Hesed: The Crux of Love
“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” - John 5:39
I remember standing in my Sunday school room in my dusty pink stiletto heels, eagerly waiting for the young adults joining our class that Sunday to take their seats so we could begin our lesson in John. I loved this verse in John 5 about scripture study and eternal life and I couldn’t wait to instill the love of God’s word in the hearts of my students through this verse. We read the verse, and I inquired what they thought the verse meant. Expectantly, most of them said something along the lines of how we can find eternal life in God’s word. I was pleased with this answer, and we continued with the lesson.
A couple of years later when I had retired those pink stilettos and found myself in my sweats on my living room couch, I revisited this verse, read the entire chapter in John, and to my utter astonishment realized that Jesus was addressing a very large issue to the pharisees. He was speaking to THE PHARISEES! This is easily recognizable when you read the next few verses, but the “Come Follow Me” manual had greatly failed to guide me to those verses, and I had missed the whole point.
“And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life… But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.” -John 5:40&42
He wasn’t saying that we have eternal life through scripture study. He was saying that the pharisees BELIEVED they had eternal life simply because they were well-versed in scripture, but they failed to come to Him to gain eternal life. They didn’t recognize who He was. And why didn’t they recognize Him? Because they had “not the LOVE of God in them.” They didn’t have love. This reality hit me like a load of bricks and I learned a very valuable lesson that day about the crux of love in our current society.
I remember standing in my Sunday school room in my dusty pink stiletto heels, eagerly waiting for the young adults joining our class that Sunday to take their seats so we could begin our lesson in John. I loved this verse in John 5 about scripture study and eternal life and I couldn’t wait to instill the love of God’s word in the hearts of my students through this verse. We read the verse, and I inquired what they thought the verse meant. Expectantly, most of them said something along the lines of how we can find eternal life in God’s word. I was pleased with this answer, and we continued with the lesson.
A couple of years later when I had retired those pink stilettos and found myself in my sweats on my living room couch, I revisited this verse, read the entire chapter in John, and to my utter astonishment realized that Jesus was addressing a very large issue to the pharisees. He was speaking to THE PHARISEES! This is easily recognizable when you read the next few verses, but the “Come Follow Me” manual had greatly failed to guide me to those verses, and I had missed the whole point.
“And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life… But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.” -John 5:40&42
He wasn’t saying that we have eternal life through scripture study. He was saying that the pharisees BELIEVED they had eternal life simply because they were well-versed in scripture, but they failed to come to Him to gain eternal life. They didn’t recognize who He was. And why didn’t they recognize Him? Because they had “not the LOVE of God in them.” They didn’t have love. This reality hit me like a load of bricks and I learned a very valuable lesson that day about the crux of love in our current society.
I grew up in a church that stated repeatedly over the pulpit how much we must “love everybody.” But in my heart, it always seemed like there was a very deep chasm between what was said at the pulpit, and the actions (or lack of action) that was happening outside of those church pews. When asking for practical application of true and honorable love I was often met with glazed looks, and more sugar-coated answers. But to me, love was so much more. I just couldn’t wrack my brain with the words for it.
Moroni clarifies this in Moroni 7:44 when he says, “… if a man be meek and lowly in heart, and confesses by the power of the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ, he must needs have charity; for if he have not charity he is nothing.”
So, without love, we are nothing? That sounds awfully harsh… but here’s why:
Love should be our driving force for everything. It should be the reason we wake up in the morning, the cause for the integrity we choose to have in our work lives, and the burning desire in our hearts that makes us want to come home and hug our spouse and children at night. It’s also the endurance instilled in us when we are faced with difficult, scary, and sometimes traumatic life experiences. It’s what makes us stay in the lives of people when the natural man in us may be screaming to run and hide. We come to love God when we experience His love for us. And we often come to know His love through those illustrating that for us in the way they respond with action when we need them. Love is the gasoline behind priesthood power, for without it, there is no power. And the authority that many men claim to have becomes inoperable and fruitless without love.
“Greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.” – John 15:13
Jesus Christ is the greatest friend we could ever ask for, because He was willing to SUFFER and DIE for and in behalf of us. All driven by His powerful love for us. That begs me to ask the question: if Jesus didn’t really love us, would He even have been able to endure the intense, heinous, and extreme suffering He faced in our behalf? Or perhaps His love for us was the very power that made it possible, so He DID NOT SRINK in the face of hellish suffering.
