Living in Love, Living in Light

Intro

In reading the passage today, I think about how often is it that we find ourselves experiencing the truth of something we’ve heard about for a long time. I’d always heard about the beauty of the northern lights, saw photos of them, but only last fall did I get to experience them, and I was shocked at how they shimmered. I’d never imagined that. Or, so often, I might hear about someone that I will one day meet in person, and my mind goes off imagining what that person would be like, but when the day comes and we eventually meet, either they are nothing like what I imagined, or, less often, they are way more like what I imagined than I could have really grasped at all. Megan and I are expecting our first child to come in a few weeks, it’s coming fast. Of course we’ve both been imagining what that new season of life is going to be like. And over the past eight months, I’ve been hearing people who’ve had kids of their own try to describe the attachment and unconditional Love one experiences for their children once they’re born.

Right now we can close our eyes and try to grasp what this attachment and love that people are telling us about could be like, but I can, at best, vaguely reach for the truth of it, and I’m already at a disadvantage because I’m not the one carrying the child. I just know that that kid’s going to come, and I am going to be knocked off my feet. There’s just no way, nomatter how many times I’ve heard about it, or how many times I try to imagine it, that I’ll be able to come up with anything like the real thing. But, when that day comes, all the things I’ve heard being a parent is like, just like having heard and seen pictures of the northern lights, it will all become new and true to me.

In our passage today, John is writing to a church that been troubled by division, and he’s saying: “there’s this old command, that you’ve had from the beginning. . . But today you’re living in a moment where it’s totally new, and true.”

To Love one another is an old/new command

So what is this old command that john is talking about? John is actually subtly quoting Jesus his own gospel here, maybe you caught it. In the gospel of John, Jesus says in chapter 13: John 13:34 “A new command I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you. . .” So, in one sense, John is calling this command old, because ofcourse Jesus said it, and he’s assuming that the church he’s addressing would have heard it too! It’s an old command for this church. But I think John is also looking further back than that.

Througout his letters, John writes about two attributes of God. He says God is love, and God is light. So on one hand, the command to love one another has to do with the very being of God himself from the beginning: God is and has always been and always will be love, and then on the other hand, we see John really playing with the idea of light in this passage. He’s going to say that those who love one another walk, and abide in the light, because of the word that they heard from the beginning. And all of a sudden he’s starting to sound like the Psalmist who writes in Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” This command, to love one another as we are loved by God, is an old command. It’s a command that springs from the idea of God being light and love. John is referring to the fact that long ago he called the people of Israel out of the wilderness to act out his light and his love as a witness to the nations.

As I mentioned, John is writing to a church that’s been divided. From what we gather from the content in these letters there’s a group who have split off from the curch and have claimed that they know better than the teachings of the apostles when it comes to the gospel of Jesus. So John is saying “look, what I’m telling you here is consistent with what Jesus taught, and what the Psalmist in the Old Testament wrote about. In fact it’s drawn from the very being of God himself, I am not the one speaking out of line here,” says John. This is an old command.

But at the same time, John says, this is a new command. How could that be? John says first that “the command's truth is seen in him and in you.” When John refers to him, we can look to the context of this passage and infer that him is Jesus. The old command is made new, insofar as it’s truth is seen in him. This nature of God’s that is light and love is fully realized in the perfect person, the perfect life, death, and resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. But not only is this command’s truth seen in Jesus but further, its truth is seen in you. That is why it’s new.

Now, how can that be? And why would this be a reason for its newness? Because wouldn’t the truth of the command, to love one another, have been seen in the nation of Israel? It’s an old command, after all. And, Israel is God’s chosen people, aren’t they? What makes it new for this church that John is writing to? This is where I think John is drawing from a key concept throughout the writings of the New Testament. During Jesus’ ministry he promised his disciples that a helper would be sent after him. Rather than in Israel’s case, where the presence of God was with them in the temple, now, as Jesus promised, God has put his helper, his Holy Spirit in us such that in a real sense God himself lives in us. And so that means Jesus lives in us. This is a concept that Theologians call “Union with Christ.”

So when John says the command is new, true seen in Christ and in us, he’s saying that Jesus, who loved us perfectly, is in us, shaping our hearts so that we can love perfectly. The Church is kindof like new parents. This old command, this calling out from the wilderness that Israel heard, is the same call that you, the Church, have heard. Except now, you, the Church, have this new life of light and of love in you. Israel heard this command but they didn’t yet hold the baby, now it’s truth is in Him, who is now in you, in this new birth. You’ve been born again.

