Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13). Christian love is not mainly a feeling. It is a choice to put someone else first, often at real cost.
These eight stories about love, retold in our own words, include a priest in Auschwitz, a small boy in a hospital, a father and son on the marathon course, a banquet for the homeless, a president's handshake, a barefoot boy outside a shoe shop, two brothers and their fish tanks, and a man who carried a stranger's child. Each ends with a takeaway for sermons or reflection.
Stories in this collection:
- Maximilian Kolbe: The Priest Who Took Another Man's Place
- "Doctor, When Do I Die?": A Brother's Gift of Blood
- Team Hoyt: A Father Who Became His Son's Legs
- A Banquet for the Homeless
- "Welcome Home, Mr President": Carter's Handshake
- "Are You God's Wife?": A Barefoot Boy and a Pair of Shoes
- The Fish Tank: When Good Intentions Are Not Enough
- "We Are All Family": A Settler, a Child and a Reporter
Maximilian Kolbe: The Priest Who Took Another Man's Place
Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan priest who died in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz during the Second World War. His story is one of the most moving accounts of self-sacrificing love to come out of that terrible time.
Before the war, Kolbe had founded a large friary at Niepokalanów, near Warsaw, which ran a busy religious publishing house. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, he knew the friary would be seized, and he sent most of the friars home. With the few who remained, he turned the friary into a shelter for refugees from western Poland, among them, according to most accounts, around two thousand Jews whom he hid from Nazi persecution.
He was arrested in September 1939 and released that December, but he was not deterred. He carried on sheltering refugees until February 1941, when the Gestapo shut down the friary and arrested him along with four other friars. In May 1941 he was transferred to Auschwitz, where he became prisoner number 16670.
Even there, Kolbe kept living for others. The prisoners were slowly and deliberately starved, and when food was brought, everyone fought for their share. Fellow prisoners later recalled that Kolbe would often stand aside until others had been fed, which sometimes meant there was nothing left for him, and that when he did receive a portion he would share it.
His love reached its greatest height at the end of July 1941. To discourage escape attempts, the camp punished every escape by killing other prisoners. After a man from Kolbe's block disappeared, the remaining men were lined up in front of the deputy camp commander, Karl Fritzsch, who ordered that ten of them be chosen to die by starvation in an underground bunker.
One of the men selected, a Polish army sergeant named Franciszek Gajowniczek, broke down and cried out in despair for his wife and children.
At that, Kolbe stepped out of the line, took off his cap and stood before the commander. He said that he was a Catholic priest and asked to take the man's place, because Gajowniczek had a wife and children and he did not.
The officer was astonished, and by some accounts responded with contempt. Kolbe calmly repeated his request. After a moment's silence, Fritzsch agreed. Gajowniczek was sent back to the ranks, and Kolbe joined the condemned men.
The ten were taken to the starvation cells beneath Block 11, where they were given no food or water. Witnesses later said that Kolbe led the others in prayer and hymns, comforting them as they died one by one. After about two weeks, only four of the men were still alive, Kolbe among them. Because the guards wanted the cells for other prisoners, the four were killed with injections of carbolic acid. Kolbe died on 14 August 1941, at the age of forty-seven.
Franciszek Gajowniczek survived Auschwitz and the war. He lived until 1995, into his nineties, and spent much of his life telling people about the man who had died in his place. He was present in 1982 when Pope John Paul II declared Kolbe a saint.
Kolbe was following the example of his Lord. Just as Christ laid down his life for us, Kolbe laid down his life for a brother he barely knew.
Takeaway: Kolbe's sacrifice is a living picture of the cross. Someone else took the place we deserved, so that we could go free and tell the story.
Source: Biographical accounts of Maximilian Kolbe and Franciszek Gajowniczek.
"Doctor, When Do I Die?": A Brother's Gift of Blood
In his book Written in Blood, the American evangelist and professor Robert Coleman tells the story of a little boy named Johnny whose younger sister, Mary, was seriously ill and needed a blood transfusion.
Mary had a rare blood type, and her brother shared it. What made him an even better donor was that he had recovered from the same illness two years earlier. The doctor carefully explained all this to Johnny, and told him gently that without the transfusion, his sister would die.
Would you be brave and give your blood to your sister? the doctor asked.
Johnny hesitated. His lower lip began to tremble. Then he smiled and said, Sure, for my sister.
The two children were wheeled into the hospital room side by side: Mary, pale and thin, and Johnny, robust and healthy. He smiled at his sister, then watched as his blood began to flow out of his arm and along the clear plastic tube towards her.
