St. Isaiah foretold it. St. Paul described it. Jesus lived it. But even more, Jesus is it! I am speaking of Love.
So, what is love? What is real love? Our world has become used to seeing emotions and feelings as love. In our fallen world, love is not an action verb, but more often about how you feel or how someone makes you feel. In our world, love is even something selfish. We say someone is making love when all he may be doing is having sex. Often, making love is nothing more than a glorified form of self-pleasure.
So what is real love? What is God-made love? To know such love, we need only to look to Jesus, the real Jesus, the Jesus who is Love.
Love is an attitude, a bearing and behavior toward the one you love. Love is an intentionally active exercise of the will that someone holds. It’s an attitude held toward the one loved above all considerations, even one’s own welfare.
Yes, it’s true: Emotions attend and are tied in with love. But never confuse your emotional response at any given moment with love itself. True Love is never safe. But love is always good!
The love God’s Word speaks about is dangerous. Sometimes it is even deadly. It takes courage, and it takes fortitude, and it takes boldness, to have the Love we heard about in our Epistle reading.
The Love God’s Word tells us of is dangerous. Paul writes to the Corinthians that such love is not provoked and always endures. That takes incredible strength and commitment to live out, doesn’t it?
Jesus lived that love. Jesus is that love. Jesus is patient and kind. He does not envy or boast. He is not arrogant or rude. He does not insist on His own way. He is not irritable or resentful. He does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. That’s Jesus!
In such love, Jesus said:
The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and teachers of the law, and they will condemn Him to death. Then they will hand Him over to the Gentiles to be ridiculed, flogged, and crucified. But He will be raised on the third day (Matthew 20:17-19).
That’s what God’s Love demands. It’s the opposite of sentimentality.
True love, God’s love, overrides emotions. Think of the night Jesus was betrayed. He prayed fervently for His Father to take His cup of suffering from Him. Yet, no matter how He felt, regardless of His safety, of His self-interest, Jesus prayed, “Not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).
When you hear that Jesus loves you, know what that means! It doesn’t mean that Jesus is your boyfriend. It means that Jesus faced down the eternal torments you deserved–for you! That’s real love. That’s God’s love.
With an intensity, determination, and strength beyond imagination, God’s love flings itself into the jaws of pain for the sake of one who is loved. That’s what Jesus did for you. Every miracle of Jesus–restoring sight to a blind man, raising Lazarus from the dead, producing the equivalent of 800 bottles of wine for a wedding–shows the real Jesus. Such miracles show that Jesus is the Promised One, the Messiah, who came to rescue you from eternal death.
God loves with a love so unbounded, so intense, that He sets all other considerