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Will you pray with me? O grant that nothing in my soul may dwell, but thy pure love alone. O may thy love possess me whole, my joy, my treasure, and my crown. All coldness from my heart remove. By every act, word, thought, be love. In the name of Jesus, amen.
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading and the second reading, or the Epistle, John’s commentary, really, on what Jesus speaks about in this morning’s Gospel. This morning’s Gospel reading has really nothing to do with the post-resurrection. In other words, it’s not a historical account of what happened after Jesus rose from the dead. But! But! This morning’s Gospel reading does have a connection in a very profound way.
You see, remember that what Jesus did in his post-resurrection appearance to Peter by the Sea of Galilee, when he asked Peter, “Do you love me?” And Peter said, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus responds, “Feed my lambs” and “feed my sheep.” In fact, he does it three times. Three times he asks Peter, who denied him three times. He asks Peter, and Peter is answering for the other apostles that are there gathered, “Do you love me?” Peter responds, “Yes.” And Jesus tells him, “Express that love. Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs.”
In this morning’s Gospel reading, which happened the night that Jesus was betrayed, in fact, his words came right after he had washed the disciples’ feet in the upper room. Jesus’ words to the apostles that were gathered there were these, after he had washed their feet: “Do you understand what I have done for you?” Crickets, crickets, crickets, exactly. They were kind of trying to grasp all this. Then he says, “Do as I have done to you.” That is so very, very similar to Jesus talking to Peter: “Do you love me? Feed my lambs. Do that then.”
Now, the other aspect of this is you have to remember who was the one when he went around to wash feet that said, “Oh, not just my feet, but my head and my body as well.” Do you remember? Peter. The same one who said, “I would never deny you.” The same one that he said, “Feed my lambs.” Jesus in this text is telling his children. In fact, he calls them that—little children. It’s one of the few times that Jesus ever says that term to his apostles: little children.
Do you know who picks up that same theme? John in his epistle. A few chapters before this, at the beginning of chapter 3 in the epistle of 1 John. John calls his fellow believers little children. Now, what does this all have to do? I hope you can see the obvious answer.
The obvious part of this text in the Gospel reading is the latter part of it when Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. And by this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.”
Now, the interesting aspect of this love is the fact that we don’t always respond to it the same way each time, do we? You see, when God loves you—and he does it to you here in this place—every time you gather here, he comes and does love to you. He preaches to you. He reads to you. He sings with you. He gives you his flesh and blood, life and love incarnate. He does love to you here, not just in words, but in action. Does he do love to you?
But your experience is mine. When you love another person, sometimes they don’t always receive your love as love, do they? Because sometimes they don’t always feel worthy of your love, do they? Sometimes when someone loves you in a very self-serving, no, no, no, no. When someone loves you in a sacrificial way, the way Christ loves you, it’s very humbling, isn’t it? And it’s hard for you to accept that kind of love because you don’t feel…
You see, ever since man pulled away from God, you and I, as human beings, have this propensity, because of sin, to be very independent of one another. To think only of ourselves. Come on, let’s be honest. And in that independence, we also at the same time crave relationships with other people. And more importantly, relationship with our Creator, the one that Adam and Eve broke in the garden.
And yet in that relationship with other people and with our Creator, who do we think of more? Ourself. And which love truly humbles us? The love that we know we should get because we deserve it? Or the love that we receive because we don’t deserve it? Which love causes you to be humbled more? The latter. The love that you have done to you in spite of you.
When Peter was affirmed on that beach on the edge of Sea of Galilee, and Jesus asked him, “Do you love me?” and he said, “Yes,” three times. And Jesus said, “Then go and feed my sheep and feed my lambs.” Peter was affirmed, Peter knowing that he did not deserve such an affirmation.
You are being affirmed here and now because this is where God does his love to you. Here is where he proclaims in the hearing of your ears his great grace and mercy. Here is where you see, hear, and receive forgiveness: “I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And he also gives it to you in action when you eat his flesh and drink his blood with the bread and wine.
Now, this is a new commandment, he says. A new commandment. Now, you and I know that in the Old Testament, in Leviticus, Jesus—God speaks through Jesus then—and says, “You shall also love your neighbor as yourself.” For that matter, don’t think it’s only uniquely Christian to love one another. That’s not uniquely Christian. You know what is uniquely Christian? Just as I have loved you. That is uniquely Christian.
You know, unbelievers can love one another in a very profound way, but they do not love one another as Jesus has loved you. See, what sets us apart as a community is not that we love one another, but we love one another as God has loved us in Christ Jesus, which means…
Those times when you’ve been humbled and you’re not getting love because you feel like you deserve it or merited it, but because he is love. And that’s what he does to people like you and me. That’s what sets this community apart from the rest of the world.
Jesus was about to leave. In this text, he’s just moments away from being betrayed and ultimately crucified. And the disciples were all around him for that last moment, and then they scattered to the four winds, and he found them in their lostness gathered together, didn’t he? And he’s wanting to cement them together into a body that would sustain itself in the midst of persecution.
