Easter: Facts and Fiction 1
What Do You Mean "is"?
1 John 4:7-12
“God is love” is probably one of the first things we learn in Sunday School about faith. It is such a mainstay of Christian conversation that we can easily slide over the phrase without too much thought. We are sure we know what it means.
A young city woman was visiting in the country and became friendly with a farmer. One evening as they were strolling through a pasture, they saw a cow and calf rubbing noses affectionately. “Ah,” said the young man, “that makes me want to do the same thing.” “Really,” said the young woman, “Well, go ahead, it’s your cow.”
We don’t always know what it means when we talk about love so this letter of 1 John gives us some insight.
Beloved – Usually translated as “those who are loved,” but it could just as easily be translated as “those who embody love.” Each verse in this section of 1 John builds upon the previous and then expands its meaning. (re-read verses 7-12) Love, for this Johannine church, is not some ethereal concept – it is a transformative experience. We don’t simply receive God’s love, we become God’s love. How do you know you are loved by God? By how you love others.
God’s love was revealed historically in Jesus of Nazareth. For this writer, “Love” is used similarly to how “Word” is used in the first chapter of the gospel of John. It is timeless, pre-eminent, unrelenting and creative. It calls forth from us the same desire to create love, to embody love, to live love.
This love offers salvation in the fullest sense of the world. The word “salvation” means “wholeness.” To be “saved” is to be made whole so it is a process. We are in the process of being made more whole the more we allow love to embody who we are. If you want to know to what extent you are saved, 1 John tells us – simply determine to what extent love embodies everything you do. Do you let hateful actions come from your life? Then there’s still some transformation that needs to happen. Do you let gossipy talk belittle others? Then there’s still some transformation that needs to happen. Do you let old prejudices continue to hold sway over you? Then… you get the picture.
The writer of 1 John comes back again and again to the pivotal theological assertion that we often reduce into a quaint truism. God is love. This statement is actually much more profound. The very act of loving expresses the presence of God. The experience of love is witness of God. Think about it. What happens in you when you love? Besides the tingly part! We find ourselves connecting, empathizing, bridging gaps, overcoming pain, comforting losses, communicating, baring our souls, putting another’s interest ahead of our own at times. All of those experiences are the reality we call “God.” No one has seen God, 1 John tells us because God is not a physical reality just like love is not a physical reality. We can have physical response to the experience of love and praise God that we can! Still, the reality of the experience is intangible. There are no green strands that pop out and connect you to the other person. There are no pink heart-shaped bubbles that start gathering around your head. Some people get a glassy-eyed stare but that’s being in heat, not in love!
Yes, when you are in love, you know you are different. Your world is different. You see things differently. It is the same when we know we are in God’s presence. We are “in God” the same ways we are “in love” because God is love. God doesn’t have to be some supreme being sitting on a throne in the clouds. God is a reality and that reality is experienced and expressed among human beings through what we usually call love.
It is not that God is love and you better obey all the rules or you will be punished. No, that would miss the point. The punishment is that if you miss out on an opportunity to experience love, you miss something wonderfully amazing. We punish ourselves by removing ourselves from those experiences and opportunities to be transformed by love. Jesus wasn’t the atoning sacrifice because God was disgusted with human beings. Jesus’ sacrifice of himself demonstrated that love means living the truth even when the powers that be don’t like that truth. Jesus didn’t back away from healing and loving and restoring simply because it made a lot of religious and powerful people uncomfortable. He perfected the love of God in his actions, his life, and his choices.
Did you catch the last part of that statement from 1 John? “If we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us.” You see, by participating in loving activities, you actually increase the presence of God in the world – God’s love is perfected in us. To be perfect is to be complete.
Joan Borysenko, (in her book Guilt is the Teacher, Love is the Lesson), talks about watching Mother Teresa in a documentary film about her work. When asked why she bothers to care for children who will soon die anyway, Mother Teresa replies simply that love is the birthright of every person. It’s what we’re all here on earth for. One part of the film shows Mother Teresa caring for a severely handicapped child who is dying of malnutrition. His wasted face and limbs are contorted in pain and fear. Mother Teresa holds him with great tenderness, smiling her love into his frightened eyes. Within minutes, the child’s limbs begin to relax, and his face is full of peace. The child in him, temporarily asleep, is reawakened by her love. Borysenko says, “Watching that sequence, I found it easy to see that unconditional love – given to us simply because we are – completes the circuit that connects us to life.”
The praise team is going to come and lead us in a song called “My Life is in You, Lord” and we will receive our offerings. Praising with all of our life, our strength and all of our hope is simply a way to express the love we have received from God and that we hope to embody in how we live our lives before others.
Sources:
www.homileticsonline.com Twisted Truth, May 2000.
Borysenko, Joan: Guilt is the Teacher, Love is the Lesson (New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1990), p. 51.