As he lay there, his smile slowly faded. Feeling weak, he looked up at the doctor and asked quietly, Doctor, when do I die?
Only then did the doctor realise what the little boy had understood. Johnny thought that giving his blood to his sister meant giving up his life for her. And because he loved her, he had said yes anyway.
Takeaway: Love counts the cost and gives anyway. Johnny was ready to give his life for his sister; Jesus actually did give his for us.
Source: Robert E. Coleman, Written in Blood (Revell, 1972).
Team Hoyt: A Father Who Became His Son's Legs
Rick Hoyt was born in 1962 with cerebral palsy after his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and cut off oxygen to his brain. He could not walk or speak. Doctors advised his parents to put him in an institution, but Dick and Judy Hoyt raised him at home.
At 11 Rick was given a computer that allowed him to communicate. In 1977 he told his father he wanted to take part in a charity run for a paralysed lacrosse player at his school. Dick, who was not a runner, pushed Rick's wheelchair the whole way. Afterwards Rick told his father that when they were running, he did not feel disabled.
That was the beginning of Team Hoyt. Over the following decades, father and son completed more than a thousand races. Dick pushed Rick in the Boston Marathon 32 times, and in six Ironman triathlons he towed Rick in a boat while swimming, carried him on a special bicycle and pushed him on the run.
Dick died in March 2021 and Rick in May 2023. Their bronze statue stands near the start of the Boston Marathon.
Takeaway: Love does for others what they cannot do for themselves. It carries, pulls and pushes, mile after mile, so that someone else can know what it is to be free.
Source: Team Hoyt; widely reported in the media, including coverage of Dick Hoyt's death in 2021.
A Banquet for the Homeless
It is Christmas 2001. One thousand specially invited guests are travelling by coach to a secret location in Sydney, Australia. They arrive at a beautifully decorated ballroom, find their places and sit down to a lavish meal prepared by chefs from some of the city's top hotels.
There is a salad of prawns and mango, traditional roast turkey and ham with stuffing and vegetables, and to finish, Christmas pudding with custard. Every guest receives a gift, and the night is filled with entertainment.
Who are these honoured guests? They are homeless people from the streets of Sydney.
They had been invited by Jeff Gambin, a former restaurant owner. According to reports at the time, in 1993 he and his wife had founded a charity called Just Enough Faith. Every night, Gambin and his team of volunteers cooked and handed out meals to people sleeping rough in Sydney. They also helped people find housing, work, rehabilitation and counselling.
Over the years, it was reported, the couple had spent millions of dollars of their own money on the work, and they planned to keep going until it ran out. And every Christmas they gave Sydney's homeless a celebration of the kind normally reserved for the rich and famous.
Gambin knew he would gain nothing material from it. Yet he said it was easily the most rewarding thing he had ever done.
It is a wonderful picture of the banquet Jesus described in Luke 14, a feast to which the poor, the overlooked and the marginalised are invited. It turns our ideas of importance, status and honour upside down, and offers grace to everyone.
Takeaway: Jesus told us to invite "the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind" to our feasts (Luke 14:13). Love throws its best parties for those who can never pay it back.
Source: Today Tonight, Channel 7 (Australia), 21 December 2001; Just Enough Faith Foundation.
"Welcome Home, Mr President": Carter's Handshake
Hubert Humphrey had served as Vice President of the United States under Lyndon Johnson. When he died in January 1978, hundreds of people from across the country and around the world came to pay their respects in Washington.
One of the mourners was former President Richard Nixon. Humphrey had been his opponent in the 1968 election, and Nixon had resigned in disgrace four years earlier after the Watergate scandal. The funeral was reportedly his first public appearance in Washington since leaving office.
As the story is usually told, the atmosphere around him was icy. People avoided his eyes, conversations dried up when he came near, and Nixon stood largely alone, feeling the full weight of the shame that still surrounded him.
Then the sitting president, Jimmy Carter, came into the room. Carter belonged to the opposing party and had campaigned on restoring honesty to government after Watergate. As he made his way to his seat, he noticed Nixon standing by himself.
Carter changed course, walked straight over to him, held out his hand and greeted him warmly. Welcome home, Mr President, he is reported to have said. Welcome home.
The story is often told with a line from Newsweek suggesting that if there was a turning point in Nixon's long years in the wilderness, it was that moment and that gesture of compassion. We have not been able to view the original article, so we share the quotation as it is commonly reported.
Whatever the exact details, the scene captures how much a single act of welcome can mean to someone everyone else has shut out.
Takeaway: Love crosses the room to the person everyone else avoids. It does not wait for them to deserve it.
