LOVE BEYOND REASON
Mark 1:40-45
Pastor Tom Rothhaar – February 12, 2012
I don’t believe I’ve ever before connected Valentine’s Day with leprosy—but some of you may need to be reminded that Tuesday is Valentine’s Day, and this passage from Mark’s Gospel does happen to be the lectionary text for today; so I’m going to put the two together. And the connection is not as far-fetched as you might think, because they both have to do with love.
Now, I know that the romantic love we typically celebrate on Valentine’s Day can get either syrupy or superficial or both, and that it doesn’t necessarily have much to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. But I want to begin this sermon by taking you to what I consider to be an example of romantic love at its best, because, in this case, it’s much more than just romantic—and I think it really does illustrate the gospel message.
It’s the story of a devoted husband and his passionate, unconditional love for his wife. His name is Robertson McQuilkin. He’s been both a pastor and a missionary to Japan; he’s a well-known writer and speaker; and for 22 years, from 1968 to 1990, he was the president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary (now Columbia International University) in Columbia, South Carolina. He was also—and, as far as he is concerned, this is much more important than any of that other stuff—the husband of his college sweetheart, Muriel.
Muriel had been Robertson’s physical and spiritual companion in marriage and ministry for four decades when their lives took a dramatic turn. What at first seemed to be minor confusion and forgetfulness progressed rapidly into full-blown Alzheimer’s; and, by the time she was 60 years old, Muriel was almost totally helpless and in need of fulltime care. She no longer knew Robertson or their 6 children and 8 grandchildren; and she eventually reached the point where she could not speak a word to him. But it was even before she had progressed to that stage that Robertson McQuilkin made the only decision which, in his mind, he could make—he resigned from the university presidency to stay at home with Muriel.
That was an easier decision for Robertson to make than it was for some other people to accept. The school trustees to whom he submitted his resignation told him that, while they appreciated his attitude and his integrity, they wondered if it was really a wise decision. They pointed out that Muriel wouldn’t know whether he was there or not—that anybody could be taking care of her and she wouldn’t know the difference. They reminded him of how far the school had come under his leadership, and what a critical time this was for the school’s future. But Robertson said that, whether or not Muriel knew he was there, and regardless of how much he might be able to contribute to the future of the school, he needed to be at her side; and he needed to resign in order to do that. So that’s what he did! And for 13 years, until her death in September of 2003, Robertson was Muriel’s fulltime caregiver.
In his book A Promise Kept: The Story of an Unforgettable Love, Dr. McQuilkin wrote this:
The decision was made in a way 42 years before, when I promised to care for Muriel
in sickness and in health, till death do us part. So . . . as a man of my word, integrity
has something to do with it; but so does fairness. She has cared for me fully and
sacrificially for all these years. If I cared for her for the next 40 years, I would not be
out of her debt. Duty, however, can be grim and stoic. There is more. I love Muriel.
She is a delight to me. Her childlike dependence and confidence in me, her warm
love, occasional flashes of that wit I used to relish so, her happy spirit and tough
resilience in the face of her continual distressing frustration. I don’t have to care
for her—I get to. It is a high honor to care for so wonderful a person.
That’s a very special kind of love, isn’t it? That’s love that goes beyond reason. That’s love that only the presence and power of God could make happen. That’s the kind of love we see demonstrated in Jesus.
And, as radical and unreasonable as it is, that’s the kind of love Jesus wants
to see demonstrated in you and me.
Jesus’ encounter with the man who had leprosy, though brief and fleeting compared to the relationship between Robertson and Muriel McQuilkin, gives us another—and, in a way, symbolic—example of what love beyond reason looks like.
To understand why what Jesus did was so significant, you need to know what leprosy was and how people with leprosy were treated in those days. What the Bible calls “leprosy” may have actually been a reference to more than just one kind of skin disease, and it was likely something somewhat different from modern day leprosy or Hansen’s Disease. Whatever it was, though, it was awful! People with leprosy developed rough, scaly patches and open sores all over their bodies. Because the disease attacked nerve endings and robbed their bodies of the ability to feel pain, they were subject to all kinds of other disfiguring and disabling injuries, infections, and illnesses.
Particularly before the advent of modern drugs, leprosy was treated as incurable, and was considered highly contagious. According to the Old Testament book of Leviticus (13:45-46), lepers were to “wear torn clothes, let (their) hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of (their) faces, and cry out ‘Unclean! Unclean! (whenever anyone came near).” They were to “live alone . . . outside the camp.” On top of all that, there are a number of biblical references to people being afflicted with leprosy as a result of sin—so there was that additional stigma attached to it.
But here, at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, we have this leper doing quite the opposite of what he’s supposed to do and approaching Jesus, begging to be healed. His plea is both spoken and unspoken. “Touch me,” he seems to be saying. “Touch me, and heal me. Make me whole! If you are willing, I know you can do that. I know you can make me clean!”
Notice again what verse 41 says: Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his
hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately the
leprosy left him and he was cured.
“Filled with compassion”—filled with love which cut through convention and moved in a way that to others would have seemed unnatural, to say the least—Jesus did what he asks all of us to do. He loved unconditionally and without reservation.
