‘Love is all around’ declares the 1967 song from the Troggs. In February it certainly feels that way, if we believe what the shops and the media tell us. Indeed, it is almost impossible to move through a supermarket in February without tripping over buckets of roses, or displays of heart shaped chocolates. This kind of love, the love of Valentine’s day, is a very particular kind of love – romantic love. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of it but there’s much more to love than romance. 

The Christian tradition has love right at its heart but its understanding of love is deeper, broader and far more important than romantic love. Love in the Christian tradition is beautifully summarised in 1 John 4.19: ‘we love because God first loved us.’ Whenever I read that verse, I am reminded of Baz Luhrmann’s film Moulin Rouge which begins and ends with a line from an old Nat King Cole song: ‘The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.’ The author of 1 John might agree but would probably turn the phrase around: ‘The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to be loved and to love in return.’ 

God is love. It is the very essence of who God is. One of the key words used throughout the Old Testament for God’s character is the word ‘hesed’, which is very hard to capture in English. Some translate it as covenant love; others as loving kindness; others still as steadfast love. It has at its heart the idea of an unwavering, certain love that knows no end.  

One of the hardest lessons we can learn in our journey of Christian faith – and one that I find needs learning over and over again – is that God loves us with a love so infinite and so great that we will never truly comprehend it. All we can do is to learn to rest in that love and to let that love pour out of us to the world around us.