Love that does not turn away

BY AMANDA BRUMMELL LENNESTAAL*

There is a sofa in my living room that has seen better days. I bought it second-hand from a Salvos Store a few years ago, never particularly comfortable, never especially attractive, but all I could afford at the time. Over the years it has become the place where much of life with my teens has unfolded.

It has held long days that didn't resolve neatly, conversations that circled without clear endings, bodies that were tired or restless or simply needing somewhere to land. It has also held unexpected laughter, and moments of connection that felt, at times, hard won. The fabric is worn, the frame uneven. By any reasonable standard, it should be replaced.

And yet it remains. Not for its material value, but for what it has come to represent: a faithful presence that doesn't require life to be orderly first.

In a culture that equates value with appearance and prefers replacement over endurance, there is something quietly countercultural about that kind of faithfulness.

The Easter story has a similar disregard for what looks resolved or acceptable. At its centre is not simply the description of Jesus' death, but the reality that his death was the inevitable consequence of how he lived.

Jesus moved persistently toward those pushed to the margins, touching those deemed unclean, speaking with those excluded, restoring dignity to people reduced to labels or problems to be managed. He disrupted systems that depended on separation and hierarchy, not through force but through proximity. And that kind of love exposes fault lines. It reveals who is excluded, who is burdened, and who benefits from things remaining as they are.

That kind of disruption rarely goes unanswered. Jesus is executed, and the reason is inseparable from the life he lived.

It is a pattern that is not confined to the past.

Right now, decisions made in distant centres of power are reshaping the lives of people who had no seat at the table. Trade policies negotiated between governments are driving up costs for families already stretched thin. Military strategies drawn up far from the frontlines are being absorbed, body by body, by those with the least power to resist them.

In Gaza, in Sudan, in Iran, where ordinary people navigate the consequences of geopolitical pressure they did not choose, the distance between those who decide and those who bear the cost has rarely felt wider.

This is precisely what the life of Jesus interrupts.

Rather than operating from a distance, he moved toward those most affected. Rather than insulating himself from complexity, he entered it. His authority was expressed not through control or detachment, but through presence and a willingness to absorb cost rather than deflect it. A love that refused to uphold exclusion, that exposed inequity, that reordered who belonged, is not easily accommodated by systems that depend on hierarchy and distance.

Which raises an uncomfortable question: what might it mean to embody this kind of love now?

In a world that rewards efficiency, clarity, and distance, choosing proximity is both impractical and costly. It may mean staying engaged in situations that don't resolve quickly, listening to experiences that unsettle our assumptions, recognising where human need resists easy categorisation, and resisting the pull toward what appears polished at the expense of what is real.

The love we see in Jesus does not wait for resolution before drawing near, nor does it withdraw when the cost becomes apparent. It remains.

Perhaps that is where the real challenge of Easter sits, not only in what we believe about the cross, but in what we are willing to risk in how we live. Because a love that moves toward the margins, that refuses distance, and that names what is broken will always carry consequence.

Sometimes that looks less dramatic than we imagine. Sometimes it looks like returning, again and again, to the same worn spaces, holding what is in front of us without turning away. Sometimes it looks like a sofa that should have been replaced long ago, still faithfully holding the weight of life as it continues to unfold.

Not because it is perfect. But because it remains.

*Amanda Brummell Lennestaal is General Manager for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at The Salvation Army.