Valentine Hearts, Presidents, and Love in Action

February invites us to focus on Valentine’s Day, our sweethearts, and the blessings of love in personal relationships.  We focus our February Oikonomia blog not only on hearts and shared love but on one of love’s greatest evidences-- forgiveness. 

True love that is freely and unconditionally given must come from deep within our hearts.  Valentine hearts remind us of this heart-felt love.  Love is also symbolized as the “fruit” of a tree.  Both the fruit and the tree that produces it remind us that human love is a character quality, or virtue, that grows and develops over many days, both sunny and stormy, all of which serve to strengthen the tree and ripen its fruit.

February also invites us to celebrate the birthdays of four American presidents: 
Ronald Reagan - February 6, 1911, Tampico, Illinois
Abraham Lincoln - February 12, 1809, Hodgenville, Kentucky
George Washington (February 22, 1732, Westmoreland Co, Virginia
William Henry Harrison, born February 9, 1773 in Charles City county, Virginia, died in office after only a one-month tenure as president. 

At least two “February presidents,” Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, have left us powerful testimonies of love and forgiveness.  By his example, Abraham Lincoln led a deeply divided America toward a spirit of forgiveness and healing after our bloody Civil War.  Many of us remember President Reagan’s unfailing love for his wife, Nancy; and, his heart-felt forgiveness of his would-be assassin, John Hinkley, Jr. 

Ordinary Men
You may think it strange to combine Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln into the same list of “great American presidents.”  Some view Reagan as a midget in comparison to Lincoln.  After all, wasn’t he just a Hollywood actor who leveraged himself into the White House through his skill with public speaking and humor?  Some believed that, without the help of Nancy and his advisors, Reagan would never have achieved even mediocre leadership.

Abraham Lincoln also had his admirers and detractors.  A writer in the Richmond Daily Dispatch described Lincoln as a man whose personal qualities are those of a low buffoon, and whose most noteworthy conversation is a medley of profane jests and obscene anecdotes… hardly a description that we would associate with the man so many have come to revere as a great American.

The passage of time and the reflections of historians have combined to form more generous legacies for both Lincoln and Reagan.  In fact, many regard both men as being among the greatest American presidents.  What follows is our attempt to honor these men in the context of Valentine’s Day love and forgiveness.

Lincoln’s Love and Forgiveness
The character of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), our 16th U.S. president, was forged from humble beginnings, hard labor, and repeated failures both in his practice of law and in his pursuit of public office.  Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd, was born into luxury but when she was only six, her mother died in childbirth leaving seven orphans of whom Mary was the fourth.  Her widowed father eventually remarried and Mary’s stepmother bore nine children whom she favored over Mary and the other stepchildren.  Mary’s eventual marriage to Abraham brought two individuals together, both of whom were prone to depression.

Abraham and Mary eventually saw the deaths of all but one of their four sons while Lincoln bore the additional pressures of the presidency during the terrible Civil War.  Kaleena Fraga writes that both suffered from periods of depression and melancholy, but “…although they suffered jointly during the worst years of the Civil War, Lincoln quite plainly loved his wife.  As president, Lincoln told a journalist: ‘My wife was as handsome as when she was a girl. And I, a poor nobody, fell in love with her, and what is more, have never fallen out.’”

The emotional trials of his marriage were compounded by the pressures of his war-time administration.  Upon Lincoln’s election to a second term, the Richmond Daily Dispatch found it appalling that the people of the supposedly civilized North had reelected a vulgar tyrant . . . whose career has been one of unlimited and unmitigated disaster… —a creature who has squandered the lives of millions without remorse and without even the decency of pretending to feel for their misfortunes; who still cries for blood and for money in the pursuit of his atrocious designs.”

Many historians and theologians believe Abraham Lincoln’s personal character qualities and greatness as a leader were formed by the refinement of his fiery trials.  Although he was born into a devout Baptist family, young Lincoln was a jokester who loved to disrespectfully impersonate the pastor of his church.  However, Lincoln’s faith in God and devotion to the Scriptures became an anchor for his often-troubled soul and a guide as he bore the weight of the office of President of the United States.  When a deeply divided America needed reconciliation and healing, who of all men could have led our nation as well as Lincoln did?  According to Michael Medved (See HERE and HERE), beginning in his early twenties and intensifying during the last five years of his life, Lincoln viewed himself as a divine instrument for a higher purpose.

