3.11.2008

Musical Musings: All You Need Is Love, The Beatles

Love, love, love.
Love, love, love.
Love, love, love.

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game.
It's easy.

Nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time.
It's easy.

All you need is love.
All you need is love.
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.

All you need is love.
All you need is love.
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.

Nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.

All you need is love.
All you need is love.
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.

All you need is love (all together, now!)
All you need is love. (everybody!)
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need (love is all you need).

Yee-hai!
Oh yeah!
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah.
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah.

1 John 4:8b: God is love.

I’ve meant to blog on this for a long time, and there is a part of me that hopes Sirs Paul and Ringo will read this, though I doubt it.

This song makes me cry. It’s so beautiful, it’s so close to Truth, it’s so effervescent… and yet, I am certain that as close as they came, they missed it.

I fear that we, as a people, are too quick to dismiss the God of the Bible as ancient, distant, irrelevant, and in so doing, we miss the great Truth that lies between the covers of the bestselling book in history. We see the lessons we heard in Sunday School in general (if we even went) and don’t see any application in life today. We bash our way through life looking for answers to questions we’re not even sure how to ask and conclude that God either doesn’t exist or isn’t reachable… and that’s if we even have a concept of God that allows for Him to be a person (as opposed to an ultimate state we can all reach if we try hard enough).

The truth is that nearly all of us are almost certainly worshiping idols, even when we think we’re worshiping the God of the Bible, the God of Christianity. I’m not say there is no true worship of the true God; I am quite certain that when we are stripped of everything, we either arrive at the actual God of this universe or we flail in despair and hopelessness.

God is so beyond what we can understand, so beyond what we can grasp and comprehend, so far above us that we don’t even know where to start. We define him and limit him for our own sake, and then we worship the concept of God we’ve created for our own limited understanding. We may not be as exaggerated as Wil Farrell’s character in Talladega Nights who worshiped “Baby Jesus” instead of God, choosing only that small aspect of Him, and even then, treating him like some sort of genie in a bottle to give us what we ask for. But are we far from it? We “name it and claim it”, quoting a promise from the Bible that God made to Israel and all but demanding he fulfill it today. We conveniently forget that Israel is compared to a prostitute (Gomer, the wife of Hosea) and repeatedly breaks the covenant God made with her… even as we do the same. We want all of the Good He offers without any of the obedience, blithely declaring that grace covers our sins. We want a cheap faith without any requirements, forgetting that Messiah fulfills the law, not revokes it.

Now, I’ll admit, I’m far from understanding who God is, and I don’t deny that I fall into the same trap I’m sitting here decrying, happily worshiping God as loving and merciful and ignoring the justice that demands I change my life. I forget that I am meant to be a temple where His Holy Spirit dwells, pure and sanctified, set apart for His purposes and uses and I use what God made holy for unholy purposes. I don’t deny any of this, and I freely admit that, like Israel before me, I all too often am guilty of breaking the covenant God made with us, that Jesus sealed for us. I don’t exclude myself from the great masses as I write this. I feel like Isaiah in the temple, so aware of my own sin that I cry out “Woe is me, for I am a woman of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!”

God is love. Can you even begin to fathom what that means? Can you even begin to wrap your minute concept of who God is around the broadness of this ONE aspect of the Almighty? Look at 1 Corinthians 12:31-13. Love is described as “the most excellent way”. It is patient. It is the mercy and love of God that makes Him so patient; He allows us each day to come to Him, even accepting us as His if it is the last breath of our life. Can you conceive of a patience that allows for that sort of behavior? Love is kind. Not petty, not mean, not cruel, but kind and gentle. It is God’s kindness that demanded His mercy, that provides a path back to Him where none is deserved. Love does not envy. Love does not boast; can you understand that when God says He is all mighty, it is not a boast, but simply a statement of complete fact? Love is not proud. Love is not rude, Love is not self-seeking. Love is not easily angered. Oh, praise be to the omnipotent God that He is not easily angered. God’s wrath is mighty, but it takes mighty measures to release it. Love keeps no record of wrongs.

Stop right there. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Read it again. Love keeps no record of wrongs. God keeps no record of wrongs. God keeps NO record of wrongs. Bathe in that for a moment. God is not sitting in heaven like Zeus or Thor with a thunderbolt or a hammer to smite you if you make a mistake. Paul tells us in Romans that there is NO condemnation. David tells us that as far as the East is from the West, that’s how far God has removed our sins. Isaiah tells us that He remembers our sins no more. Every mistake you’ve ever made isn’t waiting for you in heaven. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Oh, beloved, stop and thank God that He keeps no record of our shortfalls.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. God’s JOY is in truth… and He, who IS Truth, knows it better than we can imagine. Love always protects. Love always trusts. Love always hopes. God always hopes that we will turn from our own path and take His hand to walk with Him again in the garden He created for us. Love always perseveres. Love never gives up. God never gives up. He won’t let go of you, He won’t give up on you. He will never stop pursuing you, never stop seeking to woo you to Him. Love never fails. God never falls short. God never makes a mistake. Beloved, you are no mistake.

And now I come back to where I started, with the hopeful song the Beatles first sang over 40 years ago and never understood.

All you need is Love. God is all you need. Not your limited view of Him, not His ability to give you everything you imagine you need. Not the God who his waiting to “get you” for your failings; those are not God. God, in all His majesty, in all His greatness, in all His mercy and justice and all His perfect, unimaginable, incomprehensible Love is all you need. Everything.

Your heart is broken, wounded beyond beating? You need Love, the great physician who never gave up on you and never let you go.

You feel guilty for everything you’ve done, or everything you didn’t? You need Love, who keeps no record of our wrongs, either the ones we did or didn’t.

You feel lost in the darkness? You need Love, who always protects you.

Can you begin to grasp even the edges of what I’m trying to tell you? Love is ALL you need… and not some nebulous concept you can’t define, but the all mighty God of the Universe who is bigger than your concept of Him and is waiting, patiently, lovingly, for you to reach out to Him.

This isn’t all I want to tell you about the truth that dances through this song, but that I fear was missed, but this is the most important. God is more than you think, more than you can conceive, more than you limit Him to for your own understanding. Even one aspect of Him is more than you can understand, and yet He is so much more. Oh beloved, Love really is all you need… and so much more.

My precious readers, if you are reading this, and you have never before understood how much God loves you, if the Spirit has struck you with your need for God, please don’t browse any further before you stop right now. If you know God’s love for your own, then, as Beth says in “The One and Only,” stop and pray in remembrance and awe of the Love of God. There are no magical words, only a profound change in your heart. The words below are but a suggestion if needed.

“Oh, God, I long to walk with You in the garden. I know that, on my own, I can’t reach you. I accept that You’ve provided the Way in the person of Your Son, Jesus. Wash me clean, Lord, and lead me through the garden until I reach You.”