In her inaugural address in the spring of 2021, Kim Janey, then acting mayor of Boston, recounted the harshness she endured in middle school during the early years of busing to institute racial equality in the Boston public schools. As I listened, I thought about the fact that it is Love, God, that casts out fear and heals harshness.

Christ Jesus understood God to be Love. And he asserted his right to be identified as the loved Son of God. By claiming his unity with Love, he was able to prove his dominion over ills of the flesh as well as the cruel words and acts of his detractors. Even when some of them picked up stones to throw at him, Jesus walked right through the crowd unharmed. He understood that material circumstances cannot change the spiritual reality—that God, infinite Spirit, created man (each one of us) in His image and likeness, eternally “very good” (Genesis 1:31), and that we are each governed by the law of Love, changeless Spirit, alone. 

Jesus knew there was no power, presence, or law apart from God, so in spite of severe resistance, he continued his God-given mission.