The Law of Love

Most of the commentaries illustrate this gentle restoration in orthopedic terms. It's the kind of care a doctor gives to you when you have broken a bone.

Just that casual reference brings back the vivid memories of my 1981 ski accident at Mammoth, in which I had a compound, boot-top fracture of my right leg. I had wiped out in moguls under chair number three. The ski patrol so gently lifted me out of the deep snow into the toboggan. They put my leg in a splint, then skied me as gently as possible down the mountain in that toboggan to the staging area by the emergency room. They lifted me into an ambulance, oh so carefully, and drove me to the hospital. There, in the operating room, the doctors didn't minimize the problem, saying, "Because we don't want to hurt you we are just going to let this heal naturally." Instead, they, so sensitively, shared with me what they were going to do, how they would reset that leg, knowing that without the pain of that delicate surgery, there would not be full restoration. What I remembered was that everything they did was with sensitivity and care for my ultimate good.

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That's what Paul is telling us. When you hear a brother or sister has fallen into sin, don't luxuriate in their troubles. Function by the law of love in which you gently restore a fallen brother or sister.

We Christians have a reputation for shooting our walking wounded. When a minister or key layperson gets involved in scandal, it sets off a gossip chain that can be vicious. Paul is not saying that sin is to be minimized. Sin is malignant; it must be dealt with. Where there is true repentance, where a person is willing to go through the process of restoration, let's do it lovingly and do it gently.

I have seen cases of ministers who have fallen in public sin who have refused to confront the reality of what they have done. They are living in denial. They are blaming what they have done on other people, minimizing it, refusing the efforts of those of us who care to help with the drastic surgery that will bring restoration. That's not what Paul is talking about. He is talking about the one who admits their need. Let's go the distance with them. Let's take the time that is necessary to help the healing and to see them restored.

A classic case of this is one of our dear brothers, a covenant group member of mine, who, with his wife, went through a four-year period in which he was not allowed to do any public ministry. He went through the restoration process. I thank God that when that process was officially concluded, St. Andrew's was one of the first churches to welcome him back to preach. We have done that in several situations.

St. Augustine said it some 1,500 years ago: "There is no surer test of the spiritual person than his treatment of another's sin. Note how he takes care to deliver the sinner rather than triumph over him, to help him rather than punish him and, so far as lies in his capacity, to support him."

Second, the law of love lives aware of one's own vulnerability.