“Please join me in my prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:14).
Introduction.
You must admit, those were some very powerful bible readings this morning from the apostle John. … John the disciple who wrote with more value, more richness and more power than any other author of the bible … and it is therefore no coincidence that John is, or was, described as the “disciple that Jesus loved”, because John new the power of love, and more importantly, John knew how to use the power of love.
From our gospel reading this morning, Jesus said, “As the Father loved me, so have I loved you: continue in my love. … This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you”. … This is a commandment and not a suggestion, which is fair enough … but when we add his words from the sermon on the mount, where he says, “Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you. Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you”, … then it becomes a bit of a problem, and very difficult to understand … and so, we struggle to apply it in, or to, our daily lives.
Hippy movement in California in the 60s.
Now when I first heard these verses, (or these teachings), I was still at school, away back in the late 1960’s, and being told to “love other people”, all I could think of was … that hippy movement in California, with the flower people going around telling everyone they loved them, and its will be no surprise to you that my attitude at the time said, “I’m no daeing that … am fae Mybole, and we’re hard”, and do you know what, we were, and this teaching was totally lost on me for many years.
Man has a free will.
Ok, the flower power movement was a wishy-washy kind of love, but you can’t help thinking, that if many more people said they love each other a bit more, then the world would be a better place … but that is not going to happen, why … because most people of today have my same old attitude from years gone by; they see love as a weak and pathetic emotion, something that should be hidden, and only acknowledged quietly to one’s self, otherwise people will think they are soft, and will walk all over them, (let along apologise for something they have done wrong, but that’s another story).
God has given man a free will, and God cannot, or will not, interfere with man’s (or woman’s) free will. … I have even heard it said, that God can do anything, “NO HE CAN’T, DO ANYTHING”. … God cannot or will not, interfere with our own free will. He leaves that open to us, he leaves us to get on with things so to speak; he leaves us to make our own beds, from which we have to lie. … We are here in this earth to learn, to develop, and to grow, (preferrable in love). We have that option … we are not androids or automatons that can be easily programmed, we need to consciously choose love as an option … and this is quite difficult in our modern day, with our modern day problems and attitudes, where its so easy to say “I want this … and I want that … and how come he got that”, but that is free will … which is commonly exercised without regard to anyone else.
Nasty People
Now fortunately, I find most people to be mainly considerate, they have certain standards, but as we know, there are many who do not … and these people from time to time do annoy us, they get right under our skin so to speak, and worse, make us do things we would rather not do. … And you all know what I am talking about here … we may not show it … but sometimes we get so angry that we cannot contain our anger, we cannot settle, our inner peace is so disturbed …. that we make rash decisions, and we do things that we feel we must do …. In order to contain that rage within us … normally decisions that we later wished we hadn’t taken.
Jesus for example
Let us look at an extreme example of this, in our gospel reading this morning, Jesus is about to be led away, unjustly convicted and unlawfully condemned to die on a cross … and this was one of his last chances to talk with his disciples, and here he was, still teaching them, giving them advice and direction for their future after his death … and what is he telling them to do? … “To love one another”, in fact that is all he is talking about … love.
Jesus is not saying.
Now notice, Jesus does not say to the disciples, (and I really have to say this to show you things in contrast, OK), Jesus did not say to his disciples, “They are setting me up here … you know I’m not guilty … you know I have never harmed anyone and never will … and you know they are telling all those lies about me. … That Caiphas wan, him and all his pals, they want me out the way. … and if that happens, this is what I want you to do. … Gather all the disciples, and get back at them for me … there are many other disciples out there that will help you … and get all those people who I healed … and did miracles for, they will help you as well … and get a vigilante movement going, and with some clever guerrilla tactics … pick those Jewish leaders off one at a time, and if you can, get some Romans as well, especially that Pontius Pilate. … Cause as much trouble and damage as you can. … That will sort them out!
Jesus did not say that.
Do you know what, that is the way most terrorist or extremists think, and subsequently act. … No Jesus, Jesus certainly did not say that … because if Jesus had said that, (and he didn’t), he would have come across as just another terrorist, a weak and a frail leader of a group of rebels. No Jesus did not even think that way because the root of such tactics are revenge, driven by hatred and anger and possibly jealousy, (ok maybe there is a bit of injustice in there), but regardless, all of these emotions are driven by, and originated by fear, and when fear is put into action, many people suffer unnecessarily.
And if Jesus did say that, and he didn’t
And if Jesus did say that, (and he didn’t) … and if those disciples were successful, then … their insurrection would have died somewhere a few years later, and the insurrection would have been written off as just “another insurrection” among the thousands of insurrections that have happened throughout history.
No, Jesus was heralding in a new movement, a new covenant between man and God. … He was however rebelling … but rebelling in the hearts of men, (and women too), because his kingdom was not of this earth … and in no way was he instigating a physical rebellion of violence and destruction … no, Jesus’ mission was to show the world where the true power of life lies, and that power lies in the proper use of love.
Jesus last words, love one another and to love their enemies
And here, Jesus last words to his disciples were to love one another, and to love their enemies as well, why … because he wanted them, (and us), to know and use the power of love … because, there is no fear in love … although there is a lot of fear in anger, and hatred and revenge, in fact it’s all derived from fear.
