Love One Another

The Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 5, 2024

John 15:9-17

“Love One Another”

A number of years ago, Reader’s Digest contained the following story: a teacher in an adult education creative writing class told her students to write “I love you” in 25 words or less without using the words “I love you.” She gave them fifteen minutes to do the assignment. One woman in the class spent about ten minutes looking at the ceiling and wriggling in her seat. The last five minutes she wrote frantically, and later read her results to the class: “Why, I’ve seen lots worse hairdos that that, honey.” “These cookies are hardly burned at all.” “Cuddle up – I’ll get your feet warm.” What would you write if you were given that assignment? We can learn a few things from the woman in that creative writing class. Genuine love includes our words as well as our actions. Genuine love means putting the best construction on everything and saying the charitable thing. Genuine love is self-giving and sacrificial. Jesus uses the word “love” some nine times in today’s Gospel lesson. He tells us: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love” (John 15:9), and “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). The sermon for today is based on Jesus’ words in the Gospel lesson under the theme “Love One Another.” May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake. 

We pick up today where we left off with last Sunday’s Gospel lesson (John 15:1-8). Last Sunday, we heard how Jesus is the true Vine and we are his branches, and how Jesus used the word “abide” (μένω) over and over again. He calls us to abide in him because apart from him, we can do nothing. And now today, it is the word “love” (άγάπη) that Jesus uses over and over again. We often view that word “love” through the rose-colored glasses of emotional romanticism. Is there more to it than this? Is being “in love” the same thing as “loving?” Right now, I’m working with two young couples engaged to be married. I’m helping them prepare not just for their wedding day, but for their life together as husband and wife. We talk about the difference between being “in love” and “loving.” I try to help them understand that loving one another becomes a conscious choice, a decision, that we make. The emotional high of being “in love” must give way to a more settled state of being that calls us to love one another, whether we feel like it or not. In the English language, we have a one-size-fits-all word for love, which we use to talk about everything we love. Not so in the original language of the New Testament, which is Greek. The word for love that Jesus uses here in today’s Gospel lesson is a specific word in the New Testament that differentiates God’s love from human love. In the original language of the New Testament, there is a specific word for love between family members (στοργή), another word for love between friends (ϕιλία), another word for physical or sensual love (ἔρως), and another word for obsessive, all-consuming love (μανία). There are other words for love as well, but the word that Jesus uses is different from all of these. This word (άγάπη) carries with it the unconditional, self-giving, sacrificial love revealed in God sending his own Son to love us literally unto death; to offer his very life as the atoning sacrifice for our salvation. This is the word Jesus uses again and again here in John 15: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12-13)

Putting this all together, Jesus is calling us to abide in his unconditional, self-giving, sacrificial love that moved him to go to the cross for us. The work of Christ in us bears the fruit of love. When Jesus commands us to love he doesn’t do this, and then sits back to see whether or not we will obey. His command comes with the promise to accomplish in us the good work that he began. Jesus gives us what is needed to love another! The world around us and our own sinful human nature want us to put the focus on ourselves. We can deceive ourselves into thinking that we can get through life on our own; that we don’t need Jesus or what he’s done for us. And so the unconditional, self-giving, sacrificial love of Jesus can get twisted into a conditional, self-serving love for me, myself and I. But even then, the agape love of Jesus that knows no barriers or limitations is more than able to break through these obstacles, calling us to repentance, and leading us back to his heart of love. Our faith in Christ and the forgiveness of our sins opens the door, raises the window, and even knocks down the barrier wall to love – for it is the working of Christ within us!

Jesus’ agape love is for all people, and we see that loud and clear in today’s first Scripture reading (Acts 10:34-48). Peter had been called to the home of the Roman centurion, Cornelius, who was a Gentile outsider and not part of the house of Israel. He was a believer, but as an outsider, he was a “God fearer” (Acts 10:2ff.) and not a full-fledged member of the believing community. Visited by an angel, he was instructed to bring Peter to his house. That was a problem for Peter because as a Jewish person, he was forbidden to associate with unclean Gentiles. But the vision he received of that great sheet coming down from heaven three times with all kinds of clean and unclean animals in it (Acts 10:9ff.) opened his heart and mind to understand that the good news of Jesus was and is for all people, Jews and Gentiles; for all peoples and tribes and nations and languages. This was a huge breakthrough for the fledgling church! None of this was accidental, but was a divine appointment set up by God. Through the Word which Peter preached, Cornelius and his whole household were baptized. This account here in the book of Acts is sometimes called “the Gentiles Pentecost,” and clearly demonstrated that the Holy Spirit was for all people, Jews and Gentiles. The agape love of Jesus knows no barriers or limitations because Jesus gave his life on the cross for all people. We affirm this blessed truth always, as well as the truth that we are called by Jesus to love one another, and not just those who look like us or talk like us or dress like us. If Jesus gave his life for all people and desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4), who are we to set up man-made divisions, accepting some and refusing others? Jesus calls us to love one another as he has loved us ­­– freely and without limitation. We will celebrate the all-encompassing love of God in Jesus Christ that is for all people in a special way two weeks from today on the Festival of Pentecost (May 19). We will come together with the members of Shalom Ethiopian Evangelical Lutheran Church, who worship here at St. John’s, for a worship service that celebrates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit who calls us and keeps us in this one true faith.

As we abide in Jesus, we come to understand that we are not just his servants, but his friends (John 15:15). As Jesus has loved us and laid down his life for us, let us then love one another as he has loved us.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.