“With Malice Toward None”
From his deep reservoir of compassion, even before the war had ended, Lincoln expressed love and forgiveness most notably in his Second Inaugural address, declaring (emphasis added), With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Lincoln intended that the war should end “With malice toward none”—i.e. with an abolition of all ill will and any desire to inflict distress or pain.  Instead of pointing a finger at the rebellious southern states, Edward Achorn, writing in Time Magazine, notes that Lincoln delivered a mere “five-minute speech of about 700 words, short enough to run in a single column of a newspaper, [and] he argued that all Americans—North and South—shared culpability for the unimaginable horrors the nation had endured. This war of unexpected duration and ferocity, he posited, may have been God’s judgment on all of America for the evil of slavery.”

Achorn wrote that Lincoln was almost alone in seeing the war’s suffering as a verdict on both sides.  Perhaps it might be deemed an act of God’s justice, he argued, even if all the wealth piled up by 250 years of “unrequited toil” by the enslaved should be sunk into the war, and even if “every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.”

In his second inaugural address, Lincoln applied the inclusive word “we” six times, and the word “both” four times to include North and South as responsible parties in the conflict:
“Both parties deprecated war… Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each evokes His aid against the other.  The prayers of both could not be answered… [God] gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came…”  As if to say that both parties, North and South, brought on this war, both have suffered greatly to fulfill the judgment of God upon the nation for the ills of slavery, and now it is time for both to strive together for reconciliation and healing.

Lincoln’s example of forgiveness is worthy of our consideration as we also live in a spiritually and politically divided America.  Achorn makes a helpful application of this principle as follows:  Lincoln, with his rare ability to step outside of the emotions that we all feel when we are attacked, believed that harsh words and acts of revenge rarely pay off; that we are all flawed human beings, all bringing our own motives and complicated understanding of the world to politics.

Reagan’s Rock of Faith
Like Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan was sharpened by the trials of his early life.  Reagan’s father was an alcoholic with a low self-esteem, and it was not uncommon for young Reagan to hear loud arguments between his father and mother.  Because his father regularly moved from one job to another, the Reagan family never stayed long in one Illinois community and they never owned a home.

According to Paul Kengor, Moving took a toll on the young Ronald; it created a void in him—a hole that religion came to fill. In need of a rock of reliability, he looked to where his mom, his heart, and his desolation pointed him: upward.  There, he found what he perceived as a permanent friend—God, who was always in His place, accessible at any moment, who never moved on him.

In one of their homes, according to Kengor, The previous tenant left behind a collection of bird’s eggs and butterflies enclosed in glass. The curious first-grader escaped into the attic for hours at a time, marveling at the eggs’ rich colors and the intricate wings of the butterflies. “The experience,” Reagan remembered, “left me with a reverence for the handiwork of God that never left me.” These wonderments, said Reagan, were like “gateways.” The notion of a Creator was etched into the boy’s consciousness. He later thanked that previous tenant as “an anonymous benefactor to whom I owe much.”

Whereas, Reagan the young boy found a “gateway” of reverence toward the love and holiness of God; Reagan the high schooler found an added channel of expression.  In a fortunate turn of events, a new English teacher invited her students to try out for a theatrical production.  Young Reagan took advantage of the opportunity and his teacher/director taught him the importance of developing empathy for the character he was assigned to portray.

As an adult, Ronald Reagan faced many challenges including a near-death experience during his acting career, an emotionally upsetting divorce, and threats to his life from infiltrating Communist sympathizers while he led the Screen Actors Guild.  But perhaps Reagan’s greatest challenge came abruptly on March 30, 1981, only a few weeks into his first term as President.

Reagan’s Near Fatality and Forgiveness
The Reagan Diaries, published records from Reagan’s diary for March 30, record that he addressed the Building & Construction Trades National Council, AFL-CIO at 2:00 pm at the Hilton Ballroom, Washington, DC.  Reflecting back on this eventful day, Reagan later wrote:
Left the hotel at the usual side entrance and headed for the car-- suddenly there was a burst of gunfire from the left. S.S. Agent pushed me onto the floor of the car and jumped on top. I felt a blow in my upper back that was unbelievably painful. I was sure he'd broken my rib. The car took off. I sat up on the edge of the seat almost paralyzed by pain. Then I began coughing up blood which made both of us think—yes, I had a broken rib & it had punctured a lung. He switched orders from W.H. to Geo. Wash. U. Hosp.

By the time we arrived I was having great trouble getting enough air. We did not know that Tim McCarthy (S.S.) had had been shot in the chest, Jim Brady in the head & a policeman Tom Delahanty in the neck.

I walked into the emergency room and was hoisted onto a cart where I was stripped of my clothes.  It was then we learned I'd been shot & had a bullet in my lung.

Getting shot hurts.  Still my fear was growing because no matter how hard I tried to breathe it seemed I was getting less and less air.  I focused on that tiled ceiling and prayed. But I realized I couldn't ask for God's help while at the same time I felt hatred for the mixed-up young man who had shot me. Isn't that the meaning of the lost sheep?   We are all God's children and therefore equally beloved by him. I began to pray for his soul and that he would find his way back to the fold.

