Two days from now is Valentine’s Day, that very special celebration of lovers. And who is the greatest and most authentic Lover of them all but Jesus Christ himself? The human Jesus was the Lover par excellence, the role-model of what a human lover is called by God to be. A revolutionary lover indeed.
As a Lover, Jesus turned the world of his time upside down. Or more accurately, he spent his whole lifetime turning the world right side up. All this and more is so well described by the well-known spiritual writer, Albert Nolan, in his book, Jesus Today.
The social revolution of love that Jesus was pushing for was most strongly resisted, all the way to our own times. The human race will live and love according to God’s plan if the wealthy would lower their standard of living and share more and more of their riches with the poor. This is social love and social justice, so that no family will have too much, and no family will have too little. A more equitable distribution of God’s resources through a more socialist socio-economic system, especially in business and industry. But the ego-centered resistance to this was so strong during Jesus’ time, all the way to today, in our own country, the Philippines. A small minority of our countrymen have a monopoly over our country’s riches, and very little of this trickle down to the vast majority of our fellow-Filipinos who are very poor. “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mt. 19: 24). But it is realistically possible if we all learn how to love as Jesus the Lover did.
Another revolutionary teaching of Jesus which he lived in his own life was unconditional forgiveness. How he related to Samaritans, tax collectors, and sinners was unheard-off. He shared meals with them and related to them with mercy and compassion. His parable of the Good Samaritan is most precious indeed (Lk. 10: 29-37). And so was the story of the Prodigal Son (Lk. 15: 11-32). Everyone was dumbfounded when Jesus invited himself to rest in the house of that notorious tax-collector, Zaccheus (Lk. 19: 10). But Jesus loved anyone and everyone, especially those who needed him most.
Related to all this is even more revolutionary. “But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you….For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them….Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Lk. 6: 27-36).
Moving on to another aspect of Christ as Lover was his respect and compassionate regard for women which was a major breakthrough during those times when women were regarded as inferior by men and disrespected by them. It was Mary Magdalene, unafraid, who was given the grace by God to stay at the foot of the cross with Jesus’ mother when almost all of his male disciples had ran away. It was she who discovered the empty tomb and likewise the first to see the Risen Christ, and proclaimed this to the apostles of Jesus. She has thus been proclaimed as the apostle to the Apostles.
What about you and I? Are we able to follow the ways of loving that the human Jesus did, if we are to be his real disciples? How was he able to be such a great, bold, unconditional Lover? The answer is simple but not easy at all: He was a contemplative-in-action. In other words, he went into frequent periods of silence and solitude in a remote place, as the New Testament tells us. He was one with God, his abba Father during those periods of prayer, and he experienced this inner presence of God as he proceeded to his ministry of teaching, healing, and loving anyone and everyone. He even fasted forty days and forty nights before he began his Galilean ministry. (Mt. 4: 1-11).
All this, too, is what we can experience if we choose to become attached to Christ as our lover, mentor, and constant companion. Like Christ, we will not be preoccupied in being saved (personal salvation), but rather in being personally spent for others. The meaning of being a Christlike lover. And what will continually motivate me to be spent for others is the personal experience of being unconditionally loved by God.
On a personal note, I want to share that this heartfelt, profound love of God for me is what has been motivating me to love Him in return and all others throughout these past many years. But human and imperfect as I am, I sometimes fail, even to the point of sin. But the ever-loving and ever-forgiving God has never given up on me, just as he has never given up on each one of you. All of us.
In today’s Gospel reading, Christ the Lover reached out to heal the leper of his illness. We, too, are suffering from various forms of “inner leprosy,” our human imperfections and sinfulness. Let us lovingly surrender ourselves totally to him, so that in his own way, in his own time, he may heal each one of us and be lovers like him.
Indeed, Jesus is our Valentine!