The last word is Love
Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany, year C (Farewell)
Bible reading: 1 Corinthians 13:13
The last word is LOVE.
- Faith is a great word, for
by grace you are saved, through faith
, and there is no other way. - Hope is a great word, for by
hope we are inspired to live and endure
all things. - But
love is the greatest, for God is love, and whoever abides in love, abides in God
, and like God,love never ends
.
As I looked at this great Epistle reading for today, I noticed that the last word is love. Love is not just the last word in this reading. Love is the last word with God.
How sad, if any of us think that judgment is the last word with God. Certainly there is judgment. But the Bible and the Creed make clear that Jesus is the Judge.
The great lover is the great judge. The one who weeps over Jerusalem, because he cannot bear the thought of them rejecting his love, is the judge. The one who prays forgiveness for his enemies, as they crucify him, is the judge. The last word is always love, even if it is rejected love. The last word is always love, even if it is scorned love. The last word is always love, even if it kills Jesus to love so much. God is love, and he is always true to himself. For God to act in any way other than love, is quite alien, and quite rare, and totally breaks his heart. With God, the last word is always love.
With God, the first word is also always love.
God is love, and he made the world, and us, in love. God is love, and he made the world and all that exists through his beloved Son. No wonder God loves the world so much. God made it to be his home away from home, and God made us to be his friends, even his bride in this home called earth. How we treat God, and how we treat one another, and how we treat the earth is history – a history of forfeited love, a history of broken relationships, a history of yearning for more than we have… for love… for God.
With God, the second word is always love.
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him, should not perish but have eternal life.
If we who are trapped in our broken world yearn for more, God yearns even more to come and bring us home, back into his loving arms. Erwin Raphael McManus was in the Middle East and was asked by a group of Muslims to explain the meaning of the coming of Jesus, of why God became human. He did this by telling the story of how he met his wife:
I once met a girl named Kim, and I fell in love. I pursued her with my love, and pursued her with my love until I felt my love had captured her heart. So I asked her to be my wife, and she said, NO. I was unrelenting and asked her again, pursuing her with my love, and I pursued her with my love until she said, YES. I did not send my brother, nor did I send a friend. For in issues of love you must go yourself.
This is the story of God: he pursues us with his love and pursues us with his love, and you have perhaps not said YES. And even if you reject his love, he pursues you ever still. It is not enough to send an angel or a prophet or any other, for in issues of love, you must go yourself. And so God has come. This is the story of Jesus, that God walked among us and he pursues us with his love. He is very familiar with rejection but is undeterred. And he is here, even now, pursuing you with his love.
I want you to remember that story. That’s how God loves you. That’s how patient God’s love is, how kind God’s love is, how hopeful God’s love is, how persevering God’s love is. We’re told Jesus loved his disciples to the end
. And that’s the way God loves you.
- If you believe in God and love him to the end, God will always love you.
- If you fall away from your faith and love in him, God will always love you.
- If you spend your whole life staying NO to his love, God will always love you.
This is no cheap, sentimental love. God’s love for us cost Jesus his life. Jesus came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many
. Jesus knew the cost of love. Jesus counted the cost of love. Jesus paid the cost of love, not with gold or silver, but with his precious blood
, and with his innocent suffering and death, that we may be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him faithfully forever
.
As Jesus preached his first sermon in his local church in Nazareth he was first welcomed, but finally rejected. As the truth of who he was, and what he came to do dawned on them they became furious. As the people saw that God’s love is not for a selfish few, but for the people in every church, in every religion, even in no church or religion, they rejected him. As the people saw that God’s love is for the poor, the oppressed, the prisoners, the disadvantaged, the scumbags of society, they ran him out of town and tried to throw him over the cliff.
But Jesus walked on, touching the lepers, forgiving the sinners, opening blind eyes, restoring the cripples, raising the dead, making everyone whole. Jesus walked on through the furious crowd with his face set to Jerusalem, prepared to suffer, accepting rejection, willing to die, all in pursuit of love for us.
Love is no stranger to suffering and death. The love of God shines brightest in the hour of darkness – whether that darkness is Jesus’ cross or ours. Suffering is never the absence of God’s love, but the hour in which it is most clearly seen and experienced. So whether it is ‘the best of times or the worst of times’, God is with you, loving you and helping you to love. Love is the last word for God and for you.
With God, the third word is always love.
The Holy Spirit came into the world to call and gather all people into God’s loving family and send the church out to bring God’s love to the ends of the earth. Sadly the church has often fallen so far short of sharing the love we have so generously received from Christ.
Somebody has suggested that the church needs to set up a confessional booth, not so people confess their sins to the church, but so that the church confesses its sins to the world; so that we confess our lack of love and grace to the world. How slow we have been to bring the Good News of Jesus to the world, to bring God’s favour to the world, to set the world free from the many forms of prison in which it sits captive.
Love is the first and last word the world needs to hear from the church. And in matters of love you must go yourself. God sent his Son into the world to love the world. God sends you into the world to love the world. He doesn’t say it will be easy, but he does promise to be with you. He laid down his life in love for the world. He calls us to be ‘laid down lovers’
to the world. The last word is always love. Amen.