But yes, you may say, anger and hatred and revenge also have a lot of power within them as well, … yes, they do, but its power is destructive … and more so, to the person whom that fear originates. … Love on the other hand, as no room for fear, but it does have room for God, and for him to operate. … God needs love in order to operate in one’s life … because … God is love.
We all get angry.
It all sounds so simple, yet, it is a sorry fact of life, (with everyone having freedom to exert their own free will), that it can be so difficult at times for even us Christians to contain our anger … it’s so difficult to let things go … and it’s so difficult to remain calm when all hell breaks around us … but that is life … and that is what Jesus was trying to teach the disciples … to not let our emotions of fear get the better of us, because these are emotion of destruction, and destruction does not, and never will, bring harmony to anyone as we know.
Why love our enemies?
Jesus was saying that hated and plotting revenge to our enemies will cause damaged to ourselves, (as well as to our enemies), … and did Jesus qualify this … YES, HE DID. Jesus said that no matter what you someone does to you, whether or not you see the connection between them and yourself, forgive and “do not judge”, meaning to not react, and carry out what you should think the sentence or execution should be.
The NIV puts it this way in Matthew 7 verse 1, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. … (as we know, but goes on to say). … For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and … with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you”.
So clearly there is a connection between how we judge a person’s actions, and how we ourselves are judged. … It’s like a mirror, it’s the mirror of life which uses the measure we judge others, and reflects that measure back to us, … and judge us by … our own judgement against others, and in many cases we are judged more harshly. Hey, we are playing with fire here.
Put it in a another way, if we are showing anger and hatred and fear towards someone, guess what, that is what we will receive in return. It may not be within the next few minutes, hours days, even weeks, but because of that mirror of life, we will receive what we give. … If we lash out with anger and hatred, guess what, we will receive anger and hatred in return … from somewhere. The modern term, is the old word KARMA.
I hope this isn’t going to be my last sermon, but Jesus is telling us this morning the opposite, to radiate love instead of hatred and revenge, because sending out signals and feelings and emotions of love instead, (especially when things go wrong), will be mirrored back to us … somehow … but in terms of blessings.
Love the things our enemies do;
Now I am not saying for one second to love the things our enemies do; I am not saying that, NO, NO WAY, but what I am saying it is how we react to what is done to us … matters. We can either retaliate or build up a resentment within ourselves and nurse it until it overpowers us … or even better … we could master the situation, by letting our love flow, or at least, let our love from within shine on the problem … because love does, and will conquer all, () or all fear.
The more anger and hatred and evil we radiate, the worse we will receive in return, because that is what our minds are tuned into, and conversely, the more love we radiate, the more love we will receive, or attract to ourselves. The more bitterness we develop, (even though it may make us feel better at the time), will only results in us sliding on that downward spiral, attracting more of the same. BY the way, the term “bitter and twisted” was derived from this downward spiral.
Sum up.
No, Jesus told his disciples to love one another, especially those who have done him or us harm. He is saying that:
? first of all, to protect us from ourselves, from our own bad feelings;
? secondly, he is stopping us from making rash decisions, you know the type we make in the heat of the moment;
? thirdly, he is protecting us from putting such decisions into actions, stopping the bad before it starts;
? fourthly, by loving others we are returning our upset emotions back to something more normal, something more rational, restoring that peace within hearts;
? fifthly, and more importantly Jesus is teaching us to radiate our love to others, and come on, we all can feel it when somebody is radiating love, because we become attracted towards them. … We can certainly feel it when others are radiating anger and revenge. Ask any spouse or partner, we can feel it, even when we don’t know what we have done wrong.
Radiating love however is different and more complex … we don’t always feel it, but we do reap its results somehow … somewhere … when surprisingly something strangely goes well for us, although it can be quite hard to see the correlation, but the correlation is definitely there. …
One the other hand, anger and hatred and reacting tend to show quicker results than love … because love is a long slow burn but with amazing long-term results. … So, it is really important to learn, and know the process of how love works, because love will change us, and also … it will help and change all those around us, even those whom we find difficult. It maybe not change things over night, but it will change things for the better.
How then do we develop love in our heart when everything is going wrong
How then do we do we develop love in our heart when everything is going wrong, well as I have said before, we must develop a spirit of gratitude for the things in our lives that are going well, and although they maybe small to start with, we make a start because that small amount of love within us will grow and grow and grow, the more grateful we become. Not looking for that love however, will only fuel our bitterness and resentment.
No love is not a wishy-washy thing of those hippies back in the sixties … love is an emotion of power. … Love will free us from anything, love will conquer all … and love begins in our hearts and not out there somewhere. … It starts with our very selves, it starts with us being grateful … to the point of contentment … it starts with us loving others, (WHETHER WE LIKE THEM OR NOT), because if we don’t like them, we are still injecting love into a situation …. and that love can only improve the situation.
In Closing
In closing, sometimes I wished I could take my own advice, but there you go, anyway, good tidings always start with us feeling grateful, and feeling at peace. … Yes, it can be so hard to do at times, and we won’t do it overnight, but that is where we should be heading. God is love, and we are supposed to be his children, and we cannot be his children if we are not radiating his love, or at least, letting his love originate in our hearts … so that we can pass it on to someone else.
Love therefore is the distinguishing mark of the Christian, … and I have to finish by saying, it is also the distinguishing mark of a church as well. I will say no more for today, Amen.
