Love Rejected

It was the summer of 1984. Suntan lotion and bug spray packed beside an old 35mm camera in a bag that was as big as me, I headed to summer camp. Near the end of the week I gained the courage to ask a girl to be my girlfriend. OK, so the truth is I pressured my sister into asking the girl if she would be my girlfriend. Sitting on an old wooden fence with my sunglasses on, I awaited her response.

I first noticed her in the “mess hall” earlier in the week. Later in the week I saw her walking with her friends. She smiled at me and I just knew there was hope. She was, to me, the most beautiful girl at camp. I just had to make my move…

“Have him take off his sunglasses” was her response. I took them off, and I knew once she got a load of these baby blue’s she was all mine. All the other guys at camp would be so jealous! It was all a formality from here, or so I thought. She studied me for a few seconds and said, “I don’t think so.” With that she was back off with her friends, and I took my wounded heart back to the barracks and laid on my cot trying to hide my tears from anybody who walked by. Rejected. In truth it was the first of many times I would experience rejected love.

As we approach Easter Sunday I think of another kind of rejected love. A love far greater than any love I have ever offered and far deeper than I have ever felt or expressed. It is a love that drove a divine Jesus to abandon the comforts of His heavenly abode for a much more cruel place of residence. Jesus, the God-man, came to earth to ransom us from the weight, the penalty and the guilt of our sin. He came to make a way for us to be in relationship with Him. Not because we are so loveable, but because he is so loving. How great is the love the father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God.

Rejected love.

Christ came to earth and put his love on display. His offer of unconditional love was met with a hammer, nails and a cross. I wonder, why did they reject Him? I wonder, why do we too reject such amazing love?

I’m sure there are plenty of reasons non-Christians reject the love of Christ. In a world of “you get what you pay for” how can His love be free? In a culture that tells us to “look out for number 1”, who could fathom such a selfless love. While my heart hopes for all to come in relationship with Christ, I’m not surprised that some have a hard time accepting the free, selfless love that Christ offers.

What is hard for me to comprehend is how we as Christians can often reject the love of Christ. Once we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, why do we struggle to let Him love us? In Zephaniah it says that God sings over us. Maybe the reason we struggle, is despite how good others think we are, we know deep down how unlovable we really are.

This Easter weekend, I don’t pray that you will feel the love of Christ… I pray that you will experience it. That you will relish it. That you will bask in it. I pray that you will respond to it.