(Meeting the Need for Affection)
Text: John 15:9-14
In his memoir, Education of a Wandering Man, the western writer Louis L’Amour repeats a charming story about two stage actresses of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
He tells how Sarah Bernhardt, the great French actress, attended a performance of Eleanora Duse (doo zay), the renowned Italian actress.
Overcome with the quality and passion of the performance, Bernhardt wrote a very quick note to send backstage between acts. The note said:
(Transparency)
“Sarah Bernhardt says Eleanora Duse is a great actress.”
Duse, busy changing her costume for the next act, didn’t have time to compose a reply, so she picked up a pen, added two commas to the note and returned it. Now the note read:
(Transparency)
“Sarah Bernhardt, says Eleanora Duse, is a great actress.”
It’s amazing how much significance can be packed into a comma or two, or into a word--even the shortest of words.
That is one of the things we will discover this morning, as we look into God’s Word and its application to our lives this morning.
Please join me for a moment of prayer:
Father,
we pray this morning
that you will help us so to speak,
so to hear,
and so to learn
that our minds may be enlightened,
our hearts may be touched
our hurts may be healed,
and our lives made more pleasing to you and effective for you,
in Jesus’ name, Amen.
As I said just a moment ago, it’s amazing how much significance can be packed into a comma or a word- even the shortest of words. Let me show you what I mean by asking you to turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 15. . . . John 15. . . .
Please find the 9th verse of that chapter, Jn 15:9, and follow along as I read verses 9-14:
9 "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I command.”
Please note that Jesus says, in verse 12,
“Love each other as I have loved you.”
. . . . .
“Love each other as I have loved you.”
He says, in verse 9,
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you,”
and then he says,
“Love each other as I have loved you.”
Now, if you’re anything like me--
--and I know most of you thank God that you’re not--
but if you’re anything like me, you have read that verse dozens, maybe hundreds of times, and never stopped to reflect on that little word “as.”
But I am convinced this morning that there is far more in those two letters, in that short word, than we ordinarily understand,
more punch,
more power,
more purpose
in that little word “as”
than we think,
because that tiny word all by itself defines why this is a new commandment.
If you’ll turn to John 13:34, you’ll see virtually the same words Jesus speaks in John 15:12, except that he calls this a “new commandment.”
What was new about it? God’s people had been commanded for generation after generation to love each other. . . but it is a new commandment because Jesus commands us,
“Love each other as I have loved you.”
And that little word doesn’t just mean,
“Love each other because I have loved you.”
it doesn’t just mean,
“Love each other with the same feelings with which I have loved you.”
IT MEANS “LOVE EACH OTHER IN THE SAME MANNER OF LOVING WITH WHICH I HAVE LOVED YOU.”
And what way is that?
What is the “as” of verse 12?
Well, Jesus himself explains when he says,
Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
That’s the “as” of verse 12. . . .
Do you wanna love “as” Jesus loves?
Then lay down your life for a friend.
And you know what? Jesus was not only talking about dying on a cross for someone, or throwing yourself in the path of an oncoming car for someone. I believe wholeheartedly that it is what we have been discussing the past six weeks:
(Transparency)
Our current sermon series, “A Relevant Faith to Meet Real Needs,” is all about loving each other as Jesus loves, and showing the relevance of the Gospel to real people with real needs.
It began with Pastor Win Clark’s sermon on responding to the human need for comfort by hurting and crying with others. That’s what Jesus did when he wept for Mary and Martha at Lazarus’s “premature funeral.”
Then Pastor Dave Smetana spoke about the human need for attention, a need that Jesus’ love recognized when he spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, a person any other Jewish man would have scorned and ignored.
We’ve talked about the need for
acceptance many of us feel,
and appreciation,
and support,
and encouragement --
all of them things that not only characterize the needs we feel, some to a greater, some to a lesser degree,
but also things that characterize
the “as” of verse 12,
the way Jesus himself loved.
And this morning we’re going to focus on yet another way we can love as Jesus loved, and that is by our response to the human need for affection.
And we’re going to do it by looking at:
Our Need
Our Example, and
Our Challenge.
I Our Need
All of us--all of us--need affection.
From the moment of birth, we reached out for the warm embrace of our mother’s arms. As children we longed to climb into a father’s lap, to feel a gentle caress on the head, to wrestle and tussle and be tickled by someone who loves us.
And that need doesn’t disappear as we approach and enter adulthood.
