Stay Home

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” - John 15:12-13

Like an Orwellian dreamscape, our digital feeds and public signage remind us on repeat, “Stay Home”. And largely, we do. Why do we willingly submit to household arrest? Would we have done so just three months ago? If the government has sent out an urgent broadcast, maybe on the eve of 2020, not only requesting, but ordering us to remain in our houses and only leave for an approved, predetermined list, would we have listened? Would we have obeyed? Probably not.

But we do now. We restrict our freedom, anxiously reorder our lives, even let go of careers and aspirations. Why? Because we know thousands of lives may be saved by our simple actions, even though it is costly to us. Sure, I’m staying home and being careful because I don’t want to get sick, but that isn’t my primary concern, and I’m sure it’s not yours either. We stay home for our mothers and fathers, our grandmothers and grandfathers. We stay home for our neighbours grandparents, and the elderly we’ve never met. I stay home for my daughter with chronic lung disease. We lay down our lives for our friends.

Yet even this sacrifice, as society altering as it feels, pales into insignificance beside the One who laid down his life so that I may live. This is the level of love that casts its shadow over us, not to shame us, but to strengthen our resolve to love likewise. In the pattern of Christ we set aside our agendas and rights, simply for the sake of another. There isn’t love greater than this.

So let’s love largely, and stay home.