God Is Love
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Now, as you may have heard on Sunday, and even if you didn't, this is one of the readings that Kari and I chose for our wedding. And we stood up in front of God and the assembled crowd of three hundred people, and listened to those words. And we thought that it was all very nice. But in the case of love being someone's religion, and God being love, what does all that mean? Because if you scratch the surface, it's not all that clear what it means to say that love is your religion. Because you probably don't know what love is. What is love? That joke needed a little more mileage.
So, what is love? Well, in the case of 1 John, it's the sort of agape love. It's one of the verbs for love that occurs in the New Testament in Greek, the sort of thing that doesn't really translate real well over into english. But there it is, large as life, telling us that we are supposed to love one another. We picked that reading for our wedding, but it doesn't limit the issue to married couples. It talks about how we who are Christians, who will be known by our love, how we ought to love one another. For God is love. And his love was shown in this way: That he laid down his life for us.
The New Testament, in the book of John, records Jesus saying in chapter fifteen:
"Greater love has no one than this: That he lay down his life
for his friends."
That is love. That you sacrifice yourself for others. Your friends, your family, your spouse, other people who happen to be around, whatever. When it says that we should love each other, this is what it means, laying down your life for your friends. Now, many of us may meditate on this issue and say 'okay, I will lay down my life for my friends if the issue comes up. If the time comes for me to lay down my life, I will be prepared to.' My answer is, and always has been, 'really?'
Another classic wedding passage is from first Corinthians:
13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
If this is your religion, I have some bad news for you. You don't do it very well. It's just another religion of the law. It's just another religion that tells you a code of ethics to do, and that's that. It tells you that if your love be sincere, it will be patient, and kind and bear all things, and always trust and always hope. Looking at my own relationship, I'm a pretty cool guy. But I'm also a pill. I love my wife, but I'm not always patient and kind, I'm not always sweet and nice, and I'm not always ready to bear all things and endure all things. Sometimes, I'm a bit of a pill, who doesn't like to be told what to do. And if that's my religion, and I'm honest with myself, then all it'll do is tell me how I fail.
But love isn't my religion. Or maybe it is. If God is love, then maybe love is my religion. If the greatest love of all is for someone to lay down their lives for their friends, then I can either think about how I don't do it, and don't plan to really sincerely start, or I can pretend I do that on a regular basis, or, or, I can be thankful that this was exactly the sort of love that Jesus showed to me, and to everyone else. The thing I'm bad at doing, both in my marriage and everywhere else, is what Jesus did for me. And curiously enough, that makes me a better husband, and a better father. And it strengthens my relationships. How? Because built into the whole system is the idea that you will fail at your ideals. You will miss the mark that you set for yourself. And in this, we have the wonderful glue that holds the marriage, the relationship, the friendships, the everything together. Forgiveness. You will fail, you can be forgiven. It's the getting of this into your head that is both difficult, and also rewarding. Greater love has no man than this, that he lays down his life for his friends. We, imperfect though we are, are friends of Christ, part of his body, forgiven and redeemed children of God. So beloved, let us love one another.
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