What does Love look like?

    Wednesday we shared our last Confirmation lesson, and our Youth Director, Tim Craft, started by asking the question, “What does God look like?”  The vast majority of descriptions resembled an old man with a beard sitting on a throne, but as we delved into it a bit deeper, we began to discuss some more abstract things.  The kids talked about God being all-powerful and all-knowing.  Sort of like saying that something ‘smells like it tastes,’ they toyed with the idea that God looked more like what is described as values.
    Tim had baited them, however, with this question, because he brought it all around to the first lesson that we shared with them in February.  For in that first teaching he talked about how we are made in the image of God.  Having reminded them of that truth, the question was asked of them, “Do you see God in yourself or in others?”
    As the kids were describing their images, my response was the very opposite.  I immediately jumped to the abstract and started thinking about God being love, service, giving, hope, peace..., but I then found that faces and people came to mind.  I thought of my parents and mentors along the way.  I remembered times when others invested in me, and even times when strangers revealed Christ to me.  Most specifically, I thought of Nancy Turner.

    This afternoon at 4 PM, I will lead a memorial service for one of God’s great saints, Nancy Turner.  Nancy Turner is one of those Christ followers who was always giving, always placing others before herself, and always loving.  She was a person whom others felt comfortable with and through whom God used to bless countless lives.
    She used to work in the church as music director, while also working at a bank, then taking over as payroll manager for a local health care system that grew from 600 employees when she came on to over 16,000 by the time she retired.  And what was so wonderfully unique about her was that her faith was tangible in all she did.
    It didn’t matter if it was through music or by doing the best she could, she let God shine through her.  If it was teaching children to sing or play tambourines or taking a break to talk and pray with an employee who needed a listening ear, Nancy would care.  Even in her waning days, as the cancer slowly grew, she would overlook her own pain and seek to assuage the pain of another.
    Last night at the visitation, one of her closest friends came up to me and said, “How can anyone have so many people who considered her their ‘best friend?’  Only through Jesus, the one who wants to be best friend to all.”  Such is the truth of Nancy’s life, and such is the legacy she leaves for those whom God touched through her witness.

    In the church there is a list of readings known as “The Revised Common Lectionary,” and many preachers and churches follow these readings week after week.  Appropriately, this week’s reading comes from John’s Gospel, the 15th chapter.  Jesus shares these words with his disciples as parting words.  He is about to die, and yet he wants his legacy to live on.
    He says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Now remain in my love...my command is this: Love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command...This is my command: Love one another.”
      As I prepare for this memorial and remember my friend and spiritual mentor, I am led to these words of love, for to me and many, Nancy indeed encapsulated these word.  She lived them, and indeed she was one whom Jesus called friend.  She was one who called Jesus friend.  And she could be such a best friend to so many because Jesus was indeed her best friend.
   

    The prominent theme that came up in my mind as Tim asked that question on Wednesday was this – “love.”  When I see God, I see love.  When I think of Nancy, I indeed see God...I see love that was, and continues to be, shared unconditionally, always willingly, and intended to them be shared a legacy.  It’s Nancy’s legacy, but even more poignantly, Nancy would say, it’s God’s legacy.