The picture above was taken of a painting/mural on the wall outside a high school in a town in the Copperbelt region of Zambia.

We have all been familiar with the phrase ‘safe sex’. But this was my introduction the phrase ‘safe love’.

My first reaction to the phrase ‘safe love’ is to say that it is tautological. Love, by definition, is safe. Or should be. But it all depends on definition doesn’t it?

‘What’s love?’ many ask. ‘What’s love got to do with it?’ others ask. ‘What is love?’ may be the most over-asked question in history. That it keeps being asked may bear testimony that safe love is not a tautology at all, at least in human experience.

But the Bible answers this ancient and modern question. ‘This is how we know what love is . . . . ’ writes John. The question has been asked and the answer is being offered. The lights dim. The orchestra strikes up. The curtain shimmies.

This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life  for us (1John 3:16).

It’s out there, loud and clear, simple and startling, profound and powerful. We are not in the dark. We don’t have to doubt. We are not left in despair. Love is a person. Love is found in the actions of that person. Love is personified.

And who is this John to claim that he has found the answer to centuries of  searching and millenniums of mind-numbing ‘love’ songs?

John, we discover, is well qualified to tell us about Jesus. He was with him from the beginning. He heard him on the subject:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. As I  have loved you must love one another (John 13:34).

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in  my love (John 15:9).

If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love (John  15:10).

My command is this: love each other as I have loved you (John  15:12).

Greater love has no-one than this: to lay down one’s life for his  friends (John 15:13).

Having heard him on the subject and watched him put his words into action, John reflects further:

How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we  should be called children of God (1John 3:1).

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us and we should lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God (1  John 4:7).

This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent  his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since  God so loved us, we ought to love one another (1 John 4:10-11).

We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).

Yes, love is safe, because Jesus loved and loves his undeserving disciples. There ain’t no mountain high enough. There ain’t no valley deep enough. There ain’t no ocean wide enough that can keep God’s people from God’s love, indeed from God himself. As Paul says:

(Nothing) in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of  God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:31).

There is a love that is safe, and it is not in protected sex. It is the safe love of Jesus Christ who calls us to sexual fidelity in the safety of a permanent, exclusive, male/female relationship and who calls us to sacrificial love to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

But my second reaction to the phrase ‘safe love’ was to think that it was an oxymoron. Love isn’t safe. It’s dangerous.

It was dangerous for Jesus, who was abandoned by his Father so we could be adopted into his family. He was forsaken so we could be forgiven. He went to hell so we could be rescued to heaven.

And it is dangerous for the followers of Jesus who are to love as Jesus has loved.

It was dangerous for Stephen whose murder met with the approval of the zealous Christian-hater Saul (Acts 8:1).

It was dangerous for John’s brother, James, who was brutally murdered by King Herod (Acts 12:2).

It was dangerous for Benjamin Warfield. He and his bride, Anne Kinkead, were honeymooning in Germany when Anne was struck by lightening and was left a paraplegic. Ben, the famous reformed theologian at Princeton Theological Seminary cared lovingly for his wife for the next 39 years until her death. He only left her side for two hours intervals to give lectures and then return to tend to her every need.

It was dangerous for Ben.

But it was safe for Anne.

And it is both safe and dangerous for all who would love as Jesus first loved us and lay down our lives in sacrificial service to others as Jesus laid down his life for us.