To Love one another is for the Church

And then John also says this is command is new “because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.” John is writing to this church that has been torn up by division and strife, and he has this message of hope. He saying, this command, to love one another as Christ did, is not like the old command, that we as broken men and women simply strove for. No, it a new command, because the love that bore it, the love that Christ has for us is actually in us now. Jesus is here, in our midst, making all things new. The light of God’s love is shining, and the darkness is passing.

As well, John offers a correction, some words to help clarify the situation and the unrest faced in the church. You can imagine the kind of pain of confusion a community faces when a major fight like this breaks out, and divides the community. John helps to give them a category for what they just experienced. “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness.” The truth of the new command, to love one another, shines like a light in you and through Jesus who is in you. The darkness is passing, but it’s not gone just yet.

By saying this, John can accomplish two things here. On the one hand, he’s giving a category for this group that split off that caused the fight and the division. Those people acted with hate towards their brothers and sisters of the faith. Notice how, at least here, John is not even concerned with the theological issues. No no, this was not just some differing opinions between christians. This group actively held hate and contempt in their hearts for their fellow christians, and that’s what was wrong! Isn’t that interesting? John is not just addressing the errors that this group made, it wasn’t just that they had bad theology, it wasn’t just that they were mistaken in how they were reading the bible. Actually, the problems started because their hearts were in the dark.

But also notice how the way he phrases this correction is addressed to anyone who hates their brothers and sister. I think that John is sensitive to know that there is no such thing as a clean break in a church fight. And that darkness, this old spirit of hate in our hearts gets to everyone. This darkness that manifests as hate toward your brother and sister, it’s not of Christ who lives in you. And it gets to you, this darkness. It blinds you, it makes you miss out on what matters. That’s where all the problems start.

John writes that the darkness is passing. This new command to love one another as Christ did is seen in Christ in us, but there is still darkness, and John wants us to be aware of it, so that it can’t blind us, and blind our church.

In contrast to this darkness, the new command of love shines like the love for a newborn child. But even that love in this world is so often a tragic love. Because the darkness is not gone yet. The love for a newborn child is so often threatened by death, by illness, by infertility, by neglectful parents. This is why this first letter of John is bookended by a look forward into eternal life. He says in chapter one verse 5 that “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” And as well, this is the same John who in Revelation looks forward to a future where “God’s dwelling place [will be] among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Friends, part of what makes the new love of a newborn child so special is that despite the darkness it shines God’s light, to us has the aroma of the Kindgdom of Light. That love, just like the love for one another that we find true in Jesus in us call us forth out of the darkness, stepping into the light that is coming soon.

To Love one another is for the World and Conclusion

In this letter John is nurturing a church that has been experiencing this darkness. He’s rooted this whole letter in Jesus’ command to love one another. John is saying let this be true among the brothers and sisters in the church, but ofcourse the command to love from Jesus doesn’t stop there. Matthew 5:43–48 ““You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. . . For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?” This light that we walk in in this new birth is not to be hidden under a bowl.

John is concerned for the health of this church, because this light of God that he refers to is meant to shine outwards! This new command love, fragrant of the Kingdom of God, just like the love for a newborn baby, is seen in us like a light on a hill. John wants this church to be healthy, to be rich in love for one another so that it’s sparkles with the light of Christ, drawing the world into that light as well.

So let’s hear this: let the command to love one another be new in Jennings Creek Christian Reformed Church. And let us lean on, and be nourished through prayer to the God who lives and shines in us. Let it be even aparent in our disagreements! Let hate that comes from blind darkness be cast out by the light of him, that even we do work out differences, or correct eachother, that this be done in the context of brotherly love. And beyond that, when we come up against those who to us seem like enemies of the gospel, even to those who persecute us, we have brotherly love still. Let us gain a profound sense of the newness of this command of the example of Jesus, who made himself a servant to his disciples, and died for those who persecuted him.

I’m told that the love that is found for a newborn child awakens in us new bounds of love that we would not imagine possible. Let’s pray that God would likewise have us see the light of love that is born new in us by his Spirit in us.