Loved Them Unto the End

Yesterday I wrote about a scene from the book Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper that I have been reading to my son. I finished the book last night and there was one more scene with this man I mentioned yesterday, John Rowlands, who lost his wife because of her allegiance to the Dark. After the Light vanquished the Dark with the help of John, the Lady offered him a choice: he could go back to his normal life remembering everything that had happened, or he could forget. She said, “You may, if you wish, forget all that you have seen ever of the Lords of the Dark and the Light, and although you will then have perhaps a deeper grief at the loss of your wife, you will mourn her and remember her as the woman you knew and loved.” He replied, “That would be living a lie.” I thought the response of Merriman, the leader of the Light, was very powerful: “No, John, for you did love her, and all love has great value. Every human being who loves another loves imperfection, for there is no perfect being on the earth—nothing is so simple as that.” Indeed, nothing is so simple and yet so hard to remember: we must love others in all their weakness and imperfection; we must love completely even though we are all incomplete in our progression to be like God. As disciples of the Savior we don’t love only if someone treats us well or if they make good choices or if they keep all the commandments. Rather, we seek to love even our enemies and those who curse us and those who persecute us and all those who are imperfect like us. We should seek to love in such a way that this description of Jesus at the end of His life can be said of us as well: “Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (John 13:1). We must love all men and women, especially those closest to us whose imperfections we see in all their detail, unto the end. And no matter who the person we have loved is or what they do, “All love has great value.”

                  After this description of the Savior, we have one of the most powerful scenes in the scriptures of love followed by some of the greatest teachings on love anywhere. We read, “He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.” What is most powerful about this scene of the Creator of the earth kneeling down and washing the dirty feet of twelve men is that one of those men was about to betray Him. After finishing the washing, He said, “Ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean.” Shortly after that He sent Judas away saying, “That thou doest, do quickly.” Then after He had washed the feet of His betrayer and sent him away, Jesus taught the other eleven about love. He said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:4-5, 10-11, 27, 34-35). He taught further, “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends…. These things I command you, that ye love one another” (John 15:12-13, 17). He then showed them how they could obtain this great love for others: through prayer to the Father. In his great intercessory prayer He sought for them to have love, praying to the Father, “That the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me…. For thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:23-26). We obtain love as a gift from the Father by seeking it from Him earnestly through prayer just as Mormon taught: “Pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ” (Moroni 7:48).

                And so as imperfect disciples of the Savior we must seek with all our hearts to be filled with that love for all His imperfect children. In this book Merriman also made this comment about a boy Bran Davies whose presence in their time was contested by the Dark: “He has attached himself to that time. He has bound himself by love to those with whom he has lived there, most particularly Owen Davies his adopted father, and Davies’ friend—John Rowlands.” He continued, “Such loving bonds are outside the control even of the High Magic, for they are the strongest thing on all this earth.” Indeed love, the pure love of Christ, is the greatest of all and what we yearn to be filled with as we seek after He who loved us all first. As Mormon also taught, “It endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him” (Moroni 7:47).