(Audio)
If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.
We are supposed to love father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even our own life. But we are not supposed to love them apart from our love for Jesus. Only in Jesus, by the power of his Spirit can we love in a way that fulfills the law.
Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another;
for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
No one before Jesus fulfilled the law absolutely. And after him no one can fulfill the law without the love that is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. We build towers we can't finish and fight battles we don't have enough troops to win. The love we give apart from Jesus cannot be complete. There is no way that such love can respect the end for which other people are designed, which is to spend eternity in the embrace of Jesus himself. We tend to love people unto temporary pleasures. Jesus would have us love others unto eternity in heaven.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.
Only in the cross is the law truly fulfilled. Only there is true love to be found. But without Jesus we cannot embrace the cross. Without Jesus there is no victory in the cross, only defeat.
But if not, while he is still far away,
he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.
Jesus wants to show us how to renounce our own resources for loving and to rely instead on the love that he gives us. We don't have to do it all at once and forever. Let us look for little ways where we can show the love of Jesus to others. From there that love can grow.
He dawns through the darkness, a light for the upright;
he is gracious and merciful and just.
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