Love. What a concept. English is woefully inadequate in communicating the essence of it with just one word. The Greeks, on the other hand, had several different words to express the multi-dimensional and powerful realities of “this thing called love.”

First there is Xenia, the word for love associated with hospitality. It is a welcoming, friendly, “never met a stranger” type of love. [We may also be familiar with its antonym, xenophobia, or the fear or loathing of strangers.]

Growing up, I heard a lot about southern hospitality; I found it practiced by friends, neighbors, and even complete strangers, and I benefited from a lot of home cooked meals as a result. However, good hospitality is certainly not reserved for the southern states. Minnesota is renowned for it, and many say it might be the most hospitable state in the union. I have personally found all of the midwestern states in which I’ve travelled to to be very hospitable. Once, I stopped by the side of the road in Valley City, North Dakota and asked a random citizen if I could pitch my tent in his yard for the night; he didn’t hesitate to say yes and would take no money from me for the inconvenience.

Of course, we can have unpleasant experiences anywhere as well. but it is still nice to know that there are friends to be made all over the world, and light still shines on the earth.

Next up: Philautia, or self-love. There is a healthy version of this associated with good self-esteem and an unhealthy version associated with selfishness and vanity: the end of the latter road leads to narcism, or “the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s idealized self-image and attributes.” That’s a mouthful of words that just means self-centered, vain, selfish, and full of themselves — bless their hearts.

My dad is a big sports fan and he loved any kind of underdog that talked big. In 1968 the Baltimore Colts were going to play the NY Jets in the Super Bowl. Dad loved the Jets, not just because they were the underdogs, but because he really loved the quarterback of that team. Joe Namath, who had a massive ego, guaranteed that the Jets would win — and they did. Perhaps this is the manifestations of the generally accepted adage that “you are what you think.” Namath wrote an autobiography with the title “I can’t wait until tomorrow because I get better looking everyday.”

Namath pushed self-confidence over the line, but some would argue that this kind of overconfidence is good leadership, and I agree with that point. The danger is always when we begin to believe our own boasts. For instance, actors and actresses “back in the day” were promoted by the studios. Teams of press agents were employed to present the stars in the best possible light and to gloss over any of their personal foibles: to make them look as clean and wholesome as possible to the general public. It was so much easier to hide who you really were back then as there was much more privacy. However, when a star got “too big for their britches” it was said of them that they had “begun to believe their own press.”

From self love we move on to Philia, or “brotherly love” as we Christians like to call it. We get the city named Philadelphia from this term. Brotherly love in this sense is the “if you need anything at all just call on me” kind of love. In these strange times in which we are living you may be finding out who really has Philia for you. I used to fantasize as a kid about being the kind of friend that would drop everything to go help out some one I loved in this way. I think the nobler part of us wants to be needed by others and longs for committed, mutually supportive relationships.

Philia is great love. It is the “no matter what our differences are, I will still be there for you” kind of love. I think it is rare. I think you’re lucky if you have one friend in your life like that, and if you have one, it is likely be from your younger days. You know you have that kind of love if literally nothing can break the bond..

In the Bible, Jonathan was King Saul’s son. Saul had sinned against God and, as a result, God had anointed another King: David, a shepherd boy, the son of Jesse. David had come to Saul’s camp when he was at war with the Philistines and David had killed Goliath there. So Saul had taken him into his household where David and the king’s son Jonathan became fast friends. They were inseparable even though Jonathan was aware that David was anointed to replace his father.

Over time, Saul began to lose his wits and saw David as his rival, seeking to kill him. David escaped but managed to communicate one last time with Jonathan, who pledged his allegiance to David. Unfortunately, during Saul’s last battle Jonathan was also killed. As a tribute to Jonathan, David took Jonathan’s disabled son into his house to honor his friend. The gesture was unheard of in a day when any possible rival was usually killed by the new king.

The next Greek word for love is Eros. Eros is a deeply romantic, intimate love that is often associated with sex itself. We get the term erotic from the root and, like Philautia, it has a light side and a dark side. Sexual desire is not evil in the proper context but can become evil if it is one-sided, selfish, and possessive, which you could argue is not love at all. Modern culture seems to be infatuated with the negative side of eros: its selfish side. We speak of “needing” sex, we render it brutish, excessive, objectifying, hurtful, commonplace, and cheap. The consequences to our society are devastating. This is not what eros should be.

Eros is supposed to be the celebration of beauty, not just outward physical beauty but the beauty of intimacy. The beauty of soul sharing, cosmos altering, oneness. Plato was so convinced that the non-physical aspect of this kind of love was so important we have a term for it, we call it platonic love. This love focuses on finding the beauty within a being which leads to finding its truth. All truth leads to transcendence, or going beyond the natural reality, pushing the envelope of knowledge, taking leaps forward in understanding.

Finally we come to the ultimate term for love in the Greek: Agape. It is the one word for love that has no negative connotation. In 1 Corinthinans 13, Paul describes agape as meaning unconditional, self-sacrificing love. There is no English equivalent. The translators of the King James Bible struggled to come up with a word that best described this type of love. What they came up with was “charity.”

Charity has its good points but does not tell the whole tale. Charity is indeed self-sacrificing to a degree; good and generous, it may even be forgiving, but it is not Agape. In Romans 5:7 Paul explains the difference between Agape and other types of love:

5:7 “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.“

You know, the Congressional Medal of Honor is a wonderful thing. War is terrible, but that medal, in so many instances, commends the best response in the midst of the tragedy of armed conflict. Thus, many soldiers are honored for sacrificing themselves to protect the people around them; by dying, they saved others. However, even that sacrifice does not fully convey the meaning of Agape in the biblical sense, for Paul goes on to say in the very next verse:

Romans 5:8 “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.“

In other words, Christ died for us when we were still His enemies. He died for those that crucified Him. He came that they might live. I don’t reckon there is any greater love than that.

SO on this day when we remember our loved ones, let’s take a moment to remember One whose very purpose on this earth was Love. He is one that sticks closer than a brother, by His sacrifice we are healed. He is God’s Love letter to ALL people, God’s Valentine.

Although this is a Christmas song, the message is appropriate for today as well. Everyday is a good day to remember Him.