March 12: Of Unreasonable Love

Numbers 16:41–18:32

Mark 16:1-20

Psalm 55:1-23

Proverbs 11:7

Some very good advice I got from my parents recently: even when it is difficult, when it does not seem to make sense, when the other party does not seem to deserve it, love.   Love unreasonably. 

I can only imagine the conversation Mary, Mary Magdalene and Salome had from the time Jesus was lain in the tomb and the stone was rolled shut.  Consoling each other in their grief, one of them must have suggested they go and anoint Jesus's body.   On hindsight this would seem like an unreasonable act of love, above and beyond duty's call - Jesus was dead.  His body wasn't going to appreciate the ministrations.  But their love was so great that not only did they want to anoint the body, they were prepared to set out at the earliest possible time they could - the crack of dawn, the first day of the week, after the sabbath. 

So dawn came, and they set off.  Somewhere on the way, they realized the stone had been rolled to close the tomb, and they weren't capable of moving it out of the way.  And none of them, it seems, could say whether or not someone might move it for them.  But they continued on anyway.  On this act of love, for the Man - the Son, the Teacher - who died.  

Two things after that: first, they found the stone rolled away.  And second, they found out Jesus had risen.  What started out as a difficult and unreasonable expression of love was rewarded not just with God supplying their need - rolling the stone away - but giving them so much more - the resurrected Lord.  It's amazing what God does with unreasonable acts of love.  

I think unreasonable acts of love are God's delight.  And when we love when it doesn't make sense, God makes sense of it.  He facilitates our expression of unreasonable love, and He blesses us with results we could not have even imagined. 

Father, there are times when it is difficult to love, and people who are difficult to love.  When love seems unreasonable, give us the ability to do so.  Then take that love as a fragrant offering.  We leave the results to You.