When you leave here today you will not be the same as when you came in. You will, hopefully, be living your life differently. You will be thinking differently about yourself and your congregation. You will never be the same again. Of course that’ll be up to you. If you don’t want to be different or changed you don’t have to be. That’s always true when we read God’s word. We can choose to ignore it and go on our merry, or not so merry, way.
So how will you be different? How will be changed? Well, I can’t give you your own specifics, but I can tell you that you will know about love in a new way. And that knowledge will either change you and allow you to see your life and how you can live it differently, or not. That’s up to you.
I know you’re not used to hearing things like this from me are you? You’re not used to hearing me say that ‘things are up to you’. Usually it’s about how you are different because of what God has done for you, not what you can do differently. Well that is also true today. Both things are true. Because you can only be different because of what God has done.
And if you do choose to listen and learn something new about love, that can guide you in how to be different. In today's gospel lesson in verses 34 and 35 Jesus speaks about love. Let’s read those verses together. 34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
So let’s talk about this love a few moments and learn something about it. First though, how many of you have heard of CS Lewis? Ever heard of the Chronicles of Narnia? Well Lewis wrote those books. He was a Christian apologist, an Oxford don and he died the same day as JFK was assassinated.
Well he also wrote a book called the Four Loves. It’s a wonderful book about the four words in Greek that all get translated into our language as, love. And that’s unfortunate because each has their own unique meanings and none of those meanings has to do with Madison Ave telling you; you’ll love this car or you’ll love that dish soap. The four loves are eros, storge, phileo, and agape.
Lets deal with eros first. That one may sound like another word you know, erotic. And eros is generally about that sort of love. Its self seeking and sensual and usually sees the other person as a means to please one’s self. Eros also has other subtleties which we don’t have time to go over. But eros is the one of the Greek words for love that is, interestingly enough, not in the New Testament. And yet eros, or things erotic, is the one Greek ‘love’ that causes the most trouble in our culture. At any rate eros is not what Jesus is talking about in verses 34 and 35 today.
Neither is He talking about storge. But storge, or forms of it, are found in scripture. Storge is used to refer to family type love. It’s the natural type of love that families share. This is the affection that cousins and uncles and moms and dads and sons and grandmothers express. It’s a strong and powerful bond. It’s the word Luther used when writing about his and Katie’s deep sorrow over the death of their daughter Magalden. But this too is not the love that Christ speaks of today either. It’s seen a few places in scripture as we said, but not here.
Then there is phileo. And this one may sound more familiar. Ever heard of Philadelphia? It’s known as the city of … that’s right brotherly love. Now phileo is often used in the gospels and in the New Testament. This is the deep love of a true friend. It is a close and binding sort of thing. In the Old Testament the story of David and Jonathan is a good expression of this sort of love.
Phileo is used by the Jewish crowds when they saw Jesus weeping over Lazarus’s tomb and talking about how Jesus ‘loved’ or ‘phileo’d’ Lazarus. It’s also the expression that Peter uses when, after Jesus resurrection and they are walking by the sea, Jesus asks Peter if Peter loves him, and Peter uses this word phileo, in reply. So phileo is a strong and potent expression of care, of embrace, of affection. In fact this word can also, in certain contexts, be translated as ‘kiss’. Not in the erotic sense, but in the affection of one person for another sense. When you hear the expression in the New Testament of ‘greet one another with a holy kiss’ like in Romans 16:16, that is a form of this word phileo. But again this is not the word Jesus uses in the gospel lesson today.
Are you ready? Some of you may know this word; this is the word, agape. This is the word that speaks of selfless love; the word that describes love that is the opposite of self seeking. This is love that seeks the best for the other. This is the love that chooses and decides to act in the best interest of the beloved. Speaking of such decisions to love there was a man who one day made such a decision and his choice presents a good picture of the love we are going to spend the rest of our time talking about.
It started with a fire. Both parents died in a tragic fire on the first floor of the house, where they slept. Upstairs the couple's young son leaned out the window, crying for help. Suddenly, out of the watching crowd came a man who climbed up the side of the house by hanging on to the gutter pipe, even though it was red hot from the fire on the first floor. He saved the boy and then was gone. Since both parents were dead, there was a court hearing to decide who should have charge of the boy. A neighboring farmer offered a good home. A wealthy man promised to give the boy whatever he needed. Then in came the man who had saved the boy. His only claim was his scarred hands. As soon as the boy saw him, he rushed to hug him. The hearing was over.
