The love of Jesus for us surpasses our comprehension and expression. This notwithstanding, we can appreciate the fact that His love for us is universal and unconditional.
In the first place, His love is universal, for He loves all humankind without exception. In other words, Jesus loves alike believers and non-believers, rich and poor, black and white, educated and illiterates, etc.
Secondly, His love is unconditional, because He does not express it to only those who deserve it. Indeed, none of us deserves His love by his/her own merits, “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
Here, then, is the manifestation of the greatest love: it is to us who are undeserving of His love that the Son of God willingly and humbly became human in order to offer the greatest, perfect, priceless, selfless and excruciating sacrifice. So great is this love that its power destroyed the menacing grip, chains, gates and prison of death. Thus, Jesus arose on the third day – on the first Easter morn.
Such great love must elicit in all of us unconditional love for others. Hence, Jesus gives us a new commandment to love others as He has loved us (cf. John 13:34; 15:12). This new commandment is more demanding than the commandment to love our neighbours as ourselves (cf. Matt. 22:39), for the love of Jesus becomes the standard for loving others. With the grace of God, then, let us strive to love all our neighbours unconditionally, selflessly and sacrificially.
By Very Rev. Fr. John K. Louis
