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The Concretness of Love: Jesus Loves Our Bodies and Our Souls

Christ cares about the person as a whole. Although his focus is on people's souls he by no means seeks to ignore their bodily concerns. He cares very deeply for their bodily needs. He tells his disciples: "My heart is moved with pity for the crowd because they have been with me now for three days and have had nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry they will collapse along the way and some of them have come a great distance" (Mk 8:2-3). He then proceeds to feed the crowd (for the 2nd time). Jesus cares about their well-being in the fullest sense possible.

To be a follower of Christ means to love and care for people like he did. He didn't just care for their souls, but for their bodies as well. Many Christians when they "preach" forget about that. That they, more often then not, need to find a way to deal with the practical aspects of the lives of others. Love that does not seek to impress itself upon others in a way which those people can tangibly feel is not genuine. If you simply tell the hungry man that he should follow Christ, but refuse to help feed them then you are a hypocrite. You are not a true follower of Christ. Most of the time, whether you're talking to a hungry man, a mother who just lost her child, or a student who is stressing over grades, simply saying telling that person that God loves him or that he should believe in Jesus isn't enough. You need to find a tangible way to love that person and to touch that person's life just like Jesus did. Or at least try to. Jesus didn't simply preach to people and then walk away. He showed his love for them by tending to their body AND soul and we should do the same.