Posted On: May 28th, 2006 at 2:16 am
Seventh Sunday of Easter Trinity Lutheran Church 28 May 2006 Murdock, NE
+ Jesu Juva +
1 John 4:13-21
“I hate you! I don’t love you at all! Can’t! Won’t! Forget it!”
Hating comes naturally doesn’t it? We don’t have to be taught how to hate. Comes easily. Especially when we’re angry or hurt. And quite often we love to hate. Makes us feel better we believe. Like we’re so in control. So enlightened.
Who don’t you love? Who won’t you love? Who is it that you’re struggling to love? And I’ll bet you can give loads of real good reasons for your not loving. “He hated me first!” “Let me tell you what she did to me!” And then you can probably come up with numerous Bible passages to justify your hatred in retaliation.
Do you love God? “Of course, Reverend! That’s a silly question Reverend!”
Well, let me ask you another “silly” question. Then why do you hate your brother? “Because of what he’s done Reverend! What part of quid pro quo don’t you understand Reverend? That’s how life is Reverend! Do you live on another planet?”
No. I live on the same planet. But God has spoken to us planet earth sinners who say they love God but hate their brother. And what God says is a hard to pill to swallow. Goes against the grain. Like fingernails on the chalkboard. “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar.”
So there we have it. We’re all liars. Believing the lie that we can religiously claim to love God and then hate our brother. And the sinning goes even deeper. We justify the hate. And then we ignore or deny that such hatred is murder.
So we’d better hear from the Lord again. “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15a). We’re no better than Cain who murdered his brother Abel. No better than David who murdered Bathsheba’s husband Uriah. We’re worse. We’ve out-cained Cain and outdone David. We murder from the heart.
What should the Lord do with sinners like us? What will He be satisfied with? Especially on Judgment Day? He should give us what murderers and liars deserve, right? If we won’t love, then the Lord should . . .
Instead He loves you. Gives you what you don’t deserve. Lovingly sends His Son to die for you. The Lord is satisfied in the death of His Son for you. Your sins are His. Answered for.
For you and me, murderers and liars, today the Lord gives a bigger dose of Jesus. Christ crucified and risen. Behold the love of God. He’s died for your hatred and lying. Took it all in His Body. Your sins are not yours anymore. They were put on Jesus.
And you’ve been given the Holy Spirit. In your Baptism and through the Absolution heard earlier. In a few minutes at the Supper too.
Through faith in Son of God Jesus God dwells in you and you in Him. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit.
What must die are your self-interests and selfish desires. Your bitterness and hate. Faith in Jesus gives birth to love. Love for the brother. Love for the neighbor. Love for the enemy.
So now it’s time to start loving. “We love because he first loved us.” It’s all right to do that. Be reckless with your love. Insanely foolish with it.
After all, that’s the way God loves you and me. The outrageous love of Christ on the Cross. Christ’s scandalous love in the water of Holy Baptism. His shocking love in His Word of forgiveness. His incredible love poured out in the bread and wine. Christ’s immense sacrificial love for the brother through you in your love for him.