Christ’s Promising Word

Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 10, 2009
Love One Another
1 John 4:7-21

Alleluia! Christ is Risen. He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

Love to See the Love

It has been my great joy these last few weeks to meet with a whole bunch of couples in order to plan weddings and baptisms. And I love to see the love. That’s what I enjoy the most about being a pastor. I love to see the love.

It was a thrill a week ago last Saturday to go over to Sue’s home and see her daughter Sarah and Sarah’s husband, Alex, interact with their newborn son, their first child, Timothy. I love to see the love.

And it is a joy to see Brian and Nichole with Lucas. And Ralph and Jennie with Thomas. They were the stars last week. And now today it’s Lee & Valerie with their firstborn, Wyatt. These are all great loving parents. Who, in turn, had great loving parents.

And it has been a treat to meet with about a half a dozen couples who are preparing for weddings this summer and fall to see their excellent relationship skills and joy and happiness. I love to see the love.

The Pain of Righteous Indignation

But then I come across something that is disturbing. As I have couples share and reflect on their family backgrounds, I begin to see the tensions that are there. The wounds. The griefs. The sorrows.

Every family has them. The tensions between mom and dad…and the kids…and siblings. And some of them are still felt painfully and bitterly…even on a Mother’s Day.

We hate them…we hate him…we hate her…because they first wounded and hated us. And let me tell you, there is no greater destructive force in the universe than “righteous indignation.” Not only to be angry. That is painful and powerful enough. But also to be “right” in our anger. To be “justified” in it.

What do you think is tearing people apart in the Middle East? It is “righteous indignation.” People who have been hurt and wounded. (And they have.) And who now think that they are “justified” in striking back with God’s own righteous anger. And who can tell where it all started…much less when it will all end?

We can trace it all back to the very beginning when Cain killed his brother Abel out of what Cain thought was “righteous indignation.” And that can happen in any family. Endless cycles of hurt, hate and getting even. “We hate others because…because…because they first hated us.”

Jesus Breaks the Pattern

But thank God that God sent his son Jesus to establish another pattern. “We love because God first loved us.” “In this is love, not that we loved God” (for we have our issues with God too! Why God, oh why, did you allow it all to happen?) “BUT that God loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

It isn’t only that Jesus forgives us all our sins. Although that is good and wonderful enough. And many of us would be satisfied with just that. That Jesus forgives us all our sins.

But Jesus does more than just forgive us all our sins. Jesus breaks the cycle of “righteous indignation” by giving forgiveness precisely where it is NOT deserved. “While we were still sinners Christ died for us,” the Bible tells us.

And if we let it, that can change us. For no longer is it “We hate others because they first hated us.” Rather it is, “We love others because God first loved us.”

A New Commandment on the Night of His Last Supper

That’s why three terrific young women—Elizabeth Ellis, Lilly Lyons, and Ashley Olszewski—are so eager to make their first communion today. They can tell you.

On the night of his Last Supper Jesus takes the bread and wine in hand and pours out his great love for us. And Jesus says, “Take eat, this is my body given for you. Take drink, this is my blood poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you eat and drink of it in remembrance of me.”

And then Jesus says one more thing, “A new commandment I give you. That you love one another as I have loved you.”

And doesn’t that sound exactly like what we hear from First John this morning? “We love because he first loved us.” “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brother and sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment that we have from God is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also” with that same self-sacrificial love.

God’s Love Seen in Christian Mothers

And probably where we see it best—that agape (God-given, Christ-enabled, self-sacrificial love)—is in our Christian mothers. Motherly love is probably the closest thing to what Jesus commanded and envisioned here on earth.

Moms bear the hurts, endure the sassy back-talk, keep on doing their everyday loving and dishing out their daily sacrifices, even when there are not many rewards or “Thank you’s!” in it.

Moms are probably the best at embodying the kind of love that Jesus has for us and making it real, concrete and alive. And for that we thank them very, very much.

And I can see the families where that kind of love takes hold and gets passed down from generation to generation. And that brings me great joy and happiness. I love to see the love.

Do you see it? Do you feel it?

We love because God first loved us.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen. He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

© 2009 Pastor Paul Jaster

Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 3, 2009
Love Acts
1 John 3:16-24

Alleluia! Christ is Risen. He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

Love is Tangible and Real

Just ask any parent here. Ask Brian & Nicole or ask Jennie & Ralph. Love is real. Love is concrete. Love acts! Love does touchable, physical things.

