Love is Risky Business

I subscribe to several websites that provide daily audio devotionals.  As I was listening to one today, they played the old hymn entitled, "Abide with Me."  This beautiful hymn is often sung at funerals, during Mass or Communion, and during the Lenten season.  The words remind me of Christ's Gethsemane experience where Christ asked His disciples to stay with him and keep watch while He went off to pray.  Of course, if you're familiar with the story, you know that the disciples could not stay awake and kept falling asleep.  (Matthew 26) When the Temple police showed up a little while later, the disciples all ran away to escape arrest.  The first stanza of the hymn ends, "When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me."

I have often wondered why Christ chose 12 followers who He knew would betray Him.  Why did He entrust His wisdom, His mission, His Spirit, and Himself to them?  They were a motley crew of imperfect people, each with individual character flaws: doubt, contentiousness, pride, fear, etc.  One of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, led the authorities to arrest Jesus.  Peter repeatedly denied even knowing Jesus. Several of the disciples argued among themselves about all kinds of things.  Only one of the 12 disciples (John) was there at the cross where Jesus was killed.  Why would Christ subject Himself to this type of humiliation and hurt?

I think that there are lots of deep theological reasons why Christ surrounded Himself with these 12 people, but I think that there are practical reasons too.  First, I believe that Christ was creating a model for his followers to follow.  Christ chose the disciples knowing all of the skeletons in their closets, their baggage, and the states of their hearts.  He loved them anyway and spent three years travelling with them.  Christ grew so close to them that He referred to them as His family and friends.

Second, I believe that Christ was providing a model of forgiveness and grace.  After His death and resurrection, Christ suddenly appeared to the disciples while they were locked away in hiding and said, "Peace be unto you." (John 20:19)  He didn't curse, question, condemn, threaten them, or demand an apology.  By human standards, Jesus had the right to do any of those things.  After all, they had been faced with a test of faithfulness and failed miserably.  Yet, instead, Christ simply said, "Peace be with you."  Next, He did the unthinkable; without any admission of guilt or sign of repentance on their part, Christ entrusted His mission to them, saying, "Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so I send you."  Then, even more remarkably, He breathed on them and entrusted His Spirit to them, saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost."  

This is not the end of the story.  The disciples continued to serve Christ imperfectly, and the Bible records some of the mistakes they made along the way.  Yet, the fact remains that Christ chose to love and forgive them, going so far as to entrust His Church to them in spite of their weaknesses and propensity to make mistakes.  

This underlines a great truth.  We Christians are called to humiliate ourselves for the cross of Christ, giving ourselves without holding back, loving without concern for being loved in return, forgiving when forgiveness is undeserved, extending grace and mercy without limit.  Christ did this and paid the ultimate price as a result.

And...following his example, His disciples did likewise, dying as martyrs for faith in their Lord and Savior.

In his book, The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis said,

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.

We don't know what is going on in the hearts and minds of those around us.  Imagine if we, like Christ, were able to see into the hearts and minds of others; how much more difficult would it be for us to love and trust?  It must have been an incredibly difficult thing for Jesus to do.  Yet, He did so.

Love and trust are risky, but we are called to keep pouring ourselves out as living sacrifices for our Savior, giving no thought about protecting our hearts, livelihoods, or even our very lives.  We are called to be joyful givers, humiliating ourselves for the cross, consecrating our hearts to the Lord.

I'll end today's blog with one of my favorite prayers, the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.  I make this prayer the prayer for myself today:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen