Most Christians, when they think of commandments from God, shift their thoughts to Moses and the Old Testament. Those commandments had an element of measurement in them. I could show my love for God by keeping a regimen laid out by Moses for the society, and the individuals in it. I could love my parents to the level of their satisfaction and God’s showing respect for life. This line of thought can be stretched out for understanding and direction for the list of laws. Then Jesus comes along making it clear that he was offering divine context even for natural law in providing heaven’s laws. One of those laws, growing out of the nature of God, was that his followers were to love each other beyond measure. This fresh commandment is not ultimately measured by mankind, but by God. If God gives love that instigates my love, then I must leave it to him to evaluate my love in response to his command. This love requires a new understanding – that it is God’s nature to be adopted into the natures of his children. This love is divine, and is beyond our ken, unless we accept that God gives it and measures it in our care for others.
Tracey Emin, a British artist, in her late forties at this writing, was considered a brash, loud, bad girl during her emerging professional years. Some of her work was insulting to the meaning of art that addresses the human spirit. In her middle years, she has emerged as a maturing person. One of her observations: I judged love against how I received it, and what I should have done is judged it on what I gave. Because that is what I truly know. (WSJ Magazine 3/2012). In words, not for oneself but for all, Jesus made the whole movement, starting with the self to give, no matter what one receives in return. It is a major point that Jesus made, love emanating from oneself. Give before receiving, and give that which you would like to receive, but give in any event, without thought about receiving, or flagging because of the omissions from the other person’s self. I am continually amazed at the statements I read from media – declarations from this or that person, concepts that Jesus preached long ago, but perceived as though they were new to the present advocate elevated by them. That may have been the situation for Tracey Emin, related to love.
If persons took the time to examine the most accepted guidelines for life in independent thought, or stipulated law, or mother’s counsel to her children, they would find much of the Sermon on the Mount. The depth of Christian truth and the heavenly vision were revealed in the private talks Jesus had with the disciples. Whether in public or private places, Jesus was clear about the fulfillment of a life that valued the matters of truth, right, love, peace, grace, humility, service, and prayer. It is with consternation that I read of educators who deny that education is not concerned with values. No wonder so many persons, both secular and religious, turn away from public institutions neutral to values but high on achievement. From the greatest Teacher of all time, we learn of both heaven and earth. In either context the highest factors are the same – as in love, humility and peace, in personal life, learning and service.
Elizabeth Browning’s lines to her husband never leave me: How do I love thee? I love thee to the breadth and depth and height my soul can reach, and if God but choose I shall love thee better after death. We find such emphasis is in Jesus Christ to mankind, magnificent in mortality, and even better after death. My effort is to find the best I can for love, knowing it is the atmosphere of the forever, the beautiful, a reality visible in invisible God’s nature, but stronger than anything mankind may devise. Taken from the love of God we mend the wounds of mankind, families, communities and situations sometimes unspeakable. Love is a driving force in God causing him to wait for us, to nurture, to accept imperfection – something far more difficult for a perfect person than we can imagine. We learn love in joy and tears, in healing and death – in congruence with the lover of all human souls. While populations are prejudiced with the packages known as bodies in colors of skin, eyes, hair, ages and genders; while occupied with health and illness, tresses and baldness, fatness and thinness, while influenced by wealth and poverty, education and ignorance, nationality and language; and, even varieties of religions and denials, God sustains respectful understanding and loves all without any other reason than his own fatherly nature. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020