Love and Sacrifice
This is Holy Week, a time when we conclude Lent and focus on Christ's
sacrifice. Before Christ was crucified he had one final meal with his
disciples. He washed their feet and instructed them that they should
serve each other as he has served them. He left them with a strong
mandate to love each other as he has loved. And in case anyone
misunderstood what he meant by "love" he made it painfully obvious:"Greater love has no one other than this, that he lay down his life for
his friends."
With that mandate we as humans have our work cut out for us. We
are to forgive each other when we wrong each other, treat others better than we
treat ourselves, accept others without judging, not lie to each other,
encourage each other, not slander each other and live in harmony with each
other. To accomplish all this we have been given lives, personalities and
souls so that each of us in our own unique way can serve others in love.
Christ's commandment puts forth a universal truth which is beyond debate
-- if we love each other as Christ loved then our joy will be complete. A study was performed looking at the lives of Harvard Students over a period of decades which demonstrates the importance of love. Begun in 1938, the Grant Study of Adult Development
charted the physical and emotional health of over 200 Harvard students,
starting with their undergraduate days. It followed them from 1938
until the present. In 2012 Harvard Professor George Valiant
published his findings from the study in a book titled Triumphs of Experience:
The Men of the Harvard Grant Study. What it found was that over the
course of 80 years of study the key to happiness was strong loving
relationships with others. Such things as money, genetics, social status,
education and work did not matter anywhere near as much as good loving
relationships.
But as Christ shows us loving each other is frequently
easier said than done. The sacrifices we must make -- the
offenses from others that we must both endure and forgive -- while at the
same time placing others ahead of ourselves is not an easy task for anyone. But
if we are to achieve a truly sterling life, one in which we end our lives
polished with a patina of weathered happiness there is one ingredient
that must be present -- love.
I hope you enjoy your Easter and find the joy of
Christ.
