“If
you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he
will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of
truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows
him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. I will
not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no
longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that
day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who
have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me
will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal
yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “Those who love me
will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and
make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and
the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. I have
said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy
Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and
remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I
give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be
troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going
away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going
to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you
this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe. I will no
longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no
power over me; but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may
know that I love the Father. Rise, let us be on our way.
(John
14:15-31)
= = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
I
thought that the words from LaToya Jackson that I've had printed in the bulletin
this morning were particularly relevant to our subject today and also very
poignant. “I'll never stop dreaming that one day we can be a real family,
together, all of us laughing and talking, loving and understanding, not looking
at the past but only to the future.” LaToya
Jackson, of course, is a part of the famous Jackson family – she's the sister
of the late Michael Jackson, whose own death at a very early age just a few
years ago sort of highlighted what you could call the tragedy that has
surrounded this family. The Jacksons experienced jealousy and competition with
one another. Siblings were often pitted against each other; sometimes the
children (or at least some of them) were pitted against the parents. It was a
very successful family, but I think it's fair to say that at least at times it was
also a dysfunctional family, and sometimes it wasn't a very happy family. And
those words from LaToya struck me as very sad. She seems to be saying that they
weren't a real family; that there wasn't much laughing or talking or loving or
understanding; that they were fixated on past hurts and slights and
disagreements. There was an element of lament in those words: “I'll never stop
dreaming.” They made me start to wonder about the power of love; about love's
ability to heal past wounds and to create new beginnings. They made me grateful
for the hope and dreams that love can provide to us.
The Bible speaks a lot about love. Jesus spoke a lot about love. All the
different ways Jesus tells us to love represent to me the ethical heart of
Christianity; the engine that moves the gospel forward. When Christians stop
acting lovingly - as we tragically do all too often – we dishonour the gospel
and Jesus and our faith; we prove ourselves to be hypocrites – because it’s
often those Christians who stop acting lovingly who nevertheless are able to
quote Bible verses about love word for word. I think Jesus helps us in this
passage to understand what love is. Love for Jesus is to love others, simply because
that's what God wants us to do. So, “if you love me, keep my commands.”
Essentially the commands of Jesus are to love widely and extravagantly – to love
God, one another, our neighbours and even our enemies. That’s an extravagant
love, indeed!
Jesus helps us to understand love by using his relationship with his Father
as an illustration of love. Jesus loves the Father and does exactly what the
Father asks him to do. That, of course, is at least in part a reference to the
cross. The cross is God's love. The cross is what teaches us about love most
powerfully and most graphically. The cross tells me that if I truly live in
love – in the kind of love that Jesus calls me to live by – then I may pay a
steep price for that love, and I have to be prepared for that. And if I back
down, and choose not to live in love even though I know that God wants me to live
in love then I'm becoming an adversary of God; I’m not living a godly or
faithful life, and I’m opposing the way of God revealed through Jesus. Love is
of God, and love is costly. We throw the word “love” around far too easily in
today’s world, and perhaps the concept of love becomes cheapened as a result,
but the love that Jesus calls us to is not cheap and the love that Jesus calls
us to is not easy. The love shown by the cross is vastly different than the
love spoken of by someone who says “I love chocolate,” or “I love going to
Florida.” The love shown by Jesus is love poured out for others; the love we
often speak of is the love of something enjoyable that we get for ourselves. And
– as costly as the love that Jesus calls us to can be - if I choose not to love
as Jesus loved because I'm not willing to pay the price of that love, then I'm
opposing God. That's the message I take from this passage.
In some background reading I was doing while I was preparing this sermon
I came across some words written by a man named Alan Brehm. He’s the minister
of Hickman Presbyterian Church in Hickman, Nebraska. There’s nothing
particularly earth-shaking about what he wrote, but I thought it summed up the
power of God’s love quite well: “Jesus said that if
we love him, we'll follow his teachings, his way of life, his example, simply
because the love we have for him compels us to do so.”
Our
love for Jesus “compels us” to do what Jesus wants us to do, and what Jesus
wants us to do is to take that love that
he’s given to us and let it overflow in love for the entire world. “Compels” is
an interesting word to use, and I thought it made a powerful point. To be
compelled isn’t the same as to be forced. To be forced to do something means
that you do it against your will; that you do it in spite of whoever it is
who’s forcing you to do this. But to be compelled is really to be transformed.
To be compelled to do something means that we do it because it’s become a part
of who and what we are; because it’s become a part of our identity. Paul used
that same word in 2 Corinthians: “Christ’s love compels us,” he wrote. It
compels us to be willing to be changed into what God would want us to be. It
compels we who are loved to offer love to others. Huey Lewis and the News
recorded a song called “The Power Of Love” for the movie Back To The Future:
The power of love is a curious
thing
Make a one man weep, make another
man sing
Change a hawk to a little white
dove
More than a feeling that's the
power of love.
The
power of love affects us and changes us. Once we’re filled with the love of
Christ we will never be the same again. Our hope is to be filled with the love
of Christ. The love of Christ is what gives us hope for the future – hope that
all that doesn’t work in our lives can work in our lives. That’s the power of
love.
I
find myself going back to where I started – to the words of LaToya Jackson: “I'll never stop dreaming
that one day we can be a real family, together, all of us laughing and talking,
loving and understanding, not looking at the past but only to the future.” Focus on the last four words: “only to the
future.” Ultimately the power of God's love helps to look toward a future of
hope, where the things that aren’t working very well in our lives right now
will work; where the hurts of the past will be forgotten. LaToya Jackson hopes
that her family might one day be a real family – laughing and talking and
loving and understanding.” God's love will eventually break down all barriers
and make us all to be a family. That’s the power of love!
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