Why Jesus Loves You

In case you have not heard this Good News, Jesus loves you. We all are sinners and we all fall short of the Goodness of the transcendent God in the Holy Spirit. In fact Jesus loves you so very much that even as a sinner, even before you or I repented, Jesus was willing to die on a cross. Most people would be willing to die for a family member, some may be willing to die for a friend. Few would die for a cause. There is just one that I know who died for the sake of all - including the enemy.

What this means is that you and I do not have to be perfect or pure in order for Jesus to love us. Jesus loves us first and then, in response to this radical acceptance of God’s love, we cannot help but change how we live and move in the world. And therein lies the overlooked reason why Jesus loves you.

Before we get to that reason, let us reflect on disciple Judas.

Judas was the misguided or even malicious disciple of Jesus who was so ashamed or distraught in his actions that he committed suicide. This disciple could not see any way out, he was so lost that he thought he had to be perfect or clean before Jesus would love him. Judas missed the point entirely and as a result is now the name we call people who are among the worst of the worst. So much so that in Dante’s telling of Hell, the fourth round in the lowest circle of Hell is called Judecca - and it is reserved for the traitors to lords/benefactors/masters.

It takes a lot of courage to love the traitor. It takes a lot of grace to see the on who betrays you is also a child of God. It takes a lot of mercy to overcome the hate harbored toward the one who betrays our trust. One might even say it takes divine love.

You and I are able to love family, friends, and even neighbors just fine without the help of Jesus. Jesus loves you so that you have the courage, grace and mercy to love the one who betrays you.

Jesus loves you so that you can love Judas.

And if that is not a humbling thought, don’t forget that someone probably thinks you are Judas.

Hating the New Thing in a Different Way

Loving people as they are seems like a rather straightforward idea. However, for the most part, it seems that we love people as they are but we also expect they will change. Specifically they will change that thing that we do not love. We might love our children, but expect they will grow out of some unfavorable behavior (like throwing tantrums). We might love our parents, but expect they will grow out of treating us like we are perpetually ten years old. We might love our partner, but expect that over the years they will change and put the dang seat down!

We might even love God, but expect God to change in how God interacts with the world (like eliminate sin).

The thing about loving people as they are but expecting them to change is that we will never love them.

If the person you love changes in the way that you would hope they would change, then you will find some other feature about that person that you wish they would change. It is an endless cycle. We will not be able to love them because we will end up hating the new thing they become in a different way.

You child grows out of throwing tantrums, but now they repress their emotions and you wish they would change that. Your parents treat you as an adult, but now they are pressing you to have children of your own, and you hate that. Your partner finally puts the seat down, but now you are annoyed that they let dishes “soak” for three days!

Even when God eliminates sin, God now welcomes the former sinner into the kingdom and you wish that God would see that “those people” are freeloading on forgiveness.

We are faced with the paradox to love people as they are and not expect them to change, or never loving them at all.

The Christian Telos

There is a quote making its rounds on my socials that states, “The test of Christianity is not loving Jesus, it’s loving Judas.”

It is a clever turn and change of expectations. It is the sort of thing that preachers love to do if we are creative enough to come up with it.

The quote points out the telos of the Christian life. Telos is a fancy word that means the target or the end or the goal. For my doctoral work, I have had a decent number of conversations with people about what they would say the telos of the Christian faith is. One might imagine that there are numerous ideas. Some say the goal of the faith is to get to heaven. Some say it is to repair or restore the world. Some say it is to have a relationship with God. Some say it is to conformed in the likeness of Christ others say it is to glorify God.

The United Methodist Church suggests a telos “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” The denomination recently splintered from the UMC (the Global Methodist Church) suggests a telos “to make disciples of Jesus Christ who worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly.”

According to theologian and scholar Roberta Bondi, the desert mothers and fathers taught the telos of the Christian life is love. The goal of the faith is love. More often we think that we do some loving action in the service of something else. That love is a means or a way to another goal. I love my child, so that they might… Or I extend love to someone else so they will… In this way, love is not the telos just the means or way we reach another telos.

When we treat love as a means to an end, then we run the risk of not loving in order to achieve the desired end. We might do unloving actions in order to achieve the telos of say, truth. But if love is the goal, then truth will bent for the sake of love. Not love for the sake of truth.

For instance, the famous scene in Les Misérables where a thief steals silverware from a bishop but then is caught. The authorities bring the thief back to the bishop so there may be a set of charges brought against the thief, but the bishop says the silverware was a gift from the priest. In fact the bishop then tells the authorities that the thief forgot the candlesticks.

In this famous illustration of grace, the truth was bent in the service of love. The bishop understands the telos is love, not truth. If the telos was truth then the bishop would have laid the charges against the thief, but this does not happen. The telos is not truth but love.

The quote from above points out the telos of love. The test of the Christian is our ability to love - especially the thief, betrayer, and enemy. If the goal was something else then we would only need to love Judas for the sake of something else greater.

But, as Paul says, the greatest of these things is love.

There is no greater telos.

Chances Are Your Using Tough Love Wrong

Visual depiction of how we think of tough love.

I live in Texas and in Texas we have a culture of being tough. We pride ourselves on being full of grit, dirt and a pick up truck. And so in Texas we use a phrase that maybe you have heard or use yourself - tough love.

You may be thinking, “Jason, I thought that I read somewhere that love was patient and kind. It is something that is not envious or boastful. I though love was not proud, dishonoring, self-seeking or eastly angered. I thought love keeps no record of wrongs or delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. I thought love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres and never fails. How can love be tough?”

Well my friend, you must not have grown up in Texas. We like our love like we like our jerky - tough and salty.

Most often, the phrase “tough love” is used in one of two situations. First, and maybe most commonly, is in regards to parenting. Parents who are strict disciplinarians talk about extending tough love to their child. So punishments like spanking, grounding, removing privileges' and/or adding labor or chores might be considered tough love. There is a too many parenting articles on this sort of parenting style that I do not need to toss my two cents in on this.

The second way tough love is used is when you have to tell someone that may be difficult to say, but it will be tough for the other to hear. The idea behind this is that there is some sort of “truth” the one extending “tough love” is bringing to the attention to the receiver of the tough love. There may be tears or anger, but that is what makes it tough to hear. Tough love.

As a Texan, I am a big fan of tough love. In fact, I think that Jesus was an honorary Texan because I think he too placed a premium on tough love. But I believe that even my fellow Texans are using tough love wrong.

The way that tough love is practiced is that it is the “other” who will have a tough time. The toughness is externalized to the one extending love. And this is where tough love is misunderstood.

When we are in conflict with someone who we really think is going the wrong way. When someone betrays us, spits in our face, runs away, wishes us dead, or is heading the wrong way - Christ says we are still to love them.

And loving “them” is really, really tough.

Because they are jerks and sinners. They are stubborn and unrepentive. They are defiant and self-centered. They don’t care about how their actions impact others and they are so narcissistic they really believe the world is all about them. It is tough to love “those” people.

And this is why I think that God in Christ practices tough love. Even as Christ hung on the cross, he extended compassion and forgiveness.

That is tough like a Texan.

That is tough love.