There’s a lot of talk in our world today about the topics of love. You’ll even hear those words used quite a bit by a lot of preachers in a lot of different churches. In fact, Jesus Himself in today’s Gospel reading gives us a commandment to “love one another as I have loved you.” On the surface, it seems simple. Yet, at the same time, this is one passage that, when misunderstood, can lead to all kinds of problems. So this morning, let’s get into our text to understand the topics of love and glory, according to Jesus Christ.
Jesus is telling His disciples, and you and me today, in our Gospel reading “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Just in those two verses alone, Jesus uses the word “love” 4 times. It’s a short word, 4 letters long, it’s a word that many of us use on a daily basis. It sounds simple: “love others as I have loved you.” And yet, that phrase has been abused quite frequently.
That’s because when we hear that word “love”, we start to think of love in worldly terms. Think about what our world today considers “love”. For starters, love is a pretty vague word, isn’t it? It can cover so many types of relationships. We often use it to describe our feelings toward our spouses, our children, our friends, our church, our community, or even our favorite foods. You have to listen to the context to understand what kind of “love” is being talked about. For example, most people are going to understand that your love for your spouse is going to be a different kind of love than you have for your favorite food (at least I hope that’s the case.) But not only that, but your love for your spouse is probably going to differ from the love you have for your children, or your parents, or your friends.
The other thing we have to remember about love when it comes to our relationships with other people is that the world has it’s own idea of what is and is not considered “loving.” If you want the world’s definition of love, listen to a lot of the so called popular music today. There’s a lot being said about love in a lot of those songs. In fact, several years ago, Tina Turner even had a hit song that asked the question “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” Movies and television have something to say about love, too, along with those paperback romance novels and all kinds of books and other media. And what are all of those things saying about love? Our world is defining love as being a self serving kind of love. “Love is true when it suits you would probably be a nice catchy ad slogan.” Our world looks at love as satisfying one’s own needs and desires through having someone else serve them and give them some sort of emotional “high” if you will. And it’s great for a while. You feel great, everything seems to smell like roses, nothing can ever seem to go wrong. That’s what all of that stuff out in the world tells us about love. How many movies or books end with the couple madly in love with each other riding off into the sunset to “live happily ever after” without having to endure any hardships or problems later on that will test their so called “love” for each other? So with this definition of love, what happens when that person you claim to “love” no longer suits your needs, or you find someone else who you think might be a better “fit” and you think you love that person instead? Or what happens when you lose that ecstatic ‘spark” and things go back to normal? Why you can just put that other love aside, because if it’s not suiting your needs or wants anymore or that person needs more of your time and energy, then you can just exchange that love for something that suits your passions better.
Love according to the world is also used as leverage to try to get what we want out of other people. How many times have we heard the phrase “If you really love me, you’ll do this.” It’s a very conditional type of love. And what happens when our conditions aren’t being met? The world encourages us to just terminate that “love” and move on to someone else. It’s a kind of love that leaves a lot of hurt, broken people in its path.
Now if that’s the kind of love that Jesus is telling us to have for one another, we’re going to have a pretty serious problem on our hands, aren’t we?
But you see, Jesus’ definition of love doesn’t depend on us and how we sinful human beings treat each other. Jesus tells us “love one another as I have loved you.” How has Jesus loved us? Well, let’s look at when he says these words.
Today’s Gospel reading takes place in the upper room on Maundy Thursday night. Jesus has just shared the Passover meal with His disciples. He’s washed their feet, showing His humility in serving them. Judas has revealed himself as the betrayer, and has just left the room. The clock has begun and the Passion of our Lord is underway. It will only be a matter of hours before Judas returns, with a group of soldiers in tow, and Jesus is arrested, charged with crimes he did not commit. He allows Himself to be whipped, beaten, mocked, and spit upon. He’ll soon be sentenced to death, and forced to carry the instrument of His own execution out of the city up the hill called Golgotha, meaning the place of the skull. And why does He do all of that? Is it for Himself? No. It’s for the disciples. It’s for you and me. It’s how He shows His great love for us by taking our place and suffering the punishment our sins deserve. This is what the Greeks would call “Agape” love, an unconditional love. A love that says “I’m going to love that person anyway, no matter what it costs me.” He had spent the last three years of His life teaching the disciples, and anyone who would hear, warning them to stay way from their sin and repent. And for those who were truly repentant, Jesus had such love for them that He was going to suffer and die for them so that they could be forgiven, and set free from their sin to love God and others, and they had first been loved by Christ.
