The Impersonality of Love

1 Corinthians xiii. 5 v.
“Love seeketh not her own.”

I believe he means, love averts its eye from the personal burdens of the heart — crosses the line of rail that divides my pain from your pain. Do you know how difficult that is? Some people seem to think that the mere fact of pain makes us sympathetic; apart from Christ, it makes us selfish. If I have one ailment and you have another, it is very hard for me to pass from mine to yours. I am far more apt to say “If I had only your ailment, it would be nothing; why make you this ado and weep?” There is nothing in grief which saves from selfishness, any more than in joy; Christ alone can save. But Christ can. Love traverses the lines of pain — passes over from my grief to your grief. Pride says “My brother deserves to suffer; I had a right to expect better things.” But, to the eye of love, sorrow, when once it comes, is always sacred. It may have been deserved, it may have been the wages of sin, it may have been the child of corruption, before it is born its parentage may be deprecated; but the moment it is born it is to Love’s eye like Melchisedek — without father or mother or descent. It stands for itself alone. It is reverenced as old age is reverenced — because the gold has been supplanted by the grey. The ruins of my wall have come from peace, and yours from the violence of war; but the ivy of my heart must cling to yours, and ask not whence they came. Love, divine love, seeketh not her own.

Jairus, ruler of the synagogue, let me question thee. Art thou murmuring at thy daughter’s interrupted cure? The Master was on His way to thy house when He was met by another suppliant. Has God’s providence circumvented thee, Jairus? Nay, it has given thee a double blessing. Thy cure is not complete without the interrupting suppliant. The seemiug stop was an advance. The halt in the mercy of thy God was a boon to thee. It was a part of thy miracle. It enlarged thy love. It sent thee over thine own wall to the ruined wall of thy neighbour. It told thee thou wert not the only sufferer. It made thy tear trickle to a sister’s grave. It lifted thee beyond the sickness of thy house into the sickness of other houses. It took thee out of thine own chariot and put thee in God’s chariot of fire, and it brought thee back in the evening — a larger, richer, greater man. Love possesseth more than its own.