I opened my eyes once to find Nancy there.  I pray I'll never face a day when she isn't there.  Of all the ways God has blessed me, giving her to me is the greatest and beyond anything I can ever hope to deserve.

After 12 days of therapy, transfusion, intravenous, etc., back in the White House, Reagan recorded on April 11:  The treatment, the warmth, the skill of those at G.W. (George Washington Hospital) has been magnificent but it is great to be here at home.  Whatever happens now I owe my life to God and will try to serve Him in every way I can.

Reagan biographer Craig Shirley recounts (See HERE.) that two years after his near assassination, Reagan demonstrated his enormous capacity for Christian forgiveness.  Reagan asked Dr. Daniel Ruge, White House physician, to contact the Dr. Roger Peele, head of psychiatry at St. Elizabeth's Hospital where John Hinkley, Jr. was incarcerated.  During his conversation with President Reagan, Dr. Peele was struck by the modesty, “kindness and professionalism of Reagan and his staff, asking several times if he was being inconvenienced in any way.”  Reagan expressed his desire “to pardon Hinckley, not legally but ‘personally’ and ‘in private.’"  But the president also made it “clear he wanted to do what was best for Hinckley.” 

In the end, Reagan and Peele agreed that a meeting would not be advisable because it would likely “empower the young man, whose ego was out of control and whose sense of guilt was nonexistent.”  Nevertheless, Reagan could rest in his conscience that he had already forgiven Hinkley personally.

Reagan:  Leading the World to Forgive
Ronald Reagan’s forgiveness toward his would-be assassin was personal and private.  However, as Divine Providence did for Abraham Lincoln, God granted Reagan a more public and international platform to demonstrate his great heart of forgiveness.  The year 1985 marked the 40^th anniversary of the liberation of Europe from the tyranny of Nazi Germany.  Reagan was invited by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to address the German leadership, the German people, and the survivors of the Holocaust.  However, Reagan received strong pushback from many who still bore resentment toward Nazi Germany for the Holocaust.  Elie Wiesel, Jewish chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, opposed Reagan’s plan to speak at the Holocaust site at Bergen-Belsen as did 53 U.S. Senators!   But Reagan insisted that “he had made a commitment to Kohl, and that 40 years of condemning the Germans for the Holocaust was obloquy enough.” 

Reagan’s Speech at the Holocaust site at Bergen-Belsen, May 5, 1985 (See HERE for text and video.) is regarded as one of his most moving expressions of compassion and forgiveness.  Here is his conclusion in which Reagan calls on the world to forgive and learn from the past, and to rise above such cruelty to hope and pledge, “never again:”

Everywhere here are memories -- pulling us, touching us, making us understand that they can never be erased. Such memories take us where God intended His children to go -- toward learning, toward healing, and, above all, toward redemption. They beckon us through the endless stretches of our heart to the knowing commitment that the life of each individual can change the world and make it better.

We're all witnesses; we share the glistening hope that rests in every human soul. Hope leads us, if we're prepared to trust it, toward what our President Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature." And then, rising above all this cruelty, out of this tragic and nightmarish time, beyond the anguish, the pain and the suffering for all time, we can and must pledge: Never again.

Following the Greatest Forgiver
Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan lived and served in very different periods of history. Neither man was unanimously considered as “great” in his time; but both were men of great faith in God’s sovereign plan of salvation.  Both were confronted with evidence of the depravity of humankind:  Lincoln was faced with the deaths of over 800,000 in the American Civil War; Reagan spoke in memory of the deaths of 6 million men, women, and children in the Holocaust.  Yet both Lincoln and Reagan testified of a hope grounded in the providence of God. 

Reagan’s hope for America was framed in the metaphor of “a shining city upon a hill," a phrase he borrowed from the Pilgrim, John Winthrop, who foresaw a nation as a beacon of hope in Christ to whom the world would be drawn.  Reagan also shared Lincoln’s hope that humankind will choose to rise above the way of evil, violence, and death because of “the better angels of our nature.”  On March 4, 1861, only one month before Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter which launched all-out war, Lincoln used the “better angels” phrase to close his First Inaugural Address.

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Lincoln and Reagan have left us with an example of strong leadership in the aftermath of  horrific wars.  But both pointed their countrymen and women toward goodness and enduring values that are attainable through faith and hope in God’s providence.  These are grounded in the Gospel message of the Bible: God so loved the world corrupted by the human sin of rebellion that He gave His only begotten Son (Jesus Christ), that whoever believes in Him should not perish by eternal separation from God but have eternal life (John 3: 16).  God’s sinless Son became a willing sacrifice to bear and take away our sin on a Roman Cross (Romans 3: 21-26; 1 John 2: 2: 4: 10).

