Love Yourself

​Did Jesus know?

Jesus said, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment of them all. The second most important commandment is like this: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself."

When Jesus said that, did he have any idea we'd struggle most with the command to love ourselves?

Did he know, that as we struggled to offer ourselves grace in the face of our own shame, we'd struggle to offer our neighbors grace in the face of theirs?

Did he know, as we spent a life hiding from ourselves and hiding from our neighbors we'd ultimately come to believe God was hiding from us?

I think he did know.

Jesus didn't go to the cross to express his love for who we might one day become, he went there to express his love for who we are. Jesus didn't go to the cross to send us into hiding from what we've done, he went there to say you have nothing left to hide.

Jesus didn't say the first commandment was to love ourselves, but he sure seemed to know that was a critical piece to loving our neighbors and loving our God.

I don't think Jesus died to prove that God was worth loving. Or that our neighbors are worth loving. He died to prove that WE are worth loving. I think he knew if we couldn't believe that part of the commandment, we'd never be very good at the other two parts.

Some days, I think Jesus wonders what else he has to do to help us understand - that no matter what we are burying - he has no interest in burying us for it.

He died and then rose from his own burial to help us see we are worth it. I think he was hoping that would be the last time he'd have to ask us to rise from our own graves - from our own secrets - from our own torment.

There are days, though, I hear him still asking.

Asking us to come clean about who we are. Not to crucify us because of our condition, but to fiercely love us in that condition.

Loving our neighbor as ourself doesn't work so well when we aren't very loving of ourselves. And when we aren't very loving of our neighbors, God begins to feel like the most distant neighbor of all.

You may be flawed but you are beautiful.

You may be broken but you are healing.

You may feel unlovable but you are not.

And that is a really important truth for all of us to know.