When Love Goes Looking: Crossing Boundaries and Finding the Forgotten
Love that crosses boundaries isn't always neat or welcomed, but it's always powerful. True love shows up in tombs, wastelands, and graveyards. It searches for the forgotten and calls out until we are found.
What Does God's Pursuing Love Look Like?
In Isaiah, God declares, "I was ready to be found, but you weren't even looking." Yet despite this rejection, God keeps reaching out with hands stretched toward those walking away. This isn't a distant, indifferent God, but one who initiates relationship despite rejection.
This love doesn't wait for us to get our lives together. It shows up first and seeks us out. In business, we might call this "anticipating customer needs," but in scripture, it's something far deeper—it's transformational love that initiates despite rejection.
How Does Jesus Demonstrate Boundary-Crossing Love?
In the New Testament, we see Jesus crossing a lake into Gentile territory—a place rabbinical teaching said he shouldn't go. He then enters a graveyard, a place of fear and ritual uncleanliness, to find a man everyone else had abandoned.
Who does that? Who searches for someone the community has given up on? Jesus does, repeatedly, because that's what love does.
Why Does Love Take Us to Uncomfortable Places?
As people, we typically want a neat, tidy gospel with a predictable savior. But love always takes us to uncomfortable places. Love never plays it safe.
I experienced this while living in Sicily with my family. We met an American mother of twins who was being abused and held captive by her Sicilian husband. Helping her escape with her children was right but dangerous—we received death threats from her husband's family, forcing my wife and children to temporarily leave the island.
I didn't seek this situation, but God placed us there. We chose to help because we believe deeply that love crosses borders of geography, safety, and personal comfort. It goes where others won't. This is the love Jesus demonstrates and calls us to live out.
How Does Jesus Restore Dignity to the Broken?
In Luke's gospel, Jesus encounters a man chained up, naked, and screaming—ostracized by his community. By the end of the story, he's clothed, calm, and sitting at Jesus' feet.
Jesus didn't just cast out demons; he restored the man's dignity. He gave back his name, story, future, and place in community. As Isaiah says, "There is a blessing in the cluster of grapes"—Jesus saw worth in this man that his community had overlooked.
How many people do we figuratively "chain up" because their pain is too much for us to bear? Love doesn't fear brokenness—it enters into it and restores.
Why Do People Reject Healing and Restoration?
Interestingly, when the community sees the man healed, they don't rejoice. Instead, they're afraid and ask Jesus to leave. Why? Because this kind of love disrupts. It overturns what's comfortable, changes power dynamics, and shifts priorities.
In Isaiah, people rejected God while claiming holiness. In Luke, they reject healing because it came from someone they didn't expect or respect. This still happens today.
What Does Public Witness of Love Look Like Today?
This July, I'll attend the Church of the Brethren annual conference in Greensboro. One key witness effort focuses on gun violence prevention, with attendees wearing orange to stand with victims and their families.
This public witness of love can make people uncomfortable. Some may ask, "Why bring politics into church?" But I see it differently—it's showing what love looks like in the public forum. It's a love that mourns with those who mourn, protects the vulnerable, and risks being misunderstood to say, "You matter. Your pain matters. You are not forgotten."
Like in Isaiah and Luke, this kind of love can make people turn away. But Jesus teaches us to show up anyway, because that's what love does.
What Happens After We're Found by Love?
After Jesus heals the demonized man, the man wants to stay with Jesus—understandably! But Jesus says, "No. Go home and tell your story."
Perhaps the most important point: Jesus doesn't just save us; he sends us. When love goes looking for us, it also sends us looking for others. That's what the Church of the Brethren is doing—wearing orange, praying with their feet, building peace where the world sees division. That's love, and that's our calling.
Life Application: Responding to Love That Seeks
Today, you might feel like the man in the tombs—forgotten and overwhelmed. Or perhaps you're like the crowd—afraid of what real love might change or ask of you. Maybe you're being called like the healed man to go and tell others.
Wherever you are, hear this: God is still saying, "Here I am." Jesus is still crossing seas. Love is still looking—for you, your family, your friends, your neighbors, and even your enemies.
Ask yourself:
* Where is God pursuing me that I've been resistant to acknowledge?
* What boundaries is love asking me to cross to reach someone others have given up on?
* How might I be "chaining up" someone whose pain is difficult for me to face?
* What is my story of being found by love, and who needs to hear it?
This week, look for one opportunity to cross a boundary with love—to go where others won't go, to see worth in someone others have overlooked, to restore dignity where it's been lost. That's what love does when it goes looking.
