To help the children think about the love of Jesus, this past Sunday they began to hear the following story of love based upon characters from Roman and Greek mythology.
A long, long time ago, romantic love was only known among the gods. Gods like Zeus and Aphrodite were the only ones capable of falling deep and madly in love. During this time, humans only knew of a more ordinary love. They only knew of the kind of love one has for one’s friends or one’s parents. It was commonly believed humans could not handle the passion of romantic love.
Our own story begins when the goddess of love named Venus and the god of war named Mars fell deep in love. The two of them had a son named Cupid. As you might imagine, Cupid was a confused child. He often felt like a battle was raging within him. The part of him that came from his mother wanted to love others, while the part of him that came from his father that wanted to go to war against others.
Under normal circumstances, a loving mother might have helped Cupid’s better half win the battle. As it turned out, however, Venus was actually a cruel mother, despite being the Goddess of Love. Over the years, the love of Venus had become corrupted. Instead of loving others, she loved only herself. Everything she did was done so that others might love and worship her more. Thus, instead of loving Cupid as her son, she made Cupid her servant. Knowing that part of Cupid wanted to love others, she said, “Cook the food, mop the floor, sweep the chimney. Then, I will know that you love me.” Because Venus knew that there was also a part of Cupid that wanted to be like his father, she used this to her own advantage as well. She ordered Cupid to shoot humans with arrows that had a magical spell cast upon them. This spell made anyone struck by the arrow love and worship Venus. So it was, that day and night Cupid shot arrows at humans until most of the world had fallen in love with Venus and traveled great distances to worship her at her temple.
For Venus, everything was going well until one day she discovered that fewer and fewer people were coming to worship her because they had also fallen in love with a woman named Psyche. It was not that people no longer loved Venus. The spell of the arrows still held their power. It was that they loved Psyche more. The reason was that Psyche possessed a love that was pure. She loved others, not just herself. People discovered it was much better to love someone who loved you back.
When Venus learned of her competition, she became very jealous. She detested that people loved Psyche because she loved them in return. To Cupid, she said, “Watch what will happen when Psyche no longer loves everyone. Never again will she be able to hold the hearts of the people.” With that, she cast a special spell over an arrow saying, “Upon this arrow, I place a curse. May the soul of the person struck by this arrow become so consumed and tortured by a burning romantic love for another that she will no longer be able to possess ordinary love for anyone else.” Venus then gave the arrow to Cupid and ordered him to go and shoot Psyche.
Cupid left at once and flew straight to the house where Psyche lived. When Cupid then laid his eyes upon Psyche, he immediately sensed the love that went out from her. The part of him that desired to shoot Psyche with an arrow was suddenly overcome. He had fallen in love Psyche. Caught in a trance, Cupid’s arrow slipped out of his hand and struck him in his foot. True to its curse, Cupid fell even more madly in love with Psyche and no longer loved anyone else, including his mother.
What do you think happened next? You will have to come back next week to find out. In the meantime, consider this: In life, we can choose to follow different gods. Some gods make us go to war and make us want to harm others. Other gods make us fall in love with our selves and not care what happens to others, but the God who we come to know through Jesus wants us to love others as ourselves. It is this God who all of us can choose to follow.