Insanely Generous Love

When Jesus of Nazareth announced that the kingdom of God that he was ushering in was like a feast or like a banquet, people should have known that this was not your run-of-the-mill apocalyptic prophet. The declaration should have given his listeners a clue that there was something unusually upbeat about this man’s message. Sure, Jesus would talk of judgment and the consequences of sin and self-centeredness, because that was a part of reality; but his overriding message was that God is good and that he is out to do good in abundant ways to all people. 

Scholars and commentators have chosen a number of different phrases to sum up what Jesus preached. Andrew Greely talks about “the insanely generous love of God,” arguing that the novel element in Jesus’ good news is that God’s love is so powerful that it pushes him to the point of insanity

Every standard Jesus sets for us, every challenge he gives us, every seemingly impossible moral imperative he announces must be seen in the context of this insanely generous love, this abundance of support, this extravagant generosity. Take away this gift, this offer, this lavishing of grace, and the call to follow Jesus would just be too hard, the Sermon on the Mount would be a burden, and the idea of seeking first the will of God would wear us down. However, words like “joy”, “glad” and “gladness” show up often in the Gospels. These documents describe some tough things that we will face, but they are not gloomy works.

Those who follow Jesus are called to help others find the kingdom, but it is important for us to realize that we are not called just to guide others through a series of Bible studies. We are called first and foremost to announce a banquet and invite people to a feast. We are called to do as Jesus did and declare the amazing generosity of God, the abundance of grace and a love that almost borders on the insane. Whenever people spend time with disciples of Jesus, they should notice this coming from our hearts, even in the hard times.