one who contains within himself the universe. Our bodies wear out. But our minds and our hearts can continue to expand in the capacity to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul.
God’s power is at work within us. And with this power within us, God can accomplish exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ask or imagine. We may not think we can love our enemies. We may not ask for God to let us love those who spitefully use us or betray us. We may not want to be delivered from the grudges we carry. We may look at people like Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela and think, “I could never love like that.” Don’t be so sure, for the power of God at work within us is able to accomplish exceedingly, abundantly more than we can ask or even imagine. To God be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.