We live in a culture that pushes us toward images of sexuality when it comes to words that describe people’s love for each other. But why not challenge ourselves to break through the imagery promoted by so much on TV, in books and magazines, in the movies and on CDs, and take a look at Christ Jesus, a man who loved everyone so unconditionally, so powerfully.

Christ Jesus deeply loved men. He also deeply loved women. He was strongly drawn to children. Yet his love was far apart from any physical attraction. His pure sense of love really dealt with a different world from the world of sexuality. He saw himself and others more in the context of spirituality, more with a divine than a sexual identity or orientation.

Jesus saw individuals as God sees them. And this more inspired view lifted those individuals into healing, where a more material view would have left them with materialism’s downward pull. Jesus expected us to love people the way he loved them. He loved them into health and wholeness. He loved them into well-being, strength, and innocence. He said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34).

Have you dug into the significance of that command? Jesus’ life provides an opportunity to measure how well we are following his example. If our love for others is healing them as Jesus healed, then we are obeying his command, and we are loving in the way he taught. If our life of love isn’t healing others, there may be a need to pray about whether our sense of love is Christly enough.

The Mosaic law called for some fairly strong discipline when it came to how people loved each other. These limits were needed in Moses’ commands because love was too often confused with loose sexual activity—adultery, fornication, covetousness. And then Jesus brought a new command that raised the bar even higher when it came to love. He didn’t throw out the old order of discipline. But he expected something even purer from us with his new requirement and that included tender, pure, deep spiritual affection for all our fellow beings.

Where can more Christly ways take us?

Mary Baker Eddy offers this insight, “Christ Jesus saith, ‘A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you.’ It is obvious that he called his disciples’ special attention to his new commandment. And wherefore? Because it emphasizes the apostle’s declaration, ‘God is Love,’—it elucidates Christianity, illustrates God, and man as His likeness, and commands man to love as Jesus loved. 

“The law and the gospel concur, and both will be fulfilled” (Message to The Mother Church for 1902, pp. 7–8).

The Mosaic law of sexual morality and the Christly gospel of deeper spirituality still concur and still provide profoundly stabilizing forces in society. Recent decades have brought more open questioning of the traditional approach to love, marriage, and family. Will this revolution over the last half century add a steadying presence to society? It’s a question deserving heartfelt pondering and prayer. We should think long and hard and earnestly about the full implications of shifting the direction Jesus gave us. We need to better understand the source of pressures on how to express love in human relationships. Is the pressure from God, divine Mind, the source of pure Christly love, or from its opposite the carnal, sensual, mortal mind opposed to all that is good and innocent? Where are expanding material ways of loving leading us? Where can more Christly ways take us?

We may need to rethink what Christ Jesus was actually teaching. And consider the blessings that come from following the example he set. We can all do more to measure our love for others by our ability to bring to their lives the kind of concrete healing acts that the Master practiced.

How can we shift the emphasis from sexuality to spirituality? He left us this rule, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love” (John 15:9).