And the strange thing is, as this reading began, you’ll recall Jesus said that “Now the Son of Man has been glorified and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.” That’s a lot of talk about glory. And what’s about to unfold isn’t glorious in the eyes of the world. It’s far from it. When the world looks at the sight of a bloodied, beaten Jesus hanging on a cross, it won’t look like there’s much glory there. It won’t look like a loving picture. Yet, though hidden, the reality behind it is, this is the most glorious, loving picture ever recorded in human history. Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, allowing Himself to suffer and die in the place of sinners so that they could be forgiven and set free from the bondage of sin.
In a way, it’s appropriate that this discussion happens just after Jesus institutes the Sacrament of Holy Communion that Maundy Thursday. That night, He gives them a new supper, a way to give to His disciples a very real, personal reminder of His love for them. “Take, eat, this is my body. Take, drink, this is my blood, given and shed FOR YOU for the forgiveness of all of your sins.” In a few moments this morning, you are going to hear those same words spoken to you at this altar. Although in the eyes of the world, what is going to take place here will seem rather ordinary, you know that your Savior is here, through the means of His Word, bread, and wine, to say to repentant sinners like you and I today “Take this and eat it, take this and drink it. This is my body and blood that I gave up and shed not for me to show you how great I am and how lowly you are, but that I have given up and shed for you, for the forgiveness of all of your sins. And when I say that you’re forgiven, I mean that. I don’t remember you sin any longer. I won’t hold it against you later on. My love for you is unconditional. For those of you who are hurting, wondering if anyone could love you, I do. I died for you. I’ve risen for you. And I’m forgiving you all of your sins.”
And you and I, the people of God here at St. Paul/St. Paul’s/Mt. Zion, when we leave here today, we leave here with a charge in our daily lives: “Love one another just as Christ has loved you.” That means whoever should come into your life this week, you love them as Christ loved you. It means that anyone who walks through the doors of our churches is a person whom Christ has died for. It means that we treat them the same as we treat a 50 year member. It means that where they are sorry for their sins, wondering if anyone can love them after the things that they have done, that we point them to the cross, where there is a Savior who with arms stretched out wide, says “this is how much I love you.”
Part of showing people the love of Christ means that we lovingly warn people to stay away from sin that threatens to destroy lives and leave people used, lonely, and hurting. Yes, it’s a loving thing to warn people away from sin! There are a lot of folks out there who will say it’s an unloving thing to talk about sin and tell people to stay away from it, and encourage those who are caught up in it to confess it and leave it behind. But think about it this way. If you see a young child walking over to a hot burner on a stove, what are you going to do? You’re going to warn that child not to touch it because if they do, they’ll be burned right? It would not be a loving thing to allow that child to touch that burner because we don’t want to child to fuss over being told “no” right? It’s the same way with warning people to stay away from sin that threatens to leave them bound and broken. They may put up a bit of a fuss at first, but we do so not out of hate, but out of a spirit of love, wanting to see someone avoid being burned by that particular sin, just as Christ during His ministry and through His Word today, warns us to stay away from sin.
And for those who have been burned in the past, who bear the scars of their past sins, we lovingly point them to Christ, and show them the love He first had for us. We forgive them, we love them, and we welcome them into our midst. We point them to the cross. We join them at this altar, where our Savior reminds us of His love again and again. But it’s not just for “those people”. It’s for you and me too. For the times where we haven’t always loved others, whether it’s here in our church, or our parish, or our families, with the unconditional love that Christ has for us, He still loves us. He still forgives us, cleanses us, and mends our broken hearts. He still comes to us today through humble means of Word and Sacrament to love us, forgive us, and restore us.
Christ’s great love for us and the world and the way He goes about declaring it to us is not going to look glorious in the eyes of the world. It’s not going to feel like the “love” that our world wants us to believe will fulfill our lives. But the love that Christ has for us, His unconditional love, his self-sacrificial love, is a love that is beyond anything we can ever find out there. It’s a love that mends broken hearts. It’s a love that makes those who are “unlovable” in the eyes of the world into the most beloved in the eyes of Christ. It’s the love that Christ has for you, and for me. Thanks be to God that He loves us that much, and that He calls us to share that love with others. Amen!
