Easter 5
May 2, 2021
Beloved, let
us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of
God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is
love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son
into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not
that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning
sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought
to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God
lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we
abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
And we have
seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the
world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and
they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for
us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in
them.
Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or 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 we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
In case you wondered where it is, this is the real “love” chapter of the Bible. Paul may have given us the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. But John gives us the fourth chapter of his first letter. And there’s a lot more love than Paul’s famous chapter thirteen.
John
mentions “love” 29 times in 15 verses, That’s a lot. Every couple of words, he
is ringing the bell. Love, love, love. A greeting card for an anniversary would
be much more modest. When two lovers whisper to one another, they don’t overuse
the word. There’s so much love here, where do we start?
Love is a big word with a wide embrace. It encompasses so many things: the consuming of another, the expression of pleasure, an interpersonal bond, a magnetic attraction, a burning emotion, and a long-term commitment. Love means all these things, hopes these things, believes these things.
But when we hear John sing about it, we are only scratching the surface. He can’t stop talking about love because he can’t stop talking about God. Did you notice that? 29 times he speaks of love in this text, 22 times he speaks of God. If you add the five references to Jesus and the Spirit, that makes twenty-seven times. Add up the pronouns, it’s even more. Apparently John cannot talk about love without talking about God.
Second, God is the essence of love: "God is love." Notice the writer doesn't say, "Love is God." Otherwise we would think that every pleasant feeling is holy and that simply isn't true. No, John declares, "God is love." That is, "all God's activity is loving activity."[1] If there is anything we need to know about God, it is that God is been inclined in the world’s favor. Our Maker created us in joy. In Christ we are redeemed in delight. Everything the Holy Spirit does for the world is in the world's best interest. That's how God is, and it defines the word: love is acting in the best interest of your Beloved.
Third, when we love, it is because God is at work in our lives. As John puts it, when we love one another, it is because "God lives in us." If God plants the seed within us, it is up to us to nurture the seed and harvest its fruit. If God gives us the capacity to love, we either use it or risk losing it. In God’s economy, gifts are given to be used and shared. This is how the gift is enlarged.
So that’s a quick summary of some high points from chapter 4. John can't talk about love without also talking about God. He never tells us what love is. He simply points to God and says, "You will know what love is."
But in the thick of all these lofty thoughts, there is a pebble in the oatmeal. He says something else, something we never talk about. And is the phrase that catches my ear: “There is no fear in love.” Let that sink in for a bit.
No fear in love. Love is fear-less. Love and fear cannot co-exist. You cannot love completely if you are afraid.
Hmm… how did he know? How did old John know about the boyfriend who was never invited to the family dinner table? Was she nervous? Not ready for that big step? Afraid of what her brother might say? Anxious about the parents’ approval? After all, he gave her an engagement ring, she said yes, but she hides the ring and hasn’t told anybody yet? Sounds like John is onto something: love and fear cannot co-exist.
Or remember that office romance. Everybody could see it blossom, one flower petal at a time. He was wounded by the experience of losing his wife, now raising a young daughter alone. She never had much luck in her brief romances; the guys weren’t sincere. Since she was so pretty, they assumed there was little substance. And he was different. He listened, he laughed, he took her seriously. They had so much in common. Yet did they have cold feet? He said, “I’m afraid of what my daughter will think.” And she didn’t want to get hurt again. The possibility of love was frozen by fear.
And John is talking about something more than romance. He’s talking about all the ways we regard one another, all the ways we treat one another.
That man who just put a new lock on his door – why did he do that? Why does he have a room full of guns? Did he buy them because he was feeling love? Or was he feeling something else?
Or that nice, pleasant lady wearing the yellow blouse. Did you notice she cannot make eye contact with someone who is black, or someone who is Hispanic, or someone from India? Why do you suppose that is? It could be that fear is all she can feel. It has filled her up. There’s no room for anything else. No room for love.
I think old John’s on to something here. In proper Bible language, he declares, “Whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” Oh yes, he’s properly correct about that. John knows what we do: we stick to the people we know. We resist having our circle enlarged. We don’t want our equilibrium off-center. And we don’t like falling out of control. Fear goes by a lot of names. And fear can freeze us into place.
And yet: there is really no way to shut out God. Not totally. Not when God’s very essence is love. That reminds me of a story.
You have heard me quote Frederick Buechner many times over the years. Presbyterian minister, prize-winning author, insightful sage, he’s well into his nineties now. He tells about a dark time when one of his daughters was hospitalized for anorexia. She had lost a lot of weight. The authorities agreed she was a danger to herself, so they signed the papers to have her hospitalized against her will. She was three thousand miles from home and her father was terrified.
The whole family had seen the illness develop. It came steadily and none of them could stop it. It began with nothing for breakfast, maybe a carrot or Diet Coke for lunch, a salad with lo-cal dressing for dinner. Fred hovered with concern. “You have to eat,” he insisted. “Here, let us fix a meal for you,” and so on. None of his attempts had worked, and now she was institutionalized on the other side of the country.
He was a preacher. He knew the words of 1 John, chapter 4: “Perfect love casts out fear.” But the other side of that verse, he writes, “is that fear like mine casts out love, even God’s love. The love I had for my daughter was lost in the anxiety I had for my daughter. The only way I knew to be a father was to take care of her, as my father had been unable to take care of me.”
It was her hospitalization, far from his ability to control the outcome, that eventually saved her. “I was not there to protect her, to make her decisions, to manipulate events on her behalf, and the result was that she had to face those events on her own. (The doctors, nurses, social workers around her) were not haggard, dithering, lovesick as I was. They were realistic, tough, conscientious, and in those ways, loved her in a sense that I believe is closer to what Jesus means by love than what I have been doing.”[2]
This is how God loves us, he concludes. Always present, rarely overpowering us. Working for our well-being even when we fight against it. Staying with us in the hush and the worry and waiting for us to wake from the bad dreams of independence and isolation. And in the end, God-in-Christ proclaims the fullness of the Gospel in just two words: “Fear not.”
Ever since, we have received a choice: love or fear. Fear or love. They cannot co-exist. God is love, God is not punishment. God is grace, God is not interested in dis-grace. God is light, says this poet John, and there is no darkness in his power. Only light, lots and lots of light. In that light we are seen completely, known completely, forgiven completely, loved completely. This is the Good News we have received; our part is to wait on it.
So repeat the words over and over: Love, love, love. God, God, God. There is nothing else. Sometimes we have to get to the brink of losing everything else in order to discover we have been given everything we need. God and Love; and God is Love.
Don’t be afraid.
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