It takes some courage to love other people. People are sort of unreliable and you run the
risk they may hurt you. And to make matters worse, love makes you vulnerable
and defenseless towards those that you love. The instinct is to avoid hurt, so
love in some ways is like holding your hand close to a candle – you know that
too close or too long means getting burned.
But love we must. I suppose you could live your life without
loving others. There are probably some people that lack the capacity to love or
be loved. But by and large we are intended to love, even if sometimes
misguided, hurtful, selfish, or indecent.
One problem is that our initial love mindset is focused on
those closest to us. Our love is uneven. Christ teaches us that a just love is
an even one – that we ought to love our neighbors and our enemies; everyone
really.[1] Matthew,
relaying the words of Christ, writes “ ‘You have heard that it was said, You
shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your
enemies and pray for those that persecute you, so that you may be sons of your
Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Matthew 5:43-45. That one could generate such a profound
attachment to others that have not even been met represents a great mystery of
Christianity.
Deeply ingrained in the New Testament, however, is Christ’s
self-sacrifice for humanity. Christ ultimately was crucified for our sins and
for a new covenant with God based on acceptance of Christ as God, and founded
on a single expression of love – that we act in a way towards others that we
would ourselves wished to be treated. Coupled with self-sacrifice is a calling that we
should follow Christ. This is first
evident, of course, when Christ calls on his disciples to follow him in the
world. Later, to comfort his disciples
that are troubled that he would be going where they could not immediately
follow him, Christ says in John 14:2-3 “In my father’s house are many rooms; if
it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And
when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to
myself, that where I am you may be also.”
Martin Luther writes in Volume 24 of his Works that there is no other way to heaven but by Christ, suggesting that the many earthly ceremonies and rituals, even of monks and others deemed to be holy, is senseless: “when the hour comes for you to leave this life and enter a different one, then you must either [follow Christ] or be eternally lost.”
The imitation of Christ however leads the follower logically
to the ultimate sacrifice of self for others, as Christ did for the world. I think this bar is set too high for mere
mortals. Much as we wish it were otherwise, we are not gods. Loving others
requires that we also love ourselves, placing each as equals, not one subjugated
to another. Perhaps Christ expects us to
subjugate ourselves to Him in the passage “I am the way, and the truth, and the
life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”
John 14:6. But I can’t read that passage to also mean in imitation of
Christ we must subjugate ourselves for the love of others, or live as slaves
to the will of others. We must love ourselves and each other.
[1]
Writes John: “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who
loves is born of God and knows God.” 1 Letters of John 4:7.
No comments:
Post a Comment