We may try to deny it,
we may learn to disguise it,
but the need for affection knows no age.
Josh McDowell tells the story of an occasion when he had agreed to speak at a high school assembly in Phoenix, Arizona. Because of scheduling and space considerations, he had to speak to the entire student body at one time, a crowd too large to fit in the school auditorium. So the assembly was held outside, and Josh stood on a large rock to speak to the crowd of about a thousand students, who sat on the grass in the schoolyard.
Just as he started to speak, a group of older teenagers, sporting fluorescent hair, wild clothes, and wearing yards of chains, walked up to within twenty feet of where he stood. Some of the teachers and other students kept watchful eyes on the colorful group, perhaps expecting them to cause some kind of disturbance, but Josh continued his talk, and finished speaking without interruption.
As soon as he had finished speaking and stepped down off the rock, however, the apparent leader of the wild group ran up to him and planted himself less than a foot in front of his face. A gasp arose from the crowd, and a thousand pairs of eyes seemed to be trained on Josh and that young man.
The majority of the crowd, however, couldn’t see the tears that streamed down the kid’s face, nor could they hear the boy asking Josh to hug him.
But a wave of murmurs rolled through the crowd as the boy buried his head in Josh’s shoulder and cried.
The hug lasted about a minute--a pretty long hug for two guys! Finally, the young man let go of Josh and through tears explained, “My father has never hugged me or said ‘I love you.’”
That young man had an unmet need for affection, and his outlandish appearance and behavior were probably an expression of that need.
Now, some of us in this room feel the need for affection more keenly, more acutely than others. God has created all of us with a need for human affection that can only be met when other humans express affection to us, but for some of us, the need for affection is one of our top intimacy needs.
How can you tell, though? How can you tell if you or someone you know needs affection?
Well, first, you have to get to know that person, but you can also ask,
you can observe,
you can note how they respond when they receive--or don’t receive--affection.
And if you really want to minister effectively to a friend,
or a roommate,
or a colleague,
or a family member,
you’ll relate to them in a way that responds to their deepest, most pronounced relational needs -
whether it’s a need for comfort,
or acceptance
or appreciation,
or support,
or encouragement --
or affection. . .
because that is exactly what Jesus did. . .
that is how Jesus loved. . .
he is. . .
II Our Example
I believe wholeheartedly that when Josh McDowell wrapped his arm around that wildly dressed young man, he was acting in explicit obedience of Jesus’ command to
“Love each other as I have loved you.”
And I believe that when you and I express affection to our children,
to our parents,
to our brothers and sisters in Christ,
and to those outside the church,
that we are loving as Jesus loved.
And let me tell you how I can say that. I believe that Jesus modeled holy living--Amen?
. . . but I also believe, because he is God incarnate, that he also modeled the ideal human life. I believe he modeled what healthy human relationships look like- Amen?
For example, do you remember, in John chapter two, at the wedding in Cana, when Jesus’ mother came to him to inform him that their hosts had run out of wine? Do you remember how Jesus answered her? In the New International Version, which translates his words and his sentiment better than the King James Version, John 2:4 reads,
"Dear woman, why do you involve me?"
And again, when Jesus hung on the cross, in agony, bearing the sins of the world, he lifted his heavy head, looked at his mother and at his friend John. Do you remember what he said? Again, from the NIV, he said,
“Dear woman, here is your son,"
indicating to Mary and to John that he meant for them to care for each other as though they were mother and son.
The phrase Jesus used in each instance was a term of endearment, much like the word by which he addressed his heavenly Father--”Abba,”--a word that might be most accurately translated into English as “Daddy,” or “Papa.”
Not only did Jesus use terms of endearment; he communicated affection in more direct ways as well--
he told his disciples, “I have called you friends. . . ”
and said “I love you,” to them,
and his was a love that was so plain and clear that he could command his followers,
“Love each other as I have loved you.”
But wait, I’m not finished,
because our example is not only shown in Jesus’ words, but in his touch as well.
The Gospel of Matthew, in chapter 17, records the event called the Transfiguration,
when Jesus appeared to his disciples in glorified form in the company of Moses and Elijah,
and the voice of the Father thundered from heaven,
and Peter, James, and John fell facedown on the ground.
And do you remember what happened next? Matthew 17:7 says,
But Jesus came and touched them. "Get up," he said. "Don’t be afraid."