Remember, we talked about this in Bible class in the book of James, the epistle of James. We talked about the church was going through struggle, and when the church does go through outward persecution, typically the church then can turn in on itself and grumble about itself and bicker about things. What sets the body of Christ differently is because love is acted out in forgiveness.
What sets the body apart here is that confession is followed by absolution. Repentance is followed with forgiveness. Not because it’s deserved, but because it’s been done to you first and foremost. That’s why that phrase, “Just as I have loved you,” is the profound separation between the world and you and I here.
Just as I have loved you. And you know how we have had trouble loving other people because they don’t always want us to love them? And you think you’re lovable? You think you’re easy to love? That’s why Christ sacrificed himself to love you. That’s why Christ gave himself to love you. Because you and I aren’t so easy to love.
And let’s be very frank and honest, we don’t always return it in the manner that it’s given. So it’s not about our love. It’s about his love. Just as I have loved you. In fact, here’s where the epistle reading comes to play in this morning’s text.
John, in his epistle, is really commenting about what Jesus said in this John 13. Can I prove it? No. But when you begin to re-remind yourselves of what he has written, you can’t help but think it. He begins, “This is his commandment, that you believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another. Whoever keeps his commandment abides in him and he in them.” He goes on a little bit later, “Love is from God. So then therefore, since love is from God, let us love one another. Whoever does love has been born of God and knows God.”
And then two climactic statements: “In this is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, let us also love one another.”
Let us also love one another. God knows very clearly that the church is not an idyllic utopia full of teddy bears and cotton candy clouds. No different than your marriage isn’t. Your family isn’t. Your relationship with your children isn’t. Is it? If it’s not in those relationships, you’re not going to find it in a church. Because the church is made up of the same people who don’t have it in their own marriages, who don’t have it in their own families, who don’t have it with their children or with their parents.
And that’s what makes this community unique because each Sunday we confess His love for us. We don’t talk about our love for Him. We talk about His love for us. We revel in it. We savor it. We rejoice at it because it’s all we have. Then we can love one another.
What makes love love? Because the object is so desirable? Because the object is so beautiful? Because the object is so fulfilling for you? No, that is not what makes it love. What makes it love is you choose to do so. You commit to accomplishing it in spite of how that individual who gets your love reacts and responds. That’s God’s love.
That’s what John was getting at and ultimately what Jesus is getting at. Think about this. This is moments before he has to go to the garden and pray and drip sweat of blood from his forehead and not think about himself, but think about you. To think about you in the midst of what he should have by all sinfulness in this world and the temptation to dwell upon himself and his situation. He thinks about you. He looks after you. He wants you. That’s love.
That’s love. So yes, he knows that this community in which you’ve been knit, in which you have been bound, in which you have been transformed, this community is not idyllic utopia, teddy bears, and cotton candy clouds. It is real, fleshly. But it is as real and fleshly as that flesh, that forgiveness. That love that you eat and drink, the sacrifice and the propitiation for your sins, the very thing John wrote about. That’s what sets you and me apart in this world, in this community, from the world.
So do you remember when Jesus spoke to Peter and said, “Peter, do you love me?” Peter says, “Yes.” What was Jesus’ response? “Feed my sheep, feed my lambs.”
Notice, this is important: notice he did not say, “Feed the world.” Notice he did not say, “Feed the world.” When John writes what John writes, he says, “If anyone says I love God and hates his brother,” he does not say, “If anyone says I love God and hates another,” he is a liar. It’s “hates his brother.” What’s the point? Your love starts here with your fellow parishioner.
Your love for one another as Christ has loved you starts here with the people with whom you share the pew. Then it goes outward from this place. But it starts here. It’s engendered here. It’s cultivated here. Whether you wish to admit it or not, you’re bound to a body of Christ here. And the people with whom you have surrounded yourself, with whom you share the love feast of forgiveness, is the people that we begin to love first and foremost.
That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “brother.” That’s what he meant to Peter when he said, “Feed my lambs and sheep and not the world.” He’s not saying don’t love the other people. He says it starts here.
And sometimes to love those closest to you is the hardest, isn’t it? Because you have a long-term relationship with them. Short-term relationships are easy. You’re in and out. There’s no long-term connection. Long-term relationship, like marriage and family, is a lot harder.
And that’s what this family of God is. A long-term relationship. It’s where we learn. It’s kind of like our nursery. We learn how to love here so that we can go outside and love. Because here’s the only place where you will hear, “Just as I have loved you.” You won’t hear it out there. This is the nursery where you hear it. And that’s the things that stick with you till the day you die. The things you hear again and again and again.
In the name of him who on the cross in the empty tomb gave love to the world… In the name of him who does and did love to you right now, Jesus the same. In the name of him who bound us together as brothers and sisters in Christ. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
