Nearly every couple who graces my office for premarital counseling is asked, "What do you especially love about him/her; what is their extra special quality?" More often than not my question is greeted with embarrassed silence. Those that venture forth with an answer are often very general or vague like, "I feel good when we are together." Sometimes there is the diplomatic answer, "I like everything about her, she is so perfect." It is hard to keep a straight face as I wonder how such a response will hold up in six months.

In general, much of our contemporary concept of love is unbiblical and unhelpful. Too much of what passes itself off for love today is sentimental, abstract, romantic, drivel. A lot of it is Madison-Avenue hype. It is too often connected to things, as if love is something that can be purchased. Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for candlelight, secluded beaches, special warm feelings, carefully chosen words, a quiet touch, a caring embrace, but Christian love is more often concrete than abstract. It is more real than mysterious.

The dynamics of Christian love are produced more often with sweat than with perfume. They must be worked at in a daily world with daily problems that are devoid of candlelight and secluded beaches. Dynamics of Christian love are not so much the tingling stuff that champagne is made of but rather the Tums that makes many an upset stomach feel better again.

When the Bible says that God loves us, that doesn’t mean that God gets all gooey inside when he thinks about us. When God considered his wayward world standing up to its nostrils in the muck of sin, he didn’t have romantic heart palpitations. He didn’t send each of us a dozen roses to smell for the last few seconds before our doom. Rather, he extended his patience and unleashed infinite kindness by sending his Son to become a target for spit and unmerciful ridicule, capped off by a horrendous death. That’s what love is in its most concrete, potent, and sweaty form.