by Kimberly Due-Vacco

Created on: September 08, 2009

Radical love from the Christian viewpoint

In my view, as a Christian, there is no love more radical than the love of Jesus. Jesus showed many forms of love during his time here on earth - chief among them were sacrificial love, agape (unconditional) love, brotherly love, and yes sometimes-tough love. By most standards, Jesus would definitely qualify as a radical. He defied the religious leaders of his time. He was unconventional in his approach to people. He almost went out of his way to do things in a radically different way than people were used to. I guess he did what he had to do to capture the attention of the people he was trying to reach, and capture it he did. Jesus' love is probably the most outstanding thing about him.

One thing that is central to the Christian faith is very simply to be like Jesus - to love others like Jesus did. He loved in a tangible way when he was here and he still loves today in a more esoteric way. Being like Jesus. Such a simple command, yet it is so hard to do. Jesus' love seems too radical, too 'out there' to be understood much less imitated. How do we even begin to love like Jesus? I believe the first step toward reaching a goal lies in defining the goal itself. In this case, what does it mean to love as Jesus?

When we read the Gospels, in the bible - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we see a man, though not quite a man at all, but God himself. How can we ever hope to achieve the kind of perfection that Jesus personified? Should that even be our goal? Is that goal too farfetched and radical? There are so many questions that it is hard to know where to start, but in order to be like Jesus in this world, we have to not only start, but also put into practice what we see in the life of Jesus as it is presented to us in the bible. One story that demonstrates a great deal about the way that Jesus loved others is found in John chapter 11 in the story of Lazarus.

Let me take a few moments to set up this story for those of you who have never heard it before. Jesus was traveling about the countryside, teaching, at this time, when word reached him that his friend, Lazarus was very sick. The family of Lazarus wanted Jesus to come and be with them and perhaps heal Lazarus of his illness because they knew of the miracles that Jesus had been performing. Jesus agreed to go to visit Lazarus, but he delayed his departure for two more days. When he arrived at Lazarus' hometown, he found out that Lazarus was already dead. After talking to the

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