Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd. - William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
I know that for many (most?) Shakespeare brings up thoughts of boring classes in high school. Even for one who has read all the plays, the bard can be a tough slog. But this sonnet has stuck with me through the years. I came across it during my college years during a time when I was dating a young lady (who later became my wife). I come back to it often to remind myself of the nature of love. And I have now passed it on to the next generation, as my high school freshman chose it as one of the six poems he is required to recite for his literature class.
There are many reasons I love this sonnet. Let me mention two. First, it strikes a note about the unconditionality of love. The object of our love should not be required to alter or change themselves in order to receive our affection. Nor should we seek to force that alteration or removal. In this life, anyone we love or who loves us will be loving an imperfect person. In a way, the depth of love is revealed in that reality. I love or am loved as a weak, fallen, broken person. If I wait to give love until the focus of my love is perfect, then I will never love. And if I cannot receive love until I am perfect, then I will never be loved. If perfection is the requirement, then all of us are unlovable and what a sad state that would be.
Second, I am captivated by Shakespeare’s portrayal of the steadfastness of love. It is an ever-fixed mark. It looks on tempests and is never shaken. Even when time and circumstances do their worst, love bears it out even to the edge of doom. It doesn’t give up. This is why we make vows at our wedding to love for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health until death us do part (Book of Common Prayer, 427). It has the attitude of the actor Keanu Reeves who, upon hearing someone say they were a lover, not a fighter, responded by saying, If you are a lover, you have to be a fighter because what kind of love do you have if you aren’t willing to fight for it?
We know that the ultimate revelation of God’s truth is the Scriptures. But those very Scriptures declare that God also reveals Himself as a gift of common grace through general revelation (cf. Psalm 19; Romans 1). But what Shakespeare declares on the human plane, the Bible tells us about the love of God. His love does not wait for us to obtain perfection before He gives it. Instead, God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). And in that same epistle of Paul, the steadfast love of God for us is such that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).
Saints, having been loved with such a love, let us love like our Savior. And if anyone says this is not love, tell him to go read some Shakespeare. Or better yet, tell him to go read some Jesus.
