1st John 5.1-6; John 15.9-17
During the last weeks, our scripture readings have examined a single biblical theme over and over: the love of God in Jesus for us and our abiding in that love. Like a jeweler examining facets of a gem, the readings from the Gospel of John and the letter of 1st John have looked at the various angles of God’s love in Jesus Christ and what a life-changing gift it is. It makes us who we are. We are, 1st John says today, “born of God.” And elsewhere, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.” Born of God, children of God—the life and love of Jesus given for our life, gives meaning and direction to our life. “This is my commandment,” Jesus says today, “that you love one another as I have loved you.”
New today, then, in our examination of the facets of life and love in God, Jesus says that his love and life make us his friends and stir up joy within us. “That my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” The purpose of Jesus’ ministry, teaching, and life is not merely to do astonishing things for us to look at and observe but to give joy for us to share in and delight in. Joy is at the heart of a life of faith as Jesus abides in us and we in him. “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”
Joy, at least the biblical sense of it, is more than pleasure or happiness. It’s quieter, the ability to find assurance and peace in God. Happiness comes and goes, is fleeting—something to savor to be sure, but it changes with the moment. Joy endures. Joy grows from the trust that your life is caught up in something greater than yourself and that, in and through all things, God is faithful and will not let you go.
The name of this worship service, ‘Eucharist,’ comes from the same family of biblical words that Jesus uses when he says that his joy will be in you. In the sacrament of Jesus’ body and blood we receive forgiveness of sins and faith renewed, Jesus’ life given and received in joy.
Joy, in the biblical sense, doesn’t deny the hard times of life. And it doesn’t mean that don’t lament when our body suffers, our spirits hurt, or we are afraid. We all go through difficult times when happiness and pleasure feel artificial, hollow, or simply aren’t there at all. This is true for people in the Bible, too. St Paul wrote many of his letters from prison, suffered from chronic health issues, wrote to churches that were often divided and conflicted and caused him all sorts of sorrow. Yet even in his suffering, and as he writes to those churches, he calls Christians back to the heart of faith in Christ. “I wish you joy in the Lord always.” And in another place, “The kingdom of God is justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
What other response could there be but joy when we hear Jesus say, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you”? Can that really be true? That the voice that spoke the fullness of heaven’s love at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my Son, the beloved,” is now spoken by Jesus over us; that Jesus’ love for you is as deep and endless as God the Father’s love for the Son. Joy.
From Jesus’ deep well of love and joy then, Jesus makes us his friends. “I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” In the Old Testament, God called Abraham his friend. Moses too, is spoken of as God’s friend. And in the book of Wisdom, where wisdom is pictured and personified as a consort and companion of God, we read, “In every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God.” To be called friends of God is astonishing. It joins us to the company of Old Testament greats like Abraham and Moses with the wisdom of God permeating our lives. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you…I have called you friends.”
Bishop Robert Barron, writing on today’s gospel, reminds us that a true friend is someone who has seen us at our worst and still loves us. “If you have encountered me only on my best days, when all is going well and I am in top form—and you like me—I have no guarantee you are my friend. But if you have dealt with me when I am most obnoxious, most self-absorbed, most afraid and unpleasant, and you still love me, then I am sure that you are my friend.
The old gospel song sings, ‘What a friend we have in Jesus!’ This is not pious sentimentalism; it is the heart of the matter. What the first Christians saw in the dying and rising of Jesus is that humanity at its worst killed the Son of God, yet God responded not with hatred but forgiveness and love. We “murdered the Author of life,” says St Peter in a sermon in Acts, yet God raised Jesus to new life for us. Jesus sees us at our very worst and loves us. The first Christians realized that when the Son of God laid down his life for us, we have not only been shown a new way; we have been drawn into a new life—a life of friendship with God.
Caught up in this larger story of God’s love for us, trusting that Jesus has called us friends, we are meant to be—we are created to be—people of joy: “That my joy may be in you and that your joy may be [full and] complete.” Out of Jesus’ joy for us and his friendship with us, his love is meant to be lived out through us, our grateful response of love and joy given to people around us: meaning and direction for our lives. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down own life for one’s friends.”
Now we should probably confess the challenge in this: to love one another as Jesus loves us; to lay down our lives for others. It’s hard enough to lay down our cell phone for the person next to us, to say nothing of laying down our lives. This is a challenge because there are times when our heart of love is constricted, when we aren’t very loving; times, too, when not everyone that Jesus loves is loveable to us. Dale Bruner notes that human beings are mysterious creatures and not always easy to have a heart for; and that we ourselves are complex creatures, and not always easy to find a heart in.
Yet the strength and grace to live the command to love one another is given in Jesus’ own love for us. “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit.” The command to love is given by the one who himself has done everything love can do. Like a parent who loves a child and creates a world where that child is free to love in return, Jesus’ self-giving love creates a world where our lives can respond to, and reflect, his love first given us. Echoing Jesus in the Gospel of John, the letter of 1st John says, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”
When we look into the face of the crucified and risen Jesus, we see the face of God who loved the world so much as to give the only Son, not to condemn but to save and give life. In response, we can look into the face of another, see the love that Jesus has for them, and have a heart for them that comes from Christ. “As I have loved you, love one another.” This love of God is the source of joy that endures all things because it is anchored in a deep and abiding trust in Jesus, the Son of God.
Today, love, joy and friendship in Jesus come together to give meaning and direction to our life. Five hundred years ago, a man named Erasmus said, “In the midst of a non-Christian world we must first be Christians.” Now I don’t know much about what Erasmus’ world was like that would lead him to describe it as ‘non-Christian,’ but I know what our world is like; so do you. “In the midst of a non-Christian world we must first be Christians.” In Jesus the Son of God, our calling is to be people who love others as Christ loved us, to have a heart for one another out of Jesus’ heart of love making us his friends.
This is our faith, a trust that 1st John today says will ‘conquer the world’—not in the way of triumph but in a way that leads us through the world and its challenges and with God-given direction, a faith that endures because its source is the love of God first given us. And in this faith, we will find that Christ, who makes us his friends, does the very thing he promises: “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
Write a comment: