Welcome to Good Friday! The beginning of this beautiful weekend that’s called Easter. I love Easter. I think it’s because of how much love is in this story. Easter in and of itself is a love story of sorts. Now it’s not the same as the Nicholas Sparks love stories, but in its own way, it’s still like a love story. It’s a story depicting the amazing love between God and humans.
There’s a word for this kind of love: Agape. Love that doesn’t look out for ourselves, but unconditionally serves the people around us. It’s the type of love between God and us. It’s the love that caused Jesus to go to the cross. It’s the love that caused Jesus to take on all of our sins.
Jesus was filled with love throughout His entire life, up until the day He died (and of course after, but that’s a story for Sunday!). Even on the cross, we can see his love as He says, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). These soldiers had just nailed Him to a cross, and now were gambling for his clothing, yet Jesus still asked for forgiveness on their behalf. I imagine if it were any of us up there, we’d be complaining and fighting. We wouldn’t be thinking about forgiving the people who were doing this to us. Yet here Jesus is, asking his Father to forgive those who hurt Him. From Jesus’ ability to forgive those who persecuted Him, we should learn to forgive those have who hurt us.
We can see Jesus’ love pouring out again when He tells the criminal beside Him that he will be in paradise with Him. While one of the criminals mocked Jesus, not believing that He is the Messiah, the other believes in Jesus. He asks Jesus to remember him when He goes into His kingdom (Luke 23:42). Upon seeing this criminal’s belief, Jesus says that he will be joining Jesus in paradise. Jesus, even when He was suffering through unbearable pain, was still saving the people around Him. People may have believed that the criminal was too far gone to be saved, I mean he was probably only a few hours away from dying, but that’s not what Jesus saw. Jesus saw a repentful man who believed in the truth of the Messiah. He saw someone who deserved to be saved. That’s the type of love that we get. From Jesus’ ability to put aside His pain to welcome someone else, we should learn to put aside our issues to welcome others to the church.
The idea that Jesus loved so sacrificially makes me wonder what my life would look like if I allowed even just some of that love to pour out of me? How would your life change? I’m sure we’d all be more patient, more forgiving, kinder, more open to others. I think that we need to start trying to love like Jesus. We need to open our hearts to welcome everyone around us into the beautiful love that we get from Jesus. So let’s start, today. It doesn’t matter how small, your words and actions can make a difference - so let them.
This Easter season, let’s stop getting caught up in ourselves and start looking around us. Who can you invite to an Easter service, who can you share the story of Jesus with, who can you love sacrificially? Find a person and show up for them, love them well. Sometimes, the best way to show Jesus’ love to another person is to simply show up for them. Be kind, be patient, and most importantly, be welcoming!
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