Welcome, brothers and sisters in Christ, to the First Sunday in Lent. We are joining together throughout Lent in a sermon series, “Falling in Love Again.” We are preparing ourselves for the great Paschal feast, the wedding supper of the Lamb.
On Ash Wednesday, we heard God’s word through the prophet Joel, “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity” (Joel 2:12–13). All of us, if by nothing else than the tidal drag of the world, the flesh, and the devil, drift away from God. But God calls us to come back, to come home. In Baptism, He has made us part of His family; and while we can break fellowship with Him, we can never wipe away the mark of Christ from our forehead.
And so today, as we continue “Falling in Love Again,” we are confronted with the stark reality that, while we go on our earthly pilgrimage, it doesn’t always feel like God loves us. Sometimes, I feel like God and I were meant for each other—like ham and rye, or like baseball and summer. I am fulfilled by His call on my life, and He takes delight in my acceptance. It’s wonderful! But all too soon, it seems that the honeymoon is over, and I’m upset with God because it feels like He’s hung me out to dry. Have you been there? Maybe you’re there right now.
Part of truly “Falling in Love Again” is believing in love. Remember what I ask my nephews? “What did you do to make me start loving you?” And they answer, “Nothing.” And the respond, “So there’s nothing you can do to make me stop!” I tell them that regularly, because there will be times that they won’t feel like I love them—especially when they’re teenagers. And they need to learn that I do love them deeply. Just because bad things happen to us does not mean that God doesn’t love us.
When we’ve really fallen in love, we trust our Lover so much that nothing He does is in doubt. Every act is an act of love. The challenge is to believe in that love, even when it seems to have run out.
“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like and dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’” (Mt. 3:16–17). God has declared that Jesus is His own Son, and that He loves Him and is pleased with Him. Then what? “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil” (Mt. 4:1). What kind of love is that? Send your beloved into the desert…to be tempted…by the devil himself? This love is strange, unlike other loves.
If we’re going to fall in love with God again, we must strive to love as He loves. And His love is shaped differently than the world’s love. The world’s love looks like a circle, or a line. A circle is self-love (either personal or corporate), and it stays in itself. It’s a closed loop, with no opening into or out of it. Or worldly love is a line, beginning in one person and ending in another. But any interruption breaks it. These are both small and limited.
God’s love, which we seek to renew, has the shape of a cross. The vertical bar is the relationship of God and man, extending from eterninty into time. It is the strength and source of the love, supported at the top by God, and held below by us. The horizontal beam is our relationship to our brethren, and it allows our connection with God to bear more fruit. This horizontal beam of brotherly love must be supported by the vertical relationship and fellowship of God and man, if it is to ascend beyond any worldly expression. The weight of mankind is too much to carry on any man’s shoulders; it must be held from above. Men disappoint and fail. Man’s love by itself cannot be believed. But the connection of God and man is ours by grace, and in Him we never hope in vain.
So our Lord Jesus went into the desert because His love was cross-shaped. He is in perfect fellowship with the Father, and He is the righteous high priest that joins to His brothers (cf. Heb. 2:11ff).
Jesus’ first act of love was to face the devil’s lies, and to overcome them. The devil tempted Jesus, saying, “If you are the Son of God…” (Mt. 4:3,6). He tempted Jesus to question what the Father had said, “This is my Son, whom I love” (Mt. 3:17). But Jesus believed in the Father’s love; He knew that God does not lie.
The Fall happened when Adam and Eve bought the lie of the ancient serpent. God made man in His own image and likeness (Gen. 1:26,27)—all other creatures were made according to their kinds (e.g., Gen. 1:24,25). Man alone was in the likeness of God. And the serpent told Eve that the fruit would make her “like God” (Gen. 3:5). Adam and Eve doubted God’s goodness and His love. They didn’t believe in God’s love.
The devil will try to deceive us also, saying, “If you are a child of God, whom He loves…” It’s easy to believe in God’s love and resist temptation to doubt it when I’m flying high. The moments when I feel strongest it’s effortless to believe in God’s love, because the cross-shaped profile is obscure. Yet when our baptism seems fruitless, and our relationship with the Father seems dead, that’s when believing in God’s love is tough, and the cross appears. When I’m down—tired and worn out, pained by a migraine, catching a cold—and He sends me another challenge, that’s when believing in His love is hard. When it’s flowers and chocolate, it’s easy. When the checkbook is empty and are tensions high, that’s when love is challenged.
We can resist the devil in moments of weakness, not in our own power, but in God’s. How? We hold onto God’s promises: that Baptism brings us into relationship with Him as His adopted child, whom He loves us. We can believe in His love. What did we do to make Him start loving us? Nothing! “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). We didn’t make ourselves His children; God did it Himself. And what He has done, no man can frustrate, not even me. The fellowship that we share may be damaged or broken, but it can be mended, because the underlying relationship remains.
At the end of our temptation, God will send His angels to come and tend us. Even if we have failed, God will tend us if we will just repent and come back to Him. The Lord came to the Garden of Eden, not to condemn Adam and Eve, but to save them. He calls out “Where are you?” (Gen. 3;9). He seeks to find the lost sheep, and bring him home. Can you dare to believe in love? Can you believe in this love of God? “Falling in Love Again” means that we believe in God’s love. “[His] love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. [His] love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:7,8).
How couldn’t we fall head over heels in love with Him, all over again!
