Jesus — A Rebel who broke boundaries
Jesus is an inspiring character in the world history, even for non-Christians. Some of the so-called non-spiritual titles (I don’t mention titles like Lord, son of God here) could be rebel, prophet, shepherd etc.
In human culture, a good is always returned with good. Evil is returned with evil. I think this fits the order. Occasionally evil may not be returned. But, this man called Jesus came and said, “Love Your Neighbor…(nothing so great)… Love Your enemies…. Pray for those who persecute You…. Forgive them….” Definitely Jesus’ commandment was against most of the natural order or even the so-called natural laws.
In the story of a women caught in the act of adultery, woman was supposed to be stoned to death. [Today we could think what about man etc]. This was the Jewish law (or at least this was the way it was interpreted to the people]. But here again Jesus acts very differently; he is helping her to escaping the act of stoning.
And a third incident is seen during last supper. The master bends and washes the feet of disciples. Again it is against the normal order (rule) that we should respect and serve elders, teachers and masters; not the other-way around.
Jesus definitely obeyed many of the laws of the society and state. But beyond that, he rebelled against many of the laws. He practiced a life much in contrary to the established order or status-quo. Probably, we could say that love/charity was his guiding principle.
Love of God and neighbour was already there in the Old testament. But he expanded the definitions/boundaries of love. I think in other sense, he demolished the boundaries of love.
The boundaries are thrown away from the definition of love
Holy men and women (of different traditions) have tried to live this beautiful boundary-less nature of love. But this is a radical teaching, which can’t be captured in any of our laws/rules. I don’t think many will disagree with me till here.
Jesus didn’t help us in the understanding of the meaning of love except through his life and his actions/words before the death. In scientific terms, his rules (2 commandments) were the worst ones. Both of them included the word love…. love of God and love of neighbour… and love doesn’t have definition.. These commandments are so open-ended.
Now here starts the problem…if love can’t be captured in laws and rules, what about our rules/laws/philosophies/theologies. Yes, none can be absolute and they need to keep opening themselves; they need to be redefined; they need to be modified.
Science (and people) thought world had a few planets and few stars. Today we are thinking of billions of stars, planets; more importantly we are thinking of an expanding (and accelerating expansion)universe. The Church and Christians could visualize love in similar fashion…
The implications are dangerous…. constant change & growth…. Not a very comfortable situation…Not eternal rules….Not eternal order…
