Let me explain.
I do not need a man to change a flat tire for me. I don’t
need a man to help me carry a heavy box up the stairs. I don’t need a man to catch
and release a spider for me, help me jump my car, move my furniture, build my
bookcase, fix my computer, fix my internet, show me how to grill a steak, or
walk me home at night. I don’t need a man to teach me how to be strong or smart
or authoritative or brave. I’ve seen Hidden Figures. I now know how to be all
of those things and how to run in heels and put an astronaut into orbit and bring them back.
Even though I swing that way, I don’t need a man to hold me
as I fall asleep at night or wake up beside me in the morning. Though Lord
knows how much I’d like to hear it, I don’t need a man to tell me how
intelligent or funny or beautiful or valuable I am. I know the measure of my
worth. I don’t need to be homesick for a
man’s arms or cared for by a man. There is such an astounding amount of love in
my life from my friends, family, and community that romantic love is, as a
matter of fact, superfluous in my life. I imagine it’d be so nice but I am not incomplete
because I lack it. A life without love is terrible but I do not live without
love.
Just to be brutally, plainly clear, I do not need any mortal
man to step into the role of headship in my life. I am not lost waiting on a
husband to find me and give me purpose. No matter how internally conflicted I
may be around my inherited ideas of motherhood and legacy, there is not a man
currently on Earth that I find myself in need of.
Phew. Can we all just take a minute to acknowledge the
backflips I had to do to avoid the Incarnation just then?
Because of course the man I’m in need of is Jesus.
No, no, before you run away screaming from this post,
thinking that I’ve gone crazy at seminary, talking about Jesus on Valentine’s Day,
let me remind you that it’s a central tenant of the Christian faith that we all
need Jesus and also that the reason we even have Valentine’s Day is because
there was once upon a time a St. Valentine who loved Jesus so much he died for him and/or the faith that bears his name.
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| And this is his skull. Supposedly. Does that help? It was meant to help. |
But listen, listen, I am in need of a man who can teach me
how to love my neighbor past the point of comfort (and so are you). I am in
need of a man who can turn me away from the damaging things in this world (and
so are you). I am, truly and genuinely, in need of a man who can affirm my
worth through his love of me, because Christ died for us while we were yet
sinners and that proves God’s love for us and what other ground is there for my
hope besides the promise that I am loved past the point of death by the
Almighty (and so. are. you.)? We are all in need of Jesus, especially now.
And not just the Jesus of the Beatitudes or the Golden Rule
or the story of the Good Samaritan. You cannot limit Jesus to just being a
moral figure. This is Jesus, the Logos of God, the Word Made Flesh, the
organizing principle of the universe made
physical in our world. The organizing principle of the universe came to the
Earth to show/speak/tell us what’s most important in the world and how to love each
other, came to break into our existence and change it forever and we killed
him. The Love that we desperately need,
that was so fundamental to the universe that it spoke everything that we see
into existence, that Love came to seek us, to find us, and we were frightened
of it, frightened to death. We killed that Love in what may be the worst way
imaginable, hanging that Love on an instrument of torture, leaving it there to
suffocate under the weight of our unworthiness.
But praise be to God that this is a Love that did not
forever die.
Listen, I know that I need this man Jesus because there is a
homeless man who sits daily at the entrance to the Farragut North metro stop
and I’ve never given him anything kinder than a half-hearted smile. I know that
I need this man Jesus because one of my best friends moved out a couple of
years ago and I can’t find it in me to forgive her for the hurt she caused me.
I know that I need this man Jesus because when a good man asked
me to dance, I was so concerned with preserving myself that I never even looked
at his face. I need Jesus because I need to be shown
how to love and trust, to be re-formed in the image of Love and sent out into a
hurting world. I need my rough places to be made plain and my valleys to be exalted.
These are things that only Love can fix. And if Jesus had come to us as a woman, I would be here saying that I stand in need of the woman Jesus who breaks the power of cancelled sin and sets me free for joyful obedience. It doesn't matter. I need Love.
Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we
belong. All we need is Love. Love rises above our material needs, above our hurts
and our fears, and shows us a more perfect way. But Love does not keep us
there. Love sends us back out to be Love for the world.
Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all.
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