How Deep Is Your Love?

During the disco craze the Bee Gees recorded a song entitled, "How Deep Is Your Love".   The song was one of several by the Gibbs brothers on the soundtrack to the movie, Saturday Night Fever.  I'm not sure if the brother's Gibbs made the movie, or if the movie made their songs, but a hit was born along with the disco genre.  

How deep is your love?  This is a great question for those of us who follow Jesus Christ.  Jesus noted the yardstick to measure our love is our love for God and our love for others.  Keith Mannes shares his take on a compelling story of love reported by Audie Cornish on NPR's All things Considered: 

"A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22: 39-40
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was the older of the two brothers who set the bombs in Boston, the one who died in the process of the chase. Since the tragedy, no cemetery has been willing to allow Tamerlan's body to buried, due to widespread protest. No-one wanted his body buried in their town.

Martha Mullen, a Christian, felt a conviction to respond. As reported on National Public Radio, Martha began researching and contacting Islamic funeral services, eventually locating a Muslim cemetery in Doswell, Virginia that would accept Tamerlein's body.

NPR reporter Audie Cornish asked Martha, a total stranger to the Tsarnaev family, why she chose to get involved at all, especially given the risk that she might, herself, be targeted by angry protestors.

Martha answered,

… it made me think of Jesus' words, "Love your enemies." I felt that … [Tamerlan] was being maligned probably because he was Muslim, and Jesus tells us to, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, "Love your neighbor as yourself," and your neighbor is not just someone who you get along with but someone who is alien to you … if I'm going to live my faith then I'm going to do that which is uncomfortable and not necessarily what's comfortable …. I feel like it was the right thing and it's important to be true to the principles of your faith.

Wow!  How deep is our love?  Deep enough to secure a burial site for a terrorist and national enemy?  I believe this is the drastic degree to which Jesus interpreted God's command that we love ALL people.  There's no risk loving people that love us, or the lovable.  The ultimate test of unconditional love is how we love unlovable people.  Martha's actions were radical.  Yet, she is not endorsing terrorism and murder.  She simply responded to hatred in love and so must we if the world is ever gonna see how deep is our love!