You can’t bring a baby into the world, put that infant on shelf and never lovingly touch that infant again. Well you could, but that child wouldn’t last very long. Can you even imagine giving birth to a baby but never holding, never hugging him or her?

Go to Google and type in three words—monkeys touch deprivation—and you will discover the ever since the early 1950s studies show that infant monkeys who are properly cared for, fed and nourished BUT who are also deprived of their parent’s touch develop poorly. In fact, given a choice between food and touch, the infant monkeys consistently chose touch.

Love is real. Love is physical and concrete. Love acts! Love does touchable, tangible things.

Jesus is the Love of God Made Visible

Have you noticed through the Easter season how the Risen Jesus does touchable, tangible things? Jesus has his disciples touch his hands and feet. Jesus tells Thomas to put his finger in the mark of the nails and to put his hand in gash made by the spear in his side.

When God loved the world, God did not send an angel or send another messenger like Moses. God did not stand at a far distance and shout out across the universe “I love you.” God sent his only son. God got his hands dirty in the human situation. God became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth.

And God got his hands dirty in the human situation.

He ate and drank with sinners to say loud and clear that God loved them—a message we continue to say loud and clear through the weekly meal of Holy Communion.

And Jesus laid his hands on those who were ill and he touched them. He physically touched them*mdash;even the lepers whom many treated like they had swine flu.

And Jesus stepped into the waters of the Jordan river to be drenched with a baptism for the forgiveness of sin—a practice we continue in Holy Baptism.

John says it so clearly in the Gospel that we hear today: “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd…runs away because he does not love, he does not care for the sheep.” Love acts! Love is real. Love is concrete.

Jesus is the love of God made visible. That is what the disciple John hammers home is his first letter. It’s all about the love of God. Jesus is the love of God made visible.

The Love of God Seeks to Make us Lovers, too

And that love of God calls us to be lovers, too, whose actions are clear and whose motivations are made visible to the world.

The baptisms of Lucas and Thomas this morning make me think back to my own daughter and her early years and to all the “surprises” that came with being a brand new parent. And if you want to have some surprises, just have a child. It will change the way you look at the world.

And one of the biggest surprises that I had as a parent had to deal with touch. I thought that all infant children were just naturally huggy, cuddly and kissy with their parents. I thought that all infant children just naturally took to their mother’s breast and clung to their parents right away.

But, no. Kick and scratch and bite and poop and poop and poop. That’s what babies do naturally. You have to teach those little buggers how to love. And the way we learn to love is by being loved in real, visible, concrete ways.

And what Christians believe and teach and confess is that it all begins with God. God is love. And we love because God first loved us—not just in word and speech, but in deed and action. In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

It is as we said last week, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”

Changed by Baptism

And nothing shows that better than Holy Baptism. The love of God is what is poured out on us through water and the Spirit so that we might become the loving children of God, too. Children of God who make the love of God visible, real and concrete through tangible deeds and actions.

Preparing for the baptisms that we have today, Ralph and Jennie shared with me a daily experience they are having with Thomas which is very similar to the experience that Laurie and I had with our own daughter when she was Thomas’s age.

Every night around 7:30 P.M. Thomas starts to get fussy, whiney and cranky. He is tired. And he is stinky. And he is agitated from all the stresses of the day. But then Jennie and Ralph give him a bath. Thomas just loves his bath. And from those waters there emerges a peaceful, loving, calm, sweet-smelling child that just wants to melt into his parents’ arms.

And what a great picture this is of the very change that our baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus makes in us.

Without Jesus we are nothing more than just a bunch of whiny, stinky, fussy sinners focused on ourselves. But through our baptism we emerge as calm, peaceful, sweet-smelling children of God who seek to do the Father’s will by believing in Jesus and loving others in his name.

God’s Work, Our Hands

In the ELCA we have a saying: “God’s work. Our hands.”

It is our way of saying that all love begins with God. It all beings with God. But it continues through the very real and tangible things that we do.

Love acts! Love is real and concrete. And it does very touchable and tangible things. And any parent can tell you that.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen. He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

© 2009 Pastor Paul Jaster