Moroni clarifies this in Moroni 7:44 when he says, “… if a man be meek and lowly in heart, and confesses by the power of the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ, he must needs have charity; for if he have not charity he is nothing.”
So, without love, we are nothing? That sounds awfully harsh… but here’s why:
Love should be our driving force for everything. It should be the reason we wake up in the morning, the cause for the integrity we choose to have in our work lives, and the burning desire in our hearts that makes us want to come home and hug our spouse and children at night. It’s also the endurance instilled in us when we are faced with difficult, scary, and sometimes traumatic life experiences. It’s what makes us stay in the lives of people when the natural man in us may be screaming to run and hide. We come to love God when we experience His love for us. And we often come to know His love through those illustrating that for us in the way they respond with action when we need them. Love is the gasoline behind priesthood power, for without it, there is no power. And the authority that many men claim to have becomes inoperable and fruitless without love.
“Greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.” – John 15:13
Jesus Christ is the greatest friend we could ever ask for, because He was willing to SUFFER and DIE for and in behalf of us. All driven by His powerful love for us. That begs me to ask the question: if Jesus didn’t really love us, would He even have been able to endure the intense, heinous, and extreme suffering He faced in our behalf? Or perhaps His love for us was the very power that made it possible, so He DID NOT SRINK in the face of hellish suffering.
“Perfect LOVE casts out fear” (1 John 4:18), but who truly believes that when they are glaring fear in the face? Why do most people flee when things get tough, and we can’t maintain our perfect look and our shiny shoes? Why don’t believers imprint that scripture in their hearts to the point where it empowers them to cast out the fear of difficult, messy, and scary situations? Because no amount of pulpit preaching, pew sitting, and meandering in the halls with others in between meetings and church-going will cover the mass amount of healing that society needs right now.
The answers to these questions are beautifully illustrated in the book of Job.
“How strange it is that in this long book, containing so much suffering and so much mystery and so much strenuous grappling with the deep things of God, this little word love-surely the key word not only in the Bible but in all of human language-occurs only twice…
Yet here is something even stranger: people who are going through the deep waters of suffering can grow to hate this word. They can arrive at the point where they cannot even stand to hear it anymore, without feeling an actual physical revulsion in their gut. Why? … What, indeed, do we think we are doing as we bandy about this four-letter word so glibly and cavalierly? Does it ever dawn on us that just to speak it is like speaking the whole world into existence all over again? That it is like speaking the most sacred of all mysteries, that of all the names of God it is the most holy and awesome? Yet it is such an easy and gratifying little word to say, and it is particularly easy and gratifying when everything is going well for us. When life feels good and we have the world by the tail, then it is no great thing to love. It is nothing to love God under such circumstances, and nothing at all to love the whole of humanity with an expansive radiance. As long as we are getting our own way in life, love sits will in our stomachs and rolls fluently off our tongues, and that is why people who are suffering may grow to hate it so much. For it sound as though the secret of life were a much commoner cheaper thing than it is.
But love in the midst of suffering is something dreadful. To love, and to keep on loving when all human reserves for it have been exhausted, is a more fearsome thing than hate. Such love is a furnace. A fire hotter than Hell. The one who loves in this way-long and honestly and without restraint-will love alone and will inevitably be punished for it most severely by the world.” - (The Gospel According to Job; Mike Mason; Page 125-126)
The answers to these questions are beautifully illustrated in the book of Job.
“How strange it is that in this long book, containing so much suffering and so much mystery and so much strenuous grappling with the deep things of God, this little word love-surely the key word not only in the Bible but in all of human language-occurs only twice…
Yet here is something even stranger: people who are going through the deep waters of suffering can grow to hate this word. They can arrive at the point where they cannot even stand to hear it anymore, without feeling an actual physical revulsion in their gut. Why? … What, indeed, do we think we are doing as we bandy about this four-letter word so glibly and cavalierly? Does it ever dawn on us that just to speak it is like speaking the whole world into existence all over again? That it is like speaking the most sacred of all mysteries, that of all the names of God it is the most holy and awesome? Yet it is such an easy and gratifying little word to say, and it is particularly easy and gratifying when everything is going well for us. When life feels good and we have the world by the tail, then it is no great thing to love. It is nothing to love God under such circumstances, and nothing at all to love the whole of humanity with an expansive radiance. As long as we are getting our own way in life, love sits will in our stomachs and rolls fluently off our tongues, and that is why people who are suffering may grow to hate it so much. For it sound as though the secret of life were a much commoner cheaper thing than it is.
