“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” –I Corinthians 13:4-8a
“It only takes a moment, To be loved a whole life long...” –Hello, Dolly!
Love is a perennial theme of Broadway musicals. The fathers of the Broadway musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein, have many masterpieces that revolve around the plight of love as seen in Oklahoma! which follows Laurie as she must decide between two opposites in Curly and Judd. There is the obsessive nature of love as seen in the modern classic Phantom of the Opera. Even political dramas like Les Misérables and war-driven narratives such as Miss Saigon are truly great love stories at the core. Love is everywhere one looks on Broadway.
Hello, Dolly! is no exception. The objective of the titular character, Dolly, is precisely a matter of the heart. She is ready to love again, and she has set her sights on the most pugnacious of bachelors: Horace Vandergelder. Hello, Dolly! revolves around her matchmaking schemes to marry the old codger and spread his ample money all over the small town of Yonkers, enriching the lives of others. The supporting characters are also searching for love. Cornelius feels the pull of love as he has a desire for life and experience, and Irene Molloy must make a choice between security and love. Even the naive Barnaby and Minnie find joy in the pursuit of love.
So many Broadway musicals portray love as mere feeling and emotion. No doubt feelings and emotions do play an important role in our understanding of love, but what happens when the feelings fade? Can love survive the ebb and flow of emotion? Christian apologist and author C.S. Lewis defines love in the following way: “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” According to the Bible, love is much more than just emotion and feeling. In I Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul writes about love as an action. Love remains patient and acts kindly. Love celebrates the achievements of others. Love puts the other before self. Love rejoices in the good that others do. In short, love never fails.
Because we are created in the image of God, we all desire this type of selfless love. Try though we may, we all fall short of this even in our most dedicated relationships. Only one person loved perfectly: Jesus Christ. He humbled Himself to take on humanity, He lived a perfectly sinless life, He died a horrific death, was buried, and finally rose again from the dead. Jesus did all this while we were His enemies: “...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus is the greatest example of love based upon lasting action and not fading feeling. May the perfect love of Jesus open you to accept His sacrifice for you and may you feel the pull of love as He calls you to be His own.
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