The man had chosen to make a sacrifice for the benefit of the boy and that act of love demonstrates the kind of love that changes a person. That’s the kind of love Jesus was talking about in the gospel lesson today. That’s the love that Jesus speaks of when in verse 34 He gives a new command to love one another. Again read verse 34. 34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another".
The new command of Christ to His followers is His marching orders so to speak. This command needs to be seen by us also in the context in which it is given. This command is given within 24 hours of when Christ goes to the cross and will there show the disciples, us and the world what / true / selfless / love looks like. And that selfless love is what Jesus says when He says, in verse 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. He isn’t using the word love as it’s used by Madison Avenue when talking about soap or a car like we said. It also isn’t love as in romantic love. It also is not talking about love as in family love, like between brothers and sisters. And it’s beyond even the love of a close friend.
Earlier in this same chapter Jesus has done the work of a servant for the disciples. He has washed their feet. He did this to demonstrate this agape love, the self giving love, that’s willing to do what is needed for the other. Agape love is love in action. It’s not about flowery emotions or deep feelings. Agape love is restless until the one upon whom love is being shown has all that they need.
It’s a love that is kinetic, it moves and acts and is seen by being demonstrated. Like the man who rescued the boy from the fire. It isn’t confined to talk. It is not defined by feelings or emotions. Agape love is what Christ commands here. And it’s what He has shown in the foot washing, and it’s what He will show on the cross. He will go to the cross and do, and do, what needs to be done in order that the world which Jesus loves will have what it needs, and that is reconciliation with God the Heavenly Father.
Jesus rests in grave only after that work of atonement is accomplished. Until then Jesus doesn’t stop acting in love. And today in verse 35 we are given the command to do likewise. Not that we are needed to redeem the world, that’s ridiculous. But we are given the order to love / one / another / as Christ has loved us. That means action, participation, movement, going and doing. It means seeing that each other’s needs are met. It’s the foot washing that another person needs. It’s the doing of that thing for them.
Jesus says that if you want the world to know that you follow Him, that you are of Him, then agape love is what you will show one another. The mark, the sign and signal to others that you are of Christ and that He claims you as one of His followers is, that you act in love, in agape, toward your fellow believers. Jesus says that in this way the world will take notice and will know that you are of Him.
Agape is the badge of the disciple, of the follower of the person of Jesus Christ. The Christian knows the love Jesus has for him. That love will be a strong witness to others – a mark of identification. And the love of disciples for one another is not merely edifying, it reveals the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and Their love for the world. Agape type love is the mark of identity we bear. It is that that makes us different as we leave here today. This is the self sacrifice that Christ exemplifies and that is what shows us to be different to the world around us.
That’s a hard thing for us since our society tells us to be our own person. Be a self-made person. But Jesus is calling us to be the people, the followers, the disciples that He has sacrificed to make us to be. We are to be people that demonstrate we follow Him – and not ourselves. We are followers. If we’re not, then we’re leaders and we are leading people away from God and toward death. That’s the only way for us, in and of ourselves, to lead anyone anywhere.
In showing love, in showing agape, to one another, in demonstrating that, the world will see and wonder at it. They will not follow us and we don’t want them to follow us. We want them to follow the One we follow, Jesus Christ. Only in Him is life and hope and salvation.
We can only lead people astray if we are not together following Christ. And if we are following Him then we are serving one another by reflecting His love as He has loved us. On the Irish coast there are twin lighthouses, set about 500 feet apart on opposite sides of an estuary. There is a powerful light in one of the lighthouses, but the other only has prisms and mirrors that reflect the light from the first lighthouse. Yet as you come toward them from the sea, both seem to shine equally.
In the same way, God's great agape can be reflected in our lives, because His great love has been poured out on us. What you do with that love is your choice. That He loves you, is beyond your choosing, because He has chosen you to love you and to give you life eternal in the name of His son Jesus Christ, in whose name we act and in whose name we pray. Amen.