But love in the midst of suffering is something dreadful. To love, and to keep on loving when all human reserves for it have been exhausted, is a more fearsome thing than hate. Such love is a furnace. A fire hotter than Hell. The one who loves in this way-long and honestly and without restraint-will love alone and will inevitably be punished for it most severely by the world.” - (The Gospel According to Job; Mike Mason; Page 125-126)
I sat in the car once with my mom, with hot tears streaming down my face, while I half-yelled “I hate love and I hate how it always burns SO BAD.” The only way I felt at the time to get that deep pain in my heart to come out was by half yelling it. I’m certainly not the only one on this planet that has felt that deep stinging feeling that makes you want to raise the walls of Jericho around your heart.
Suffering people grow to hate the word love so much, simply because what they’re told is love is rarely illustrated for them when they are being swallowed by the hot flames of their lives. I was raised in a church where many people believe you can’t even admit to your suffering, because certainly people won’t want to be around you if you’re suffering. And that has reigned true in the midst of long-term, dark, and cut-throat suffering that many cannot comprehend until they’ve seen their own bloody footprints behind them on their personal journey. So, what’s the answer to this crux that cuts the chord between us and true love?
“When all human reserves have been exhausted,” we can still choose love. But how?
Hesed.
Hesed is a Hebrew word that has no English equivalent, yet it’s powerful meaning far exhausts even the closest definition for it: lovingkindness. Hesed is covenantal and conditional love. It is covenantal in nature because it requires us to KEEP our promises, and it’s conditional because it requires ACTION. It is not to be confused with love the can seem frivolous and fleeting. It isn’t what we experience when we shake our Bishop’s hand in church on Sunday, and then are left feeling empty and lonely as we drive home on that same day. The “love” that is born merely from seeing a person at church every Sunday is unconditional in nature and requires very little to be considered love.
The majority of human hearts crave in their fiery furnace a kind of everlasting love. They crave Hesed. Hesed is sacrificial, not artificial. Hesed is often giving up our own comfort, time, and possibly money to those who are in dire need, no matter how uncomfortable it may make us. Hesed is the loving kindness that empowers us to be strong enough to endure those difficult situations we often experience with individuals in homes rather than groups in Sunday school or congregations in temples. Hesed requires us to choose to exist in the midst of suffering and make space for it. Hesed is yet another lesson Jesus taught to the pharisees when He taught the parable of the good Samaritan, describing the action associated with the one who helped the wounded and half-dead man;
“And went to him, and bound up his wounds…. And brought him to an inn, and took care of him.” -Luke 10:34
Jesus then further invites the Pharisees to “Go, and do likewise.” -Luke 10:37
Suffering people grow to hate the word love so much, simply because what they’re told is love is rarely illustrated for them when they are being swallowed by the hot flames of their lives. I was raised in a church where many people believe you can’t even admit to your suffering, because certainly people won’t want to be around you if you’re suffering. And that has reigned true in the midst of long-term, dark, and cut-throat suffering that many cannot comprehend until they’ve seen their own bloody footprints behind them on their personal journey. So, what’s the answer to this crux that cuts the chord between us and true love?
“When all human reserves have been exhausted,” we can still choose love. But how?
Hesed.
Hesed is a Hebrew word that has no English equivalent, yet it’s powerful meaning far exhausts even the closest definition for it: lovingkindness. Hesed is covenantal and conditional love. It is covenantal in nature because it requires us to KEEP our promises, and it’s conditional because it requires ACTION. It is not to be confused with love the can seem frivolous and fleeting. It isn’t what we experience when we shake our Bishop’s hand in church on Sunday, and then are left feeling empty and lonely as we drive home on that same day. The “love” that is born merely from seeing a person at church every Sunday is unconditional in nature and requires very little to be considered love.