Now, maybe Jesus whacked ‘em on the head,
but I’m inclined to think his touch was more than that, a gentle touch meant to convey affection and assurance.
Another incident, recorded in all three Synoptic Gospels, tells of children flocking to Jesus, and his disciples trying to shoo them away, remember that? And what does Mark 10:16 say?
And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.
I could go on, telling of Jesus touching lepers-- whom no one else would even come near and whom he could have healed with just a word-- and of John his disciple leaning intimately on Jesus’ chest at the Last Supper, but you get the picture.
When Jesus said,
“Love each other as I have loved you.”
I am confident that the disciples knew precisely what the “as” meant . . .
. . . and I am also confident that part of the “as” in that verse included responding to the human need for affection.
So where does that leave us?
I believe it leaves us right where God wants us.
III Our Challenge
God’s challenge for us this morning is to love as Jesus loved.
I believe that God wants us to learn how to respond to our roommate’s
or classmate’s
or friend’s
or family member’s
need for affection with a Jesus kind of love, a love that will fill the human need for affection in all of us, but especially in those who need it most.
How do we do that?
We do it the way Jesus did it--
primarily through words
and touch.
Jesus displayed affection through loving words and terms of endearment, and we should do the same. Now, some of us don’t need lessons in this, but others could stand at least a refresher course.
It’s simple. Let’s practice right now. Say, “I love you.” [People respond]
Why, thank you!
Say, “You’re special to me.” [People respond]
Oh, now you’re making me blush!
Say, “You’re my little Snugglebunny.” [People respond]
There, now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? And I kinda enjoyed it! . . . .And if you can do it for me, here, you can do it for a friend, a loved one, or a brother or sister in Christ.
The second way Jesus expressed affection was through appropriate touch.
My wife Robin and I pastored a small church in Cincinnati ten years ago, and we spent 4 years there, organizing,
budgeting,
programming,
preaching,
teaching,
visiting--
but on our last Sunday at that church, you know what brought the two of us the most pleasure and pride? It was when someone new to the church shook her head and said in amazement,
“This is the huggin’est bunch of people I’ve ever seen!”
Now, you may be saying, “Hold on a minute! I’m just not a huggy person! That’s just the way I am.”
And that’s fair. . . . but keep in mind that I’m not talking about loving the way you’re accustomed to loving, I’m talking about loving as Jesus loves.
It may be out of your comfort zone, but a touch, a handshake, a hug, a pat on the back, an arm around the shoulder--may be just what someone else in your church or family or neighborhood needs, and if you and I don’t at least try to respond to those needs, then we are not laying down our own preferences, let alone our very lives . . . and therefore we are not loving as Jesus loved.
Now, let me take just a moment to make sure you don’t misunderstand, because there are appropriate ways to show affection and there are inappropriate ways. That’s why Romans 16:16 commands Christians to “Greet one another with a holy kiss!”
Now, before anybody goes crazy here, notice that Paul modified the word “kiss” with the word “holy.” Amen? Why did he do that? Perhaps because there are such things as “unholy” kisses. Amen?
And I think the difference is this: Inappropriate affection is an attempt to meet my own need or to get something I want--in which case it’s not really affection at all but selfishness.
On the other hand, appropriate affection--even a “holy kiss”--meets the need and promotes the highest good of the other person, of the person receiving affection. It is not selfish, but giving.
So,
God’s Word commands us to love as Jesus loved.
And you know what we’re gonna do? We’re gonna do God’s Word in the final moments of this service here this morning.
You know, many of us read God’s Word,
and we hear God’s Word,
and some of us learn God’s Word,
and remember God’s Word--
but this morning we’re gonna do God’s Word.
“Love each other as I have loved you,” Jesus commanded, and that is what we’re going to do--not only in the closing moments of this service, but throughout this day and this week and, I hope, on and on until it becomes a habit that meets people’s needs and changes their lives.
So I want to ask everyone to stand, please. . . .
And before we close our time together, I want to ask each one here to turn to the people around you, on either side or behind or in front, and I want you to greet each other with words and with appropriate touch. I want you to look that person in the eyes and say,
“I love you as Jesus loves me,”
and then a hug, an embrace, or even a holy kiss--be sure to keep it holy, guys--
But let’s do God’s Word this morning, and love each other as Jesus loves, using words--
“I love you as Jesus loves me,”
and appropriate touch--a hug, a kiss, or a pat on the back.
