Sixth Sunday of Easter LCMS B 2021

Sixth Sunday of Easter LCMS B 2021

St. Peter’s Lutheran Church Sullivan

John 15:9-17, 1 John 5:1-8

A Mother’s Love

Our love of one another is a real tangible way that Christ continues to love His church, to dwell with His church, through us, through you, through me, toward one another, and beyond the bounds of the church, to the ends of the earth. But, Brothers and sisters, what is love? It’s clearly important, we all know that. At least, we use the word often enough for it to be considered important. The love of a mother towards her children, the love of the children towards their mother, the love of a husband towards his wife, so on so forth. We speak of love. But when we speak of love, do we do it accurately? My mind always goes towards the first “I love you” that is shared between a young couple. Once those words are said there is an immense pressure placed on the other to reciprocate those same words, without first clarifying what the confessing party meant when they said it. “I love you,” she said. Ah, but she also said that same night that she loved the pizza that they had for dinner. So it clearly isn’t a big deal, he thought. “I love you too,” he said, though he withheld the last part that remained in his heart, “just like I love pizza.”

This is exactly what is laid before us today in the gospel reading, and in the epistle reading. Just as the Father loved the Son, so the Son loves us. Abide, remain, dwell, in that love. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. The greatest love that we have to give as mortals is to give ourselves unto the end, to lay our lives down for another. We so often speak of a love that is an emotion, essentially infatuation, or warm fuzzies within us. But that, whatever it may be,is not the love we are talking about. We are talking about action. Imagine if you will, a child who claims to love his mother, but he never speaks to her, never gives her gifts, never does anything for her, and in her time of need and old age he forsakes her and leaves her to be alone. Christ says of this one who abandons his own family, he is worse than an unbeliever and has abandoned the faith. It would certainly suffice to say that this individual has no love for his mother. That is so often why mothers and wives have to ask us sons and husbands if they love them, because we’re such sinners that it rarely manifests in reality, either by words of the mouth or works of the hand. What they’re really asking, is do you love me in some invisible way, in a way that I don’t know of? A silly thing it is really. There is no other way. There is no other way to love your spouse than to live in faithful obedience to the vows of your marital covenant. There is no other way to love your parents than to honour them, serve and obey them, to cherish them, and to support them in their old age as they once supported you.

Yet this has somehow become a lost concept in regard to our heavenly Father. We separate the first commandment, to love God above all else, from all others. And we say oh yes oh yes... I do love God with my whole heart, even though I don’t show it by my works. Do not forget, that love is a two-way thing. If love is separated from action, then God’s love for us does not require that He showsus grace, that He redeemsus, that He forgivesus. He can, in this North American concept of love, have feelings for us, and then act in a completely disassociated way towards us, ignore us, punish us, kill us and burn us like scraps for His cosmic bonfire. You want a lighter Law? Then you’re going to get a lighter gospel. You want a command to love others without having to actually do anything for them? Then you will receive a promise of God’s love without Him actually having done anything for you.

But I tell you this today, as good news. Love is a work. Just as the Father loves the Son, so the Son loves us. That is, wholly, and completely. There is no end to the depth of Christ’s love for us. There is no mile that is too far to run for Christ, when we are at the end of it. There is no death not worth dying for us, no punishment not worth taking for our redemption. Forget the common nicety of taking out the trash, remembering to call and to write birthday cards, the greatest love, is the love of self-abandonmentfor the good of the other. What does love look like my friends? It looks like the body and blood of Christ, the Son of God, given and shed for you for you. It looks like the Lord of Glory, beaten, flogged, humiliated, nailed to a cross, stripped of clothes, crowned with thorns, and left there to suffocate as the weight of His own body crusheshis lungs closed, and He simultaneouslybearsthe scorn and wrath of the Father in heaven in His soul, as God looked down onHis only beloved Son and saw US, only to turn away, and crush Him, both Body and Soul, so that when He looks as US, He sees only Christ and His righteousness.

This love, the love of God, it frees us from the Law. It frees us from needing to escape hell or earn heaven. You are free. Free to love as Christ loved us. Free to love without cause, without gain, without reason, but with reckless self-abandon. You arefree to support orphans and widows, to live faithfully with your spouse, to walk in new life and even to give your life for the sake of the other, not to earn for your own sake, but for theirs. Here, and only here, as we abide in the grace and mercy of Christ, can we love others freely, as Christ freely loved us. Our love for others does not cause God to love us, but God’s love for us, causes us to love others.

It is not commands, threats, and punishments, that create obedience and change in an individual, but it is a forgiving love, a gracious love, an un-caused love, that creates change in the heart of a sinner. Imagine if you will, a student in high school who does something clearly wrong and is sent to the office, punished, and suspended from school. Multiple people saw what happened, witnessing it with their own eyes, and those who didn’t aren’t surprised to hear of what happened. But when the mother is called into the School and told of her son or daughter’s wicked deeds is in unbelief. Her child would never do that, she says. She knows her child, she says. From the outside perspective of the students and faculty who witnessed the sin of the student, from the perspective of the principle and the rest of the student body, this mother is often seen in a purely negative light. Doesn’t she know? There were witnesses, people saw, yet she says that they must have misunderstood what happened. The people who know her childat school aren’t surprised, thechild is always like this, they’rea sinner, just like every other kidat the school, teenagers are trouble. Her standards for her childare way toohigh, shes oblivious, she’s spoiling her child and letting themget away with whatever they want, they say. Yet imagine if you were that student. When everyone around you is accusing you of evil, your friends, your teachers, your principle, and you know that they’re right to do so, because you didn’t do what you ought to have done, and you did what you ought not to do, even your own self condemns you for your actions. But your mother, does not condemn you. Because for all of the flaws that you have, which the world and even yourself condemn you for, she sees only what is good, and what she desires for you. Perhaps she knows that you’re a sinner, just like you and like the world, but her love cannot see you as anything but righteous. The world says that this mother is a picture of irresponsible and negligent parenting, which spares the rod and spoils the child. But I say to you, this picture of the mother, is an image of the Father’s love for us. His standards are way too high, He turns His eyes away fromour sin, He sees only the righteousness of God when He looks at us. But shall we sin that grace may abound? Far be it from us, for God’s children would never do that, and God knows His children.Grace and forgiveness, not commands and punishments produce the fruit of free obedience. Brothers and sisters, love each other as that mother has loved her son. Love others as God has loved you. Treat one another as Christ has treated you, that is, as forgiven. Look at the sins of one another as they are, that is on the cross. Forgive others as if their sins are either forgiven, or nobodies are. And treat yourself as dead to sinand alive with Christ. For from forgiveness flows obedience, and from love, flows kindness towards others. Abide in Christ’s love. And know this, that you are loved by God, and that you, by loving others abide in that same sacrificial and self-giving love, that love by which He loves you, that love which produces love in you, that you may love others. These are the things thatGod delights in. Not burdensome commands but ones that delight the heart, ones that bear Christ to the other, ones through which by the work of our hands the crucified Christ is put forward. Walk in this brethren, abide in the love by which Christ first loved you. If you are Baptized it is no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you. Be Baptized! Bear Christ to the other, give yourself to others, abide in the love by which you were loved. Let it transform you. Let it envelop you. For you were created by love, for Love, to love. Let Christ love you, and you will freely love others. Amen.