Love Him More – He Died and Rose for You
Indeed, I am delighted to wish you all a Happy Easter. Easter certainly brings fun, happiness,
God’s endless blessings, love, the freshness of spring, and, most of all, hope. He died and rose for all of us;
this drives our desire to love him more. And, this creates an issue - How can we love Jesus more?
To love Jesus more, one must understand the origin of that love.
God’s great love, which we are called to imitate and return to him can best be understood in Jesus’ own word and actions.
Remember the story about the Pharisee who asked Jesus to come to dinner in St. Luke: chapter 7?
He didn’t wash Jesus’s feet. He didn’t kiss Jesus. He didn’t do anything to show any affection for Jesus.
Suddenly there’s this “woman of the street,” a prostitute, leaning over Jesus’s bare feet weeping.
The tears are falling on his dirty feet, and she is taking her hair and washing Jesus’s feet.
Faced with this incredibly provocative scene, the Pharisee was embarrassed and out of his element.
Then, challenging Jesus, the rich man addressed the issue and challenged Him: If you are a prophet,
you would know what kind of woman this is, for she’s a sinner (St. Lk 7:39)
As Jesus does so often in these confrontations, he turns the situation against the Pharisee.
He questioned them: “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.
When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him,
“You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward, the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house;
you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.
You gave me no kiss, but she has not stopped kissing my feet from the time I came in. You did not anoint my head with oil,
but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you her sins, which are many, have been forgiven;
hence she has shown great love (St. Lk 7:41 – 47). Where did that love come from? It came, at a risk for all of us who,
like her, a sinner, from opening ourselves to God’s overwhelming love and mercy. This love was so great that
Jesus suffered and died for us, though we had no merit at all in ourselves.
Easter brings us full circle to the mystery of God’s love that began with Mary’s “Yes”.
We can only Love Him more and more once we accept the wonder and depth of that love. St. Paul states it beautifully:
“Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,
he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8).
For God to die on the cross (only criminals and slaves were crucified), He loved us first and considered us precious.
Jesus said, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13).
Jesus lived these words and accomplished them. Therefore, to return that love, we, too, must be willing to
lay down our lives for His love, to sacrifice our earthly desires to do His will, and to express
that kind of love with which he loved us first.
