When Love Grows Cold
some thoughts on complacency
It’s cold.
I may be stating the obvious here, but I think it’s worth repeating: it’s cold.
Sure, our climate is still relatively mild here in the South compared to the folks north of us, but there is no denying that the line between what is comfortable to most of us and what we’d rather not deal with has long been crossed.
This brings me to another observation: it’s cold.
I’m not talking about the weather anymore; instead, I’m reflecting on something Jesus said in Matthew 24:12. In describing the trials and horrors that would lead up to the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans, Jesus said, “And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold.”
During the pressures of persecution, the potential loss of everything the people knew, and the negative influence of the lawlessness around them, Jesus says that Christians in the first century would find it incredibly difficult to hold on to their faith. Their love of God, love of their brothers and sisters in Christ, and love for their enemies would grow cold.
For some among the first century church, the pressures of persecution didn’t extinguish the flames of love but fanned them. Paul, James, and Peter all talked about how authentic faith can thrive in compromising situations (Romans 5:1-5, James 1:2-4, 1 Peter 4:12-17). Early Christian martyrs saw death for Christ as an honor and privilege.
In our time, the biggest threat to the church in the West isn’t persecution, though many of our brothers and sisters throughout the world suffer horrible persecution; instead, comfort and complacency seem to be the main challenges for Christians. Our religious freedom is a blessing, but it can also be a curse because not only do we miss out on the privilege of trials, but we grow up assuming that the Way of Christ is the norm, which can extinguish the flames of the countercultural, subversive, revolutionary movement of Jesus.
Has our love grown cold?
For three centuries following the death of Jesus, the church faced several rounds of persecution. Sometimes it was local, but other times it was authorized by the empire. As the church gained power and eventually became the religion of the empire through the events following the reign of Constantine, many Christians fled to the desert and took on a self-imposed life of trials and scarcity to emulate the pains felt by the Christians before them.
Living in communities among the caves and ancient ruins of the Egyptian wilderness, many of these Christians felt that the marriage between the church and state may be good for the state, but it could never be good for the church (adapted from a quote by Brian Zahnd). They took to the desert because their love was in danger of growing cold.
We don’t have to go to the actual desert to fan the flames of love in our own lives and respective faith communities, but we can retreat into the internal wilderness of prayer, reflection, and introspection. We can ask questions like, “Why do I believe what I believe?” Or maybe, “Are my values a reflection of the culture around me or of the Way of Jesus?” “Am I living for myself, for my family, for what I think is expected of me, or for God?”
We could even ask, “If things were to become radically different in our world, would I change or stay the same?”
As we start this new year, let’s take a moment to pause and reflect on our love.
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“And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold.” I've been thinking about this exact thing a lot lately. For Advent this year I did a piece on the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl and the rabbi Regina Jonas who worked together in the Theresienstadt concentration camp during WWII to keep people under extreme threat and terror connected to God, themselves and one another. In other words, to keep their love from growing cold. Love gone cold meant a loss of purpose which, in turn, meant a loss of the will to live or, even worse, a descent into complete disregard toward their fellow prisoners. Frankl explores this in his classic book Man's Search For Meaning, which I just finished yesterday. It's interesting--and convicting, to be honest--to consider that comfort and complacency on one hand, and threat and terror on the other, can lead us down those very same path toward love-gone-cold. So what's the antidote? I think it's, as you said, going into the desert of the heart. Sitting in silence. Getting comfortable with not having answers. Being open to new ways of seeing and hearing. Keeping love as our true north, even when we aren't sure, or we're scared, where that leads.