Greater Love

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

How beautiful and profound are these moving words of Paul! Why is it that there is no force that has power to separate us from the love of our Savior and, by extension, our Eternal Father in Heaven who so loved the world that He gave His Son to us?

I am not sure that I will ever fully understand the answer to this question. However, in my simple, imperfect understanding, I know that the divine love granted unto us from these members of our Heavenly family is eternal and everlasting. We can try to separate ourselves from that love through the choices that we make in our lives; but, whether our choices and acts are acceptable to our Savior and our Father or not, that love will remain. It is unconditional. It is incomprehensible to us. As earthly parents, we might have the briefest glimpse of what it means to have divine or Christlike love for our own offspring. But that purest of charities that is encompassed in the infinite love of our Heavenly Father is something that we will never fully feel ourselves in this life. And it gives me hope in the darkest and most turbulent moments of my life that I am never beyond saving. That there is always an open door and an eternal family that is waiting for me to come home.

This eternal and infinite love was made so powerfully manifest through the Atonement of our brother. Jesus knelt in Gethsemane for me. He prayed for me. He shed many drops of blood for me. And while those who knew Him not nailed him to a tree and so callously mocked Him and casually cast aside His perfect life, my brother once again suffered for me and for my frailties and weaknesses. He took upon Himself my sins and my infirmities. With those stripes, Jesus my brother made me whole.

I say that I am grateful for this outpouring of love. I bear witness that I accept my brother as my Savior and my Messiah. I do my best each day to try to repay Him for his loving gift to me. But in the end, how truly grateful am I? How pure and heartfelt is my witness? How much effort do I truly make? It surely isn't enough. As Pontius Pilate, John the Beloved, and Mother Mary intone in the stirring song from Rob Gardner's Lamb of God:

"Enough! Enough! Behold, Is this not enough? Behold, the Man, the punishment He's bourne, the cruel whip, the mocking scorn..."

"O Lord, How long 'til Thou wilt cry 'It is enough?'"

"Enough! Is this not enough? O Lord, my God, Show mercy on my Son! Has not thy will in this been done?"

In the end, it was Christ Himself who decided when it had been enough when He voluntarily bowed His head and gave up His life. No matter how much effort I make, how much service to others I undertake, how much time I spend on my knees in gratitude to my Father for His Son, or how many times I raise my voice in bearing witness of my faith in Christ, I may join those voices with my own in crying out to Heaven, "Is this not enough?"

And even as I know that the answer is most assuredly No, the answer I will receive through the comforting promptings of the Holy Spirit will most assuredly be "It doesn't matter..." For it is not by my own effort or because of my own acts that I have been invited back to our Heavenly home. Nothing I could say or do in this life would earn that Heavenly reward. It is through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that I shall be saved. And it is because of this wonderful gift of love that I choose each day those words and those acts that would express my gratitude to Him who loved me.

"Greater love hath no man than this," the love expressed to me by my brother and my friend. And in response to His invitation, "As I have loved you, love one another," I will continue to strive each day to show that love unto others, first and foremost to my Father and my Savior above. "We love Him [and therefore each other], because He first loved us."

This Easter, I ask you to join me in recognizing that love that has never and will never be eclipsed by any earthly soul and in answering the Savior's call to love one another as He loved us.

God Bless!