The majority of human hearts crave in their fiery furnace a kind of everlasting love. They crave Hesed. Hesed is sacrificial, not artificial. Hesed is often giving up our own comfort, time, and possibly money to those who are in dire need, no matter how uncomfortable it may make us. Hesed is the loving kindness that empowers us to be strong enough to endure those difficult situations we often experience with individuals in homes rather than groups in Sunday school or congregations in temples. Hesed requires us to choose to exist in the midst of suffering and make space for it. Hesed is yet another lesson Jesus taught to the pharisees when He taught the parable of the good Samaritan, describing the action associated with the one who helped the wounded and half-dead man;
“And went to him, and bound up his wounds…. And brought him to an inn, and took care of him.” -Luke 10:34
Jesus then further invites the Pharisees to “Go, and do likewise.” -Luke 10:37
“Some Christians treat love as though it were an evangelistic strategy, a kind of gospel-bait. Love is seen as a useful tool for attracting or luring people into the Kingdom. Naturally, once the fish has been hauled into the boat, the lure is cut from its mouth. But love is not a silver spoon or a jitterbug. Love is not baith for the gospel; love is the gospel. Love is not a means towards some other end; love is means and end together. The moment love is used as a tool, it ceases to be love. When people try to use love in this way, what they are really doing is using God. Instead of being used by God, they try to turn the tables and use Him. Religion becomes an instrument for the expansion of one’s own personal power. Love becomes a weapon of aggression. Little wonder that the person who is suffering comes to hate it. For true love is not aggression; true love is not concerned with gaining power over others. Rather, love is the humility in which self becomes subservient to relationship.” -(The Gospel According to Job; Mike Mason; Page 126)
Simply put, when we let love be the means and the end, we move into position to become servants to our fellow neighbors, and therefore servants to God. Our hearts travel outward, and we begin to center our daily tasks on relationships rather than self-aggrandizement, gain, power, position, or even our own comfort. This means relationship with God, and with others. When one begins to live that way, then suddenly we can openly work through difficulties, we can be a safe space for those difficulties, and we can succor and run to (without hesitation) those who desperately are crying out for help.
We should consistently be in the business of running to those who need us, binding up wounds, offering a safe place, and taking care. But those things often require us to say yes to experiences that may seem wearying at times. The concept of trusting God to usher us through a weary and burdened spirit for and in behalf of another is suddenly becoming more and more rare in the church and in society.
Hesed requires a much greater lot and sacrifice than simply shaking people’s hands and smiling at them in church. It asks for sacrifice. But if one comes to know the nature of God and His love for us, we know that to become like Him, we are tagged to sacrifice, just as He did for us.
“In the Kingdom of God nothing moves, nothing happens, without love.” -(The Gospel According to Job; Mike Mason; Page 126)
May we all begin to set a new standard. May we be ushering in the power we all need to move His Kingdom towards something greater than we’re currently seeing. May we all feel a new drive rushing through our veins to be that good Samaritan and go to those left for dead and bind up their wounds. For this is love according to God. This kind of love binds and seals us to God and to others in the best relationships we could ask for. And this is the door in which when we choose to walk through, miracles happen.
God bless you as you’re forged in His fire.
-Claire
Simply put, when we let love be the means and the end, we move into position to become servants to our fellow neighbors, and therefore servants to God. Our hearts travel outward, and we begin to center our daily tasks on relationships rather than self-aggrandizement, gain, power, position, or even our own comfort. This means relationship with God, and with others. When one begins to live that way, then suddenly we can openly work through difficulties, we can be a safe space for those difficulties, and we can succor and run to (without hesitation) those who desperately are crying out for help.
We should consistently be in the business of running to those who need us, binding up wounds, offering a safe place, and taking care. But those things often require us to say yes to experiences that may seem wearying at times. The concept of trusting God to usher us through a weary and burdened spirit for and in behalf of another is suddenly becoming more and more rare in the church and in society.
Hesed requires a much greater lot and sacrifice than simply shaking people’s hands and smiling at them in church. It asks for sacrifice. But if one comes to know the nature of God and His love for us, we know that to become like Him, we are tagged to sacrifice, just as He did for us.
“In the Kingdom of God nothing moves, nothing happens, without love.” -(The Gospel According to Job; Mike Mason; Page 126)
May we all begin to set a new standard. May we be ushering in the power we all need to move His Kingdom towards something greater than we’re currently seeing. May we all feel a new drive rushing through our veins to be that good Samaritan and go to those left for dead and bind up their wounds. For this is love according to God. This kind of love binds and seals us to God and to others in the best relationships we could ask for. And this is the door in which when we choose to walk through, miracles happen.
God bless you as you’re forged in His fire.
-Claire
