How Do We Respond To Easter? Series

How do we respond to Easter?

(THIS WAS A TALK FOR A FAMILY SERVICE. IT HAS SOME POWERPOINT SLIDES TO GO WITH IT. IF YOU’D LIKE THEM, PLEASE EMAIL ME AT SIMON.BARTLETT@VIRTUALITY.CO)

Two weeks ago was Easter Sunday and some of us were on holiday. But Easter Sunday wasn’t the END of Easter. It was actually the beginning! This year, Easter continues until early June. Today, we’re going to go on thinking about Easter. On Good Friday we remembered Jesus’ death on the cross for our sake. But how should we respond to that? That’s the question I’m going to look at today.

To answer that question, we’re going to look at something that someone called John wrote. John, on the left, was one of Jesus’ disciples. 1 John is a letter he wrote.

Today, Caz read part of John’s letter. What is it about?

Just look at how often the word ‘love’ comes. It comes 12 times in this short passage! And ‘beloved’ comes twice. The passage is definitely about love!

OK… but what kind of love? The kind of love you have for your boyfriend of girlfriend? The kind of love some people have for chocolate cake?! Or is John thinking of some other kind of love?

This part of the Bible was written in Greek. Greek had several different words for love. So that helps us to know what kind of love John was thinking of. All through this passage, John uses the word ‘agape’.

If we go to the experts (I went to Britannica), they tell us that in the Bible, ‘agape-love’ is the kind of love God has for us and that we should have for God.

Here’s an example, in just the first two words. John wrote in Greek, ‘Agapetoi, agapomen’. You can see the ‘agape’ in the words. The Bible translates this as ‘Beloved, let us love.’

But it’s a shame that we can’t say what kind of love John means. So perhaps we could say, ‘We-who-are loved-with-agape-love, we should love with agape love.’

So, the passage is all about love, and to be exact, ‘agape-love’, not any other kind of love. What is John asking us to do? To love GOD with agape-love? Look! That isn’t what John is asking us to do. He’s asking us to love ONE ANOTHER with agape love!

OK, we may say to ourselves. That sounds like hard work! Why should we love people around us with agape-love? Good question! You can see that John writes ‘for’. He’s going to tell us why.

Do the two women in the picture look alike? How are they similar? They’ve both got frizzy hair. Their eyes are noses are similar. They’re both wearing black blouses and silvery dangly earrings. Do you suppose they are related? How? You’re right! They are mother and daughter. The mother’s name is Gina Burkhart and her daughter’s name is Camry. They live in Connecticut in the United States. They get lots of comments along the lines of ‘I gotta tell you, you are both so cute, you look exactly alike.’ That’s what we expect, isn’t it? Children look like their parents. And Camry is very happy to look like her mum.

That’s the point John is making. ‘Love is from God.’ Remember, we’re talking about agape-love here, not romantic love or cake-love or any other kind of love. ‘Love is from God.’ That means that it isn’t from anywhere else. So, if a person loves, loves with agape-love, they are doing something that only comes from God. Their agape-love shows that THEY ARE BORN OF GOD. But if agape-love isn’t there, then it means that they don’t know God. ‘God is love’, John writes. If a person isn’t showing love, one of God’s greatest characteristics, then it means that they don’t know God.

On the cross, Jesus gave us agape-love. But here John isn’t asking us to show JESUS agape-love in return. We should, of course! Here, he’s saying that WE SHOULD SHOW EACH OTHER that agape-love.

OK, so we should show each other agape-love. But what is agape-love like? John is just about to answer that question.

He writes, ‘the love of God was made manifest’. That’s a complicated way of saying, ‘This is how we saw God’s love.’ How?

First thing: ‘God sent’. Agape-love DOES THINGS. IT TAKES ACTION. If all you do is put the kettle on, put your feet up and watch the football, then that isn’t a lot of agape-love. This verse calls us to mission! If we’re going to love like God then WE also SEND, WE GO.

Second, we see that God sent HIS ONLY SON. Along the way, God sent various prophets into the world. But he finally sent his son. He gave the greatest gift possible. We saw that agape-love is active. Now we see that agape-love is willing to do all that it’s possible to do.