Endless Love

When Jesus tells his followers to love one another,* he is inviting them to practice the endless, unconditional, selfless, sacrificial love in which God enfolds all of creation. Jesus showed us what that looked like for human beings in his day-to-day interactions with the people followed him wherever he went, those who came to him with questions and problems, and even with Roman officials. He did not go around saying “I love you.” He showed his love by listening carefully, healing the people who were in pain, offering food to people who were hungry, taking their questions and concerns seriously, and even forgiving the people who were torturing him even as he, himself, was dying on the cross.

When I try to live up to this standard, I mostly fail miserably. Oh, I can love others easily when I am feeling well and strong and when things are going my way. But when I am tired or hungry frustrated or in physical pain myself, all of my good resolutions to follow Jesus’s example fall apart. I criticize the behavior of others, I complain that no one cares about me, I snap at people who try to help me, I scream in rage or dissolve into tears.

In all of this, it is hard to remember that God loves me, and all of us, in our failures and our weaknesses, not just in our successes. When Jesus said, “Forgive them, since they are clueless,” he was not just asking God to forgive the Roman soldiers who had nailed him to the cross, or to forgive Peter, who denied him in public three times. Even in his last moments on earth, Jesus loved you and me and everyone else. Even in our utter cluelessness, Jesus shows us how to love and forgive one another, over and over again. Every day, Jesus invites us into the endless love that he called the realm of God.