Love Conquers...Nothing

Andy and I watched "Tristan and Isolde" last night, which was billed as the proto-type for "Romeo and Juliet." Well, considering Shakespeare took his source material from everyone else - history, mythology, fantasy, other authors - it's likely. But I have never liked "Romeo and Juliet" - perhaps from an aversion to Claire Danes or simply because the play represents lustful, adolescent, idiotic lust, not love. Though "Tristan & Isolde" was enjoyable - minus lengthy battle scenes which Andy enjoyed and I tried to ignore - its tag-line caused me some thought last night: Love Conquers All. Really? The bardic poetry that Isolde reads to Tristan (though I'm not sure we have documented proof of romance poetry in the dark ages...?) promises that love will endure and re-unite them in the next life - it doesn't. People die. Tristan dies (sorry if I ruined the story for you, but you know it's coming). Love doesn't conquer all - not time, death, other people, countries, emotions, sin, or fear. None of it. At least, not the human-based, self-obsessed, self-gratifying kind.

Christ represents a very different type of love that DOES conquer ALL. Lewis expounds upon this beautifully in the Great Divorce. There is a woman who loves her son, and will only 'agree' to go into Heaven if she can see him and "have" him again. The Saint sent to her (I believe her sister), tries to show her that this love - a Tristan and Isolde love, if you will - is "sometimes perfectly ready to plunge the soul they say they love in endless misery if only they can still in some fashion possess it." The counter-side of this love is a Heavenly love:

"Human beings can't make one another really happy for long...you cannot love a fellow-creature fully till you love God. Pam, Pam - no natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are holy when God's hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods (idols)."

In the next scene, a wife tries to convince her husband to come with her to Heaven. He is hurt because she doesn't need or 'love' him anymore, and she responds:

" I am in love. In love, do you understand? Yes, now I love truly...I only [loved you] in a poor sort of way [in the old days]. There was a little real love in it. But what we called down on Earth was mostly the craving to be loved. I am full now, not empty. I am in Love Himself, not lonely. Strong, not weak. You shall be the same."

I suppose, then, the question is: do you believe Love conquers all? What kind? Are you loving in a self-focused way, or are you truly loving others because you have first loved Him because He first loved you? Perhaps the reason we don't "abound in love," is because our love for our Savior and Beloved is weak, self-driven, malnourished, and stunted.

The love and fulfillment the world promises - to Tristan, Isolde, Romeo, Juliet, movie stars, and all the rest - end in spiritual and physical death. That love does not fulfill or defeat time. But Christ's love does - it defeats death, it transcends time, it acts mercifully - it reaches down to hearts broken by our shattered idols and fills water-starved mouths. All the love songs, poems, stories, and legends cannot match with a God who will "quiet me with His holy love and rejoice over me with singing."