In this storm of love two spirits strive together: the spirit of God and our own spirit. God, through the Holy Spirit, inclines himself towards us; and, thereby, we are touched in love. And our spirit, by God’s workings and by the power of love, presses and inclines itself into God: and thereby, God is touched. From these two contacts there arises the strife of love, at the very deeps of this meeting; and in that most inward and ardent encounter, each spirit is deeply wounded by love. These two spirits, that is our own spirit and the Spirit of God, sparkle and shine one into the other, and each shows to the other all that it is and invites it to all that is. This makes the lovers melt into each other. God’s touch and his gifts, our loving craving and our giving back: these fulfil love. RUYSBROECK
Ruysbroeck likens the relationship between God and man to a storm, a flood, a raging fire, to lightning flashing between heaven and earth. All these images bring out the tremendous power that is involved in this relationship. It is easy to think of the Christian life as tranquil and peaceful but when we reflect on the lives of great Christians, we can see that, for the most part, the tremendous power, completeness and totality which characterised their life was the dominating factor. When God and man meet, there is all the power of love in action, and the greatness of the divine love, which initiates and draws out the love of the other, brings to the relationship a power that other relationships cannot know.
The life of Jesus himself bears witness to the completeness and totality for which the Father calls. His life was not characterised by ease or peaceful relationships with men. He was opposed, reviled, and killed. The message of the cross is not just suffering, but total self-giving. It brings out the complete love of Jesus for the Father, and expresses his willingness to be drawn into the Father’s plan no matter what the personal cost. He knew suffering and disappointment in his work. The very people He came to save wanted him to be other than the Father asked of him. Though he was Son he had to learn obedience through suffering (Heb 5:8). To enter into a relationship with the Father is to be caught up in a storm of love which can toss the believer about like a small boat in an angry sea. It can bring suffering and personal distress, but these things urge the believer on to greater love, and help him to pass through this storm to the final haven which is the Father himself.
What is happening in this relationship is that two spirits, two wills are becoming one. The person is endeavouring to integrate into his life the sonship offered by the Father, and this will require of him a transformation which will determine the depth of the relationship. As believers come to deeper intimacy with him, the Father begins to help them in this transformation, and there can result a purifying process that brings with it much pain and sorrow. Its goal is deeper union, more selfless love, far greater intimacy. But the cost of it is great. There is a selfishness that impedes our love for the Father, and to a certain extent we can work to remove it with the normal help of his grace. So often, however, this just a lopping off of the branches of our selfishness with no real effort to draw it out by the roots. It is this latter task God sometimes takes on himself, and it is by far the more painful process. This is a love affair, and therefore must be characterised by the effort inherent in every real love, to remove that which stands between lover and Beloved, for, no matter how small it may seem, it takes on great magnitude when it becomes an obstacle to complete love. If two lovers are to melt into one, the purity of their love must be complete, in order that the final merging result in complete union.
Many are unaware of this aspect of Christian existence. We speak rightly of the peace and tranquillity of christian living, and of the joy and happiness that flow from it. Yet these elements are well grounded and permanent when they are rooted in a deep personal love for the Father which can only come when an intimate relationship of love has been established. Too often the peace and joy in which believers delight have not been forged in the furnace of love, and are quickly followed by disillusionment and frustration. Their peace and joy are surface things which delight in the externals of religion, but which are not deeply rooted. The imitation of Jesus is the idea of every believer and the way to the Father. The peace in which the risen Jesus invites us to share is that which He has come to know through the completeness of his love expressed in the cross. To love totally demands so much, yet brings so much in return. It involves suffering and sorrow, but it brings peace and joy, and often the depth of the latter is determined by the extent of the former.
The love that existed between Jesus and the Father is the love in which all believers are invited to share. We sometimes feel that this love is best summed up in the Transfiguration or in the Resurrection. However, the real role of love is to bring about the union of two spirits, two wills, and the scene in which this is most forcefully portrayed is in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus realises the consequences of this love, what it demands of him, and yields humbly to the will of his Father. Here is the real mode and meaning of love.
– Bishop David Walker
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