Christ and Love
It came to me the other day as I was listening to some old music we grew up with (Glad Acapella stuff) that Christ, if you strip away the divinity and consider Him nothing more than a prophet like Muhammed, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucious, etc., has some very unique properties. These properties can’t be found anywhere else, and hint towards the divine nature of Christ and His message.
First of all, Christ was the only prophet in the history of this world who preached a message of Love. Now, you might say that Hindus were preaching love long before Christ was born, but you would be misunderstanding. The Kama Sutra and its attendant followers do not preach love, but lust. One has only to look at Indian culture to recognize the lack of the Love Christ preached, in the way they treat their women and children as second-class citizens, among other blatantly obvious indicators. “The Hippies preached love!” some might shout. That’s true, but the love they spoke of was a drug-induced wishy-washy feel-good love that did not endure. This is evident in the grown-up hippies’ lives around us as they are the origins of some of the most vicious political infighting since the revolution, demonizing their political enemies to the point of outright slander and libel.
No, the only place in the annals of human history where Love can be found is in Christ. This is not a lustful love or a wishy-washy feel-good love, but a Love that gives utterly of itself, up to and including the sacrifice of His life. I would grant that there have been isolated individuals throughout history who have glimpsed this perfect Love and attempted to tell of it through their flawed understandings, and such individuals have created the world religions we see in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and the like, because people recognized the truth these prophets had glimpsed. Islam is in its own category, because there is nothing of love in its holy book, which I have read.
One can also look at the adherents to these world religions and see the character of the teachings behind them. Yes, all religions have their groups that have wandered off the reservation, but it seems to me that Christianity has a monopoly on people who are truly, honestly and openly caring of each other. Again, there are small pockets of exceptions worldwide, but they are far fewer and further between than you will find of worshipers of Christ.
Christ’s other unique attribute stems from the perfect Love He brought to Earth, and that is, as Dad put it, Grace.
Of all the religions in the world, faith in Christ is the only one where salvation is not purchased by deeds or by rationalizing and ignoring the vicious, selfish nature of humanity that leads to Sin. Christ purchased salvation from Sin by his life, and all one needs to do is accept that gift. That’s it! There are no rituals to observe, no penance required, nor philosophy to which one must adhere but the teachings of Christ. The uniqueness of this route to salvation among world religions gives hint to its truth.
The Love of Christ is also (and should be) apparent in the behavior and attitude of any true believer. We are far too shallow a vessel to grasp even a tiny chip of that perfect Love and not spill it out into our own lives. It manifests when we show patience in the face of ignorance and hate, in the love we show our families, and in the way we treat our fellow man when we have every worldly excuse to be ugly and hateful.
The Truth of the Love of Christ can be found at the cross. I capitalize Truth and Love because these are not the partial glimpses of those concepts that came before Christ’s birth, but their ultimate expression. Lao Tzu, Buddha and the like may have glimpsed the perfect Truth at one point or another, but it came to Earth, lived, died and rose again in Christ. God is Love, and Christ was God’s incarnation here on Earth. Christ brought Love to humanity, and it, I think, deserves remembering.