Many, many years ago there was a great wizard who longed for a wife and family. Though he was good and kind, he intimidated every woman he met, who feared that they could never be an adequate wife to such a brilliant sage.
So, the wizard decided to use his science in the pursuit of love. He set about to concoct a chemical that would cause the object of his affection to fall in love with him. After much study and experimentation, he was able to produce just such a potion. As luck would have, as he completed the elixir, he met a beautiful, talented and good woman. With the help of friends, the wizard arranged to meet her. Without her knowledge, he poured the chemical into her goblet of wine. And lo and behold, the woman fell in love with the wizard. Soon they married and had a beautiful son and daughter.
But the wizard and his bride did not live happily ever after. He became sullen and depressed; he stopped eating and working; his books and manuscripts piled up, notes for new projects remained unfinished. Every waking moment became torture for him, as he tried to devise some kind of test to answer the question that plagued him:
Would she love me were it not for the chemical?
We are sent out into the world to love one another. Sometimes we live as if we were sent out into the world to compete with one another, or dispute with one another.
The love Christ asks of is a complete, total, unconditional, love that comes from the heart, not some magical mixture that the world devises.
Loving as Christ loves us is about being willing to put aside at times our own wants and hopes to realize instead the wants and hopes of others. It is about caring for others regardless of the sacrifices that we may have to make.
It is about being willing to make the first move to forgive as was so well described in the story of the Prodigal Son.
As the wizard discovers, real love, the love that Christ displayed and lived, does not come from some earthly magical potions.
May our lives speak of the resurrection that we can bring about only through the magic of Christ’s love.