Love Finds a Way

“Love never dies.’ (1 Corinthians 12:8 The Message)

Years ago I saw a cartoon in the New Yorker Magazine that depicted a sour, disgruntled, elderly gentleman standing in rumpled pajamas and robe at his apartment door. He had just secured the door for the night with four locks, two deadbolts and a chain latch. Later he noticed a small white envelope stuck beneath the door. On the envelope was a large sticker in the shape of a heart. It was a valentine. Love had found a way.

We ought to have a reason for the hope that’s in us, Paul says, but reason alone can never change another person’s heart. Only love can.

(Do you recall Dostoevsky’s parable of The Grand Inquisitor and Ivan Karamazov’s arguments against the love of God? His brother Alyosha did not debate the issue. He simply leaned over and kissed Ivan—a “line of reasoning” that burned its way into Ivan’s heart.)

Folks don’t believe much in God’s love these days. We have to show it to them—incarnate it, as God did in Jesus. In that way we can—so to speak—help him bring salvation into the world.

Authentic love, however, is not the matter of a moment, a month or a year. It is eternal: “Love never dies!” It is the gift that we keep on giving.

DHR

11/22/11