Greatest Expression of Love
What is the greatest expression or act of love of one person toward another?  Jesus answered this question perfectly, first in words and then by two amazing actions:

WORDS – (to His disciples): This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15: 12-13).  
ACTIONS – 1) Forgiveness:  He said, Father, forgive them
                          for they know not what they do (Luke 23: 34).
                     2) Propitiation:  This is real love—not that we loved 
                          God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a
                          sacrifice to take away our sins (1 John 4:10 NLT)
                          – or, a propitiation for our sins (ESV).

Jesus spoke words of forgiveness; and then, willingly laid down His life through the brutality of Roman crucifixion.  He demonstrated God’s great commandment, “Love one another,” by His great love for mankind by words of forgiveness with His last breaths.  Then, Jesus poured out His life in sacrificial death, body and blood given in sacrificial love, as an atoning sacrifice for sin.

But how do we express love?  In 1 John 3: 16, the Apostle John wrote, This is how we know what love is:  Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.  While many of us are prepared to die for our loved ones, family, and brothers and sisters in Christ, what about our enemies, some of whom are unsaved and bound for eternity without God?  Romans 5: 7-8 answers this question:  For one will hardly die for a righteous person; though perhaps for the good person someone would even dare to die.  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  God loves both the obedient saint who serves Him and the sinner who rejects Him.  God’s forgiveness of sin as a result of Christ’s sacrificial death applies to all, both saint and sinner.

Romans 6 explains that each person who comes to Christ in repentance and accepts Christ’s sacrifice for their sin is “baptized (immersed) into Christ” (verses 3-7) and united with Him in His death.  Then, as Christ was raised to new life with the sin “done away,” so also are we raised to “newness of life” in Christ (v. 4-7).  As new creatures in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 17), we are indwelt with His Holy Spirit.  As we abide in Christ (continue in obedience to His Word), His Spirit abides in us and we are able to “bear much fruit.”  John 15: 7-14 ties all of this reasoning together from abiding to fruit-bearing, and the fundamental fruit of the Spirit is—guess what?   Love!  (See Galatians 5: 22-23.)

What is our greatest expression of love toward God?
The answer ought to be obvious:  to accept the gift of salvation which His Son Jesus purchased for us.  If there is no greater expression of love toward us than Jesus laying down His life for us (John 15: 12-13), then our greatest expression of love to God is to accept His “love gift” of salvation and to abide (obey) in His commandments (John 15: 13-14).  “We love because He first loved us (1 John 4: 19).”  But there is a second human expression of our love—to love our neighbor through forgiveness without keeping a “record of wrongs.”

Love Keeps No Record
Shortly before the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was asked by a reporter, “What are you going to do to those rebellious southerners after the war is over?  How are you going to treat them when they come back to the United States?”
Lincoln replied “I will treat them as if they had never been away.”

Lincoln’s attitude toward the South, and Reagan’s attitude toward Nazi Germany reflects an understanding of human depravity and need for mercy and forgiveness.  Romans 5: 1 declares, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…  I like to think of justification as a declaration (from God) that He sees me as “justified,” or “just as if I’d never sinned” based on my faith in Christ’s sacrifice for sin.  The record or accounting of our sins is declared as cancelled just as the master had cancelled the debt of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18: 26-27).  Do we cancel the debt owed to us by our offenders by forgiving and then refusing constantly remind them of their offense?

Valentine Love and Beyond
A card? Candy?  A diamond?  Or, maybe sacrificially giving up something that brought joy to a loved one?  When we do acts of unconditional love (Agape love) on Valentine’s Day or on any other day of the year, we are acting, although imperfectly, in the spirit of God’s love toward us.  Few of us will face an occasion where we must literally “give up our life” for our loved one; but God’s love in us ought to cause us daily to “deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow [Christ] (Luke 9: 23).  As we “die to self” and yield to God’s Spirit, the love of Christ infuses our thoughts, words, and actions as Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8a:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails…

Have You Found the "Greatest Love?
The sad news is, according to the Bible, we cannot find and experience the "Greatest Love" and true forgiveness apart from a personal relationship with "the Greatest Lover," Jesus Christ.  The Good News, or "the Gospel," explains how you can receive Christ and live forever in God's love.  This Gospel is summarized in an outline called Steps to Peace with God which explains God’s love, our predicament (sin and separation from God), what Jesus has done to address our predicament, and what you can do by faith to receive God’s righteousness (right standing with a Holy God). 

If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you.  Just post a “Comment” below or e-mail to silviusj@gmail.com