Third Sunday of Easter April 26, 2009 See what Love 1 John 3:1-7
Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
See Children of God
See Children of God
The word for today is “Look.” Look at what we are. Look at what Easter did to us. Look at what we have become because of the death and resurrection of Jesus
“See what love the Father has given us—that we should be called the children of God.”
It is just as Saint John said at the start of his great Gospel. “And the word became flesh and dwell among us full of grace and truth.” “And to all who receive him, who believe in his name he gave power. Power to become the children of God.” Born not of blood and flesh. But rather born of God.
Power-filled, spirit-led, grace-full, believing, trusting children of God. That is what we became because of Jesus and his death and resurrection. That’s what we are because of Easter. “Just look and see,” John says, “Just look and see.”
Whoa! Where Did That Come From?
But do we always look like it? Do we always look like the children of God? Do we always appear to the world like Jesus did—God’s true child?
Tell me if I am wrong, but I think there are days when every parent looks at their children in utter astonishment and amazement and says, “Whoa! Wait a minute. Where did that come from? I didn’t teach you that word. I didn’t model for you that behavior.”
And does God ever think that way about us. Does God ever look at us as though we are his wayward children? Does God ever say to us: “I didn’t teach you that word; I didn’t model for you that behavior”?
In his first letter, John is very kind to us…and gives us kids a bit of a pass. He says, “the reason that the world doesn’t recognize us as God’s children is because the world didn’t know Jesus as God’s son.” And certainly that is true.
But let’s be honest now. There are times when we don’t act like the children of God either or talk like them. And that is true, too.
We act like kids, yes, but whiney kids whose hearts and minds are persistently self-focused. Our wants. Our comforts. Our hopes. Our needs.
We don’t want what God demands: sacrificial giving, justice for the poor, creating a hospitable welcome to the stranger. We are not fully yet what God created us to be.
God See Us Through the Savior
That is precisely why we need a Savior. On the cross we see him. The love of God made flesh…dwelling among us…giving us the power and grace to become the children of God.
I love what our children did for us last week. And if you missed the children’s sermon last week, you missed a good one.
On one side of their hand we put a red mark to remind us of the wounds in Jesus’ hands and feet and side. And on the other side we put a heart to say that those wounds came out of the Father’s love for us. Two sides of the same hand: the wounds…the love. Reaching out to us to make us children too.
When God looks at us without Jesus all God sees is just a bunch of whiny kids. Spoiled brats. Rebellious children. God sees in us a whole host of things that God did not put there.
But, when God looks at through Jesus, it is completely different. First God looks at Jesus on the cross. And all that God sees is his obedient son saying, “Not my will, but thine be done” and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
And then God looks at those who cling to the coattails of Christ’s saving act in faith. Those receive him and believe in his name. And now all that God sees are children of his grace. Kids who look like Jesus, too.
Their sins stand in the way no longer. For God sees them as ones who have been marked and stamped with his son’s cross.
That’s why we Lutheran love infant baptism. We love it. We absolutely love it. Because there is nothing like an infant baptism to show that it all belongs to God and not to us.
It happens by God’s grace and not by our behavior and good works. See what love…see what love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God.
There is nothing like an infant baptism to show that that love does not depend on any work of ours. It all belongs to God. And get ready for infant baptism. We have bunch coming in the next two weeks.
We Know that We Are Sinners
Sometimes I hear people say, “I don’t believe in Christianity because those Christians are such hypocrites.” In fact I heard someone say that on TV last week.
But let me tell that there is no bigger hypocrite than that smug, self-righteous, sanctimonious person who stands apart from Jesus pointing at Christian hypocrites.
We Christians know that we are sinners. We know it. We don’t need somebody on TV to tell us that. In fact one of the first things we do every Sunday is to confess our sins. We confess that we are sinners.
And we say the very thing that Saint John said last week. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Those are hardly the words of a hypocrite, now are they? But we also know and say this, too: that “God is faithful and just. And if we confess our sins, God will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Forgiven Sinners Do Effective Ministry
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Food shipments to the poorest of the poor in Africa. Health services world wide and a Free Clinic in Lorain. Adoption services. Campus ministries. Hospital chaplaincy. Disaster relief. Camping ministries. Criminal reentry. The list goes on and on. These are ministries that we are involved and support through our mission dollars.
In fact this summer at our churchwide assembly in Minneapolis, ELCA Lutherans will have an opportunity to be part of an initiative to help wipe malaria off the face of the planet.
The largest foundation in the world, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, sought us ELCA Lutherans out to be their agents in delivering medical services in Africa. They sought us out because two church bodies have a reputation for delivering the goods where they are need. Us and the Methodists.
God’s Work. Our Hands
The point is this. The loving work of God is made visible through our hands. “Gods work. Our hands.” We become children of God who make the love of God visible just like Jesus did on the cross.
Maybe that might cost us some wounds. It did for Jesus. And we might get some scars and make many mistakes along the way. But through those wounds and efforts God’s love is made real and concrete.
Just look and see.“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God…and indeed that is what we are.”
Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
© 2009 Pastor Paul Jaster