Source: Widely told account, usually attributed to a report in Newsweek (1978); we have not been able to view the original article.
"Are You God's Wife?": A Barefoot Boy and a Pair of Shoes
This story has been retold for well over a century, often set in New York. Its original source is unknown.
On a bitterly cold winter's day, a boy of about ten stood barefoot outside a shoe shop, staring through the window and shivering.
A woman passing by stopped and asked him what he was doing out there in the cold.
I'm asking God to give me a pair of shoes, the boy said.
The woman took him by the hand and led him into the shop. She asked the assistant to fetch half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy, and then asked whether he could also bring a basin of water and a towel. He brought them quickly.
She took the boy to the back of the shop, knelt down, washed his cold, dirty feet and dried them gently with the towel.
By then the assistant had returned with the socks. The woman put a pair on the boy's feet and then bought him a pair of shoes. She tied the remaining socks into a bundle and gave them to him. Then she patted him on the head and asked whether he felt more comfortable now.
As she turned to leave, the astonished boy caught her hand. He looked up into her face with tears in his eyes and answered her question with one of his own.
Are you God's wife?
Takeaway: The boy asked God for help, and God answered through a stranger who knelt to wash his feet, just as Jesus washed his disciples' feet (John 13:12–15). We may be the answer to someone else's prayer.
Source: Traditional story; author unknown.
The Fish Tank: When Good Intentions Are Not Enough
A modern parable; its original author is unknown.
Once upon a time, two brothers each bought a fish tank.
The younger brother's set-up was very simple: a round glass bowl with some gravel and a bit of weed. The older brother's was far more impressive. He bought a large, enclosed tank with a filter, lighting and elaborate decorations.
The younger brother hardly ever cleaned his bowl. The older brother, on the other hand, was diligent. He cleaned his tank regularly and carefully, doing everything he believed a good fish-keeper should do.
So he could not understand why his fish kept dying, while his brother's fish, in their grubby little bowl, carried on happily.
Eventually he discovered the reason. The cleaning product he had been using was toxic to fish. Each time he cleaned the tank, tiny traces of it were left behind, and those traces were enough to kill his fish.
He had loved his fish, and worked hard for them. But without knowing it, he had been harming the very creatures he was trying to care for.
The parable shows that when it comes to loving and serving others, good intentions are not enough. If we want to make a real difference in people's lives, our good intentions need to be matched by wisdom, attention and good practice.
Takeaway: Paul prayed that the Philippians' love would "abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight" (Philippians 1:9–10). Real love listens and learns what actually helps.
Source: Modern parable; author unknown.
"We Are All Family": A Settler, a Child and a Reporter
This story has been widely told in sermons and is usually attributed to the war correspondent Peter Arnett. We have not been able to find a firsthand account from Arnett himself, so it is best shared as an illustration rather than a verified news report.
As the story goes, Peter Arnett was on assignment in Israel when a bomb went off. Through the chaos of wounded and frightened people came a man carrying a little girl in his arms. She had been badly injured in the blast.
The man begged Arnett to help him get her to a hospital. As a member of the press, Arnett was one of the few people who could get through the police security cordon. He agreed at once and bundled the man and the child into his car.
The drive was harrowing. Neither of them knew whether the little girl would survive. When they reached the hospital, she was rushed inside, and the two men waited anxiously for news.
After what felt like an eternity, a doctor came out. The little girl had died.
The man collapsed in tears. Arnett tried to comfort him as best he could. He said he did not know what to say, and that he could not imagine what the man must be going through, because he had never lost a child of his own.
The man looked up at him. That girl was not my daughter, he said. He explained that he was an Israeli settler, and the little girl was Palestinian.
But, he went on, there comes a time when each of us must realise that every child, whatever their background, is someone's son or daughter. There must come a time when we realise that we are all family.
Takeaway: Jesus told us to love our neighbour, and then told the story of the Good Samaritan to show that our neighbour includes those on the other side of every divide (Luke 10:25–37).
Source: Widely circulated sermon illustration attributed to Peter Arnett; firsthand source not found.
Final thoughts
A priest in a starvation bunker, a boy giving blood, a father pushing a wheelchair, a feast for the homeless, a handshake, a woman kneeling to wash a child's feet, a fish tank and a settler's tears. Each is a small reflection of the love God has shown us in Christ.
For further reading, Sopranu has a summary of C. S. Lewis's The Four Loves, a classic exploration of affection, friendship, romance and self-giving love.
Who could you love in a costly, practical way this week?
More stories you may like:
These stories are retold in our own words for teaching and reflection. Sources are credited under each story.