Two Love Stories
/Let me tell you about two storytellers. During World War II, Theodor Geisel told stories with his cartoons. Chief editorial cartoonist for a popular New York newspaper, Geisel leveraged his craft to arouse an anti-Japanese sentiment among the American people. As a consequence of fear and hatred, over 100,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up and sent to live in harsh internment camps in the 1940s. Fear leads people to sacrifice others to protect themselves.
On the other hand, Dr. Seuss leveraged his craft to tell a story of Horton the Elephant, who goes to great lengths of self-sacrifice to protect the “Whos of Whoville,” tiny creatures living on a speck of dust. After all, “a person’s a person no matter how small.” Love leads people to sacrifice themselves to protect others.
Why did Dr. Seuss write his famous tale of sacrificial love for the small? He wrote it out of remorse for having demonized the Japanese people a decade earlier. You see, Theodor Geisel and Dr. Seuss are the same person. After World War II ended, Dr. Seuss visited Hiroshima and saw the tragic fallout of war and he made Japanese friends. Compassion and love changed Seuss and he became committed to righting his wrongs. In 1954, Seuss dedicated Horton Hears A Who to his “great friend, Mitsugi Nakamura of Kyoto, Japan.”
Like Seuss, love and compassion drives the second storyteller’s commitment to protect the vulnerable. He has witnessed the devastation fear has wrought on our world. From birth, his life was threatened when fear drove a king to slaughter all the male children in his region to preserve power. Yes, I’m talking about Jesus; he is the greatest storyteller, after all, the logos and the Word.
Instead, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even a criminal’s death, in order to save his beloved.
You would think that after a childhood filled with so much danger, Jesus would have lived by one rule: self-preservation. Instead, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even a criminal’s death, in order to save his beloved. Jesus could have wielded his power to save himself on the cross. For that matter, he could have just avoided a lot of pain and suffering by not leaving heaven in the first place. And yet, the great I Am took the form of the most vulnerable human we can think of, a baby, and died the most vulnerable death we can imagine, a Roman crucifixion. Love led Jesus to sacrifice himself to save others.
As we ponder the meaning of Christmas, let us consider the love of these two story-tellers. Love transformed the first storyteller from a persecutor into a protector. Are there relationships in your life that are strained because of fear? Are you impatient because you are afraid you won’t get what you want? Are you closed off because you don’t want to be hurt? Take some time to think about how fear might be dictating how you interact with your family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. Love led the second storyteller to sacrifice himself for others. Maybe you are afraid that taking the path of Jesus will only lead to heartache and defeat. It often feels that self-sacrifice is foolish. Paradoxically, Jesus’ ways led to victory. He left the comforts of heaven to live in poverty among sinners, and he submitted to a government that killed him. These things ultimately led to life and victory, not death and defeat. Trust his pattern. This Christmas, be a protector and sacrifice your own desires for others. Tell the story of love’s victory to those around you.