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To
start with this morning, let me tell you that I love to preach on the
subject of love. You can always count on me to preach on love when
Valentine’s Day rolls around. I am a sucker for what most men would
consider “chick flicks,” romantic comedies like Sleepless in Seattle.
I am always hopeful that love is going to triumph in the end, and I
believe that God feels the same way about the world—that love, his love,
is going to triumph in the end. In fact, the Bible is one great big love
story about God’s love for his people. Over and over the Bible tells the
same story: 1—God loves us; 2—God’s people keep screwing up; 3—God
love his people anyway; 4—God is always hopeful that his people will
learn to love in return.
Our
three readings this morning all say much the same thing, that we are to
love as we have been loved. God’s love for us is perfect, and perfectly
expressed in Jesus Christ, who gave us many parables, but only one
commandment: “Love one another.” Of course, it’s no secret that when
most of us think about love, we’re thinking about romance. Everybody
loves Valentine’s Day; it’s a lot of fun for those who are already in
a relationship. It’s not so happy a day for those who have no
sweetheart, but when Christ talks about love he has something very
different in mind.
Love
in the context that Christ used it here is a form of the Greek word
“agape,” which is an expression of God’s unconditional love for
mankind.
W.E.
Vine, a great scholar of New Testament Greek, said that agape expresses
“the deep and constant love of a perfect being towards entirely unworthy
objects, fostering a reverential love in them toward the giver, a
practical love toward others and a desire to help others seek the
giver.” Agape love is not casual or flippant. We throw the word love
around so carelessly, like we might say “I love pizza” or “I love
the Steelers”—talk about your love/hate relationship—but agape love
is not casual at all. It is love that is so complete that I would die for
my friend, as my savior has died for me.
There
is an Arabian saying that characterizes a friend as “one to whom one may
pour out all the contents of the heart, grain and chaff together, knowing
that the gentlest of hands will take it and sift it, keep what is worth
keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.” I have
always been moved by the image of Christ in John’s Gospel, calling his
disciples friends, immediately after describing the greatest love of all
as a person willing to lay down his life for his friend. That’s true
friendship—someone who pours himself out for the sake of someone else.
That’s
what God wanted to show us about love. We humans can be terribly slow on
the uptake sometimes, and we need to be taught how to love others.
That’s why God sent Jesus to the world, to be a tangible example of what
love looks like, to show us that we can love others even when that love is
returned with scorn, with derision, with abuse, even with death. In the
life of Jesus we see that love is a binding relationship. Real love is
sacrifice; the one who loves is willing to enter into the other person’s
situation and walk around in their shoes for a while.
Unfortunately
you and I know so many people who do not love. The emotions they hurl at
the world are anger, bitterness, contempt and a desire to tear down that
which is beautiful and selfless in the world. I am convinced, both through
observation and personal experience, that at least one of the roots of
this problem is a feeling that you are unlovable, cut off from both
God’s love and that of other people. I say personal experience, because
I carried that attitude like a ball and chain throughout much of my youth.
It certainly was at the heart of my self-destructive behavior, and it was
only once God was able to break through and show me how much I was truly
loved that my life started to turn around.
I
don’t know whether any of you have ever felt this way or are in fact
feeling unlovable this morning, but I can tell you A, it’s not true, and
B, only when we understand how much God in Christ loves us all
individually will we begin to love others as we are commanded to love.
You
know how much I love the movies and I have favorites in many different
categories of movies. Under the category of Disney animated movies my
favorite is “Beauty and the Beast.” How many of you have seen that
movie? It’s really a beautiful little film, so good it was nominated for
Best Picture. But it is first and foremost a love story, in which the
unlikely hero, who was convinced he was ugly and unlovable, discovers the
truth, that we, all of us, are never loved for who we are on the surface,
W e are never loved for our physical attractions, but for who we are
within.
The
Beast is actually a young prince who has been turned into a monster
because he refused to help an old beggar woman who was a fairy in
disguise. She curses not only the prince but also all his servants, which
seems a little harsh, but necessary for a good story. And the catch is
that unless the prince finds someone to love him within a certain number
of years, the curse will be forever. Now to speed the story along, into
his life comes a young woman, the Beauty of the title. At first she hates
the beast, not because of his ugliness but because of his terrible temper
and rotten attitude.
Gradually,
though, the beast learns to soften his approach, and the two of them begin
to warm to each other. He becomes considerate, thoughtful, caring,
generous, and even a great dancer, and that wonderful title song from the
movie tells us, “It is sweet and strange, finding you can change,
learning you were wrong.” But like any good movie, this story must have
a crisis and the beast must act to save beauty, even to the point of
laying down his life for her. It is only at the point of his death that
beauty cries out, “I love you,” and magically the curse is lifted. He
is once more a prince, all his servants are also restored, and they do
indeed live happily ever after. He discovered that he was indeed lovable
within.
My
friends, life is not a fairy tale. Love is real. It is our gift from God,
it is the central force that drives all of creation, It is how we know
when we get out of bed each morning that our lives can be better than they
were the previous day, simply by how much we are willing to love others.
However,
we live in a world that is increasingly hostile to the Christian faith, a
world that is more and more self-centered and selfish every day. It’s a
world that has lost the meaning of the word “sacrifice.” This is the
world in which we are called to share Christ’s love, but if we’re
honest we’ll admit that we are part of that world. We haven’t always
found it easy to love each other, yet love for one another is our primary
witness to this world. Jesus made that clear when we said, “All the
world will understand that you are my disciples, by the way you love one
another.” To carry that out, first we must understand that Christ is
absolutely nuts in love with us.
This
morning as we receive communion together I want you to listen to the words
of institution, the words that express our faith that Christ is truly the
host of this meal. Listen as I say “On the night before he died, our
Lord took bread and he looked up to heaven, to his father, and said
‘thank you.’ He was thanking his father for the privilege of his
mission—of coming to the world and becoming human so that he could die
for all of us. Because that’s how much he loved the world, and still
loves the world. Love enough to consider it a privilege to die for his
friends.
Think
about how much Christ loves you and cares for you this very hour, and you
will be able to hear him say, “I stand at the door of your heart and
knock. If you hear my voice, open the door and invite me in. I’ll come
in and begin a great relationship with you. I have known you since before
you were born and I know who you are and what you have done. It makes no
difference. I love you anyway. I want a relationship with you that will
revolutionize your life and give you happiness beyond belief. Please, let
me into your life.”
Christ
comes to us and takes each of our lives in his hands, the good and the
bad, and keeps what is best and blows away the rest. That’s how much he
loves us. Once you know that and really take it into your heart, you
won’t have to ask “Why does Christ love me?” or “How is this
possible?” The only question that will remain is “what can I do to
show Christ’s love to others?”
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