My favorite verse in all of Scripture is 1 John 4:8: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Notice, the verse doesn’t say, “God HAS love.” It says, “God IS love.” In other words, God is love itself — total and complete. If anyone were to ask you for a definition of God, you could simply say, “Love.” What more needs to be said?
It’s no secret that our culture has a distorted understanding of love. To quote the late, great Tina Turner, many people consider love to be a “second-hand emotion.” While I don’t want to criticize a phenomenal artist, Tina certainly misses the mark on her notion of love. Love goes beyond a mere feeling of closeness to a person or thing. It is much more than attraction. In fact, I would argue that love, at its core, is not attractive at all.
St. Thomas Aquinas defines love as an act of the will. He says that to love is “to will the good of the other as other.” It’s not about how we feel but about choosing to seek the good of another. With that in mind, where am I going?
Recently, I’ve been praying and reflecting on the Baptism of the Lord. This event, found in all four Gospels, offers many spiritual insights. But what strikes me most is that Jesus freely chose to subject himself to the muddy, murky waters of the Jordan River. Why would he do that? If Jesus Christ is the perfect and spotless Son of God, the one who had no need to be baptized, why would he come to what was less than him and ask to be baptized? Even John the Baptist struggled with this question.
The answer, as we come to see, is that God is love.
When the Lord enters the waters of the Jordan, he stands in solidarity with humanity, which struggles under the effects of a fallen and broken world. The muddy, murky Jordan represents the reality of pain and suffering, conflict and war, abuse and neglect. Yet, our Lord does not hesitate to enter into this messiness. In fact, he not only enters it but also lifts us out of it, presenting us to the Father as adopted sons and daughters. The God we worship is one who sympathizes with the human condition. He who is perfect comes into what is imperfect to restore us to perfection.
The Baptism of the Lord is a foretaste of Christ’s death and resurrection. In his act of entering the Jordan, we see the innocent Lamb of God freely choosing to bear the weight of humanity’s brokenness, symbolized by the dirty waters. Yet, as Jesus rises from those waters, he brings us with him—a beautiful foreshadowing of the resurrection. This begs the question: How do we love?
When it comes to fostering and adopting children, the challenges of love become very real. We often have no idea what kind of trauma a child might have endured. Many of the horrors these children experience is beyond imagination. When a child is placed in our care, the effects of their trauma or the coping mechanisms they’ve developed can feel overwhelming. This can lead to despair. We begin to wonder if we are truly capable of loving and caring for a child who may not understand love at all.
How do we love a child who sneaks through the house destroying valuables? How do we care for a child who screams and curses at us for no apparent reason? There is no easy answer.
It is not easy to love.
Once again, love is not necessarily attractive. We must look to the example of Jesus Christ, who freely chose to enter our brokenness and suffer with and for us. We are called to take on the role of Christ and lay down our lives for the good of the children placed in our care. We must not be afraid to die to ourselves. We must enter into their trauma and walk with them toward healing and resurrection, even when the path ahead seems hopeless.
There is no quick fix when it comes to love. There is no instruction manual for loving and caring for children who have never known love. But we must be love for them. We must be Christ for them.
Yes, it is a heavy burden. The cross was a heavy burden for Christ. But the story didn’t end in the burden. It ended in life. It ended in resurrection.
It is only by God’s grace that we can carry out the call to be love for children in desperate need of it.
Fr. Christopher Kight is a priest for the Diocese of Owensboro, KY, and the Spiritual Director of Springs of Love. He was adopted into a Catholic family at six weeks old, and believes it is the Church’s responsibility to care for children and families involved in fostering and adoption. He will offer occasional spiritual insights and reflections that pertain to our mission at Springs of Love.
