“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
——C. S. Lewis
No matter how much we try, it is impossible to love without vulnerability. Lewis points this out with his usual bold clarity. The reality is that all love relationships involve some hurt and pain. The high divorce rate and the overall lack of commitment that plagues our society are outward signs of our inward fear of the hurt that comes with love. We have tried very hard to establish a society that loves without vulnerability, and we have failed.
The ultimate example of love with vulnerability is Jesus. Over and over again He tried to tell His disciples of the cross He must bear. More than once He hesitated at His own mission, but in the end He submitted to the Father. How many times must it have occurred to Him how much easier it would be to just forget the cross and move on? Just let man get what he deserves. In the same way, it is easy for us not to love. Why should we? It just hurts! Like Jesus, we are compelled to love and with that love to give ourselves to others. That is our Christian service.
A Pastor's Thoughts 