February 2009
One of my favorite church observances happens in February and is called the Week of Compassion. The theme for the Week of Compassion this year is “Where is your treasure?” It is the third Sunday of February and calls us to a great offering that enables caring for others, in and through all the tragedies that occur during the year. By sharing some of our earthly treasure - our money, our time, our energy - decisive aid can be sent when disaster strikes. Refugees receive help in the long term as they rebuild their lives. We help people help themselves through education, health care, tools, seeds, and resources to improve community infrastructure.
As February rolls around we also think about “Valentine’s Day”. Valentines Day is all about love. My guess is that more flowers are sold the week of Valentine’s Day than the rest of the year. On the one hand our society knows a lot about love but almost nothing. We are fast becoming a self absorbed society, a society focused on self love and looking for love in all the wrong places. Yet, even with all our confusion, love is a splendid thing and we all think about love in one of the coldest, harshest months of the year. Without Valentine’s Day and the reminder of love it really would be gloomy.
The two holidays aren’t unrelated. The Week of Compassion has to do with love. When we love the Lord we love one another. When we reach out and care for other people we love the Lord. The Bible teaches us that love is marked by sacrifice. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends”. (John 15:13). Today, it seems to me that people are long on being served but short on sacrifice. We stumble when it comes to actually giving up something for someone else and yet love is all about sacrifice. We seem to know about others sacrificing for our sake but it often takes a little more thought when it comes to us sacrificing for others. What are we sacrificing for the Lord and for the church that we claim to love?
Without sacrifice love cannot happen. To love someone else is to sacrifice for them. To love someone else is to be willing to let go of your own needs, your own wants, your own pleasures and sacrifice for the person you love. To love without sacrifice is not to love at all, at least not in the deepest and most biblical senses of the word.
As you think about your love for God (not to mention those you love here on earth) pray that you would learn more about sacrifice and what it means in living out your love. Are you willing to give up your own ideas to follow God’s will? Are you willing to give up pleasures in this kingdom for the longer lasting pleasures of God’s kingdom? Are you willing to surrender your needs for other’s needs? These are the questions of love and sacrifice; sacrifice and love. Jesus was our best example. Greater love than this…