He loved in a way that was radically caring and incredibly affirming.
He loved in a way that was healing and life-giving.
He loved in spite of all the reasons he might have had to turn away.
You see, it’s one thing to “love” someone who’s physically and otherwise attractive and appealing, and it’s quite another thing to love someone by whom others are repulsed. It’s one thing to reach out to someone who has smooth skin, a pretty face, and a beautiful smile, and quite another thing to reach out to someone who’s dirty or disfigured or diseased. It’s one thing to love and feel compassion for humanity in general, and quite another to have compassionate love for the ugly leper in front of you.
To carry that idea into the contexts where most of us live, it’s one thing to love our family and our friends and our neighbors when they’re pleasant and agreeable and easy to get along with, and it’s quite another thing to love them and treat them with kindness and respect when they’re being cantankerous or disagreeable or just plan obnoxious.
It’s one thing to love our wives or our husbands when they’re looking beautiful and acting that way, too; when they’re being kind and considerate and pleasant to be around; when they’re physically and emotionally and in every other way healthy . . . and it’s quite another thing to love them when they’re sick or disabled, when they’re grouchy or irritable, when they’re being careless and thoughtless, or when their lives are being overtaken with sin.
It’s one thing to love our children or our grandchildren when they’re being sweet and charming; when they’re cooperative and obedient and well-behaved; when they themselves are being loving and helpful . . . and it’s quite another thing to love them when they’re being petulant and demanding, when they’re messy and naughty, when they’re rebellious and rejecting, or when they’re just plain hard to be around.
It was one thing for Robertson McQuilkin to love Muriel when she was vibrant and healthy; when she was full of energy and fun to be around; when she could give him a steady diet of care and support . . . and it was quite another thing for him to love and adore her when she was so sick that she didn’t even know who he was.
Yet it’s that active, compassionate, beyond-all-reason sort of love to which
Jesus calls us and for which he gives us this example.
Unconditional compassion, you see, is a very special kind of love.
It goes beyond warn feelings, happy thoughts, and pleasant moods.
It goes beyond strong bodies and pretty or handsome faces.
It goes beyond favorable circumstances and ideal conditions.
Instead, it touches the untouchables.
It loves the unlovable.
It cares for those who are hard to care for.
And it begins in the heart of God who, through Jesus, passes it on to us.
Let me give you yet another example, taken from a newspaper article which appeared in the Columbus Dispatch. The article read:
When Frank Segher pushed himself into an upright position in his hospital bed, the
heart monitor went into an erratic scribble. His wife, Mary, drew a chair to his bedside.
“I’m thirsty,” Frank said, and Mary lifted the straw to his lips as he pulled his oxygen
mask aside. The medicine was making him sick. She fetched the basin, wrapped a
firm arm around his spasm-wracked shoulders and mopped the sweat from his
forehead.
The article went on to describe more about Mary’s compassionate caring for Frank, and then concluded this way:
So, in the end, love comes down to this—not some Clark Gable appraisal of Vivien
Leigh, not some sex symbol’s seductive pose, but “Help me sit up.” In the end, love
is not a smoldering glace across the dance floor, or the clink of crystal, or a leisurely
picnic spread upon summer’s clover—as nice as those all are. No, instead it’s the
squeeze of a hand and “I’m here no matter how long the struggle. I’m here. I’m here
with you. Don’t forget that. You can count on me. Water? Here, drink. Let me straighten
your pillow. Let me put a cool cloth on your face.” That’s what real love is.
Or it’s the young couple described by famed neurosurgeon, professor, and author Richard Selzer. He wrote:
I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face post-operative, her mouth
twisted with a palsy—clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles
of her mouth, has been severed. To remove the tumor from her cheek, I had to cut the
little nerve. She will be this way from now on.
Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed. Who are
they, I ask myself, he and this wry-mouth I have made? “Will my mouth always be like
this?” she asks. “Yes,” I say, “it will. It’s because the nerve was cut.” She nods and is
silent. But the young man smiles. “I like it,” he says. “It’s kind of cute.”
All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. Unmindful, he bends
to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to
accommodate her—to show her that their kiss still works.
You may think that’s a wonderful expression of romantic love, and it is—but it’s much more than that. It’s a wonderful expression of God’s love in human form. It’s a wonderful expression of compassion and caring and commitment. It’s an expression of what relationships can look like when they’re filled with God’s love and we do things God’s way.
So I ask you, if Robertson McQuilkin can love Muriel the way he did, and if Mary Segher could love Frank the way she did, and if that young man in the hospital can love his wife the way he does, then, with God’s help (and it will only be with God’s help), don’t you think you and I can love our husbands and our wives, our children and our grandchildren, and the rest of our family members; and, even beyond that, our friends and our neighbors and even people we do not yet know in similarly compassionate, caring, committed, and unconditional ways?
Don’t you think we can model for the world what Jesus has modeled for us—the kind of love which comes from beyond this world, and which the world will never fully understand?
I believe we can.
I’m praying for that to be the way things are, and always will be, in my marriage, in my family, and in all of the other relational contexts in which I live. I’m praying that for myself—and I want you to know that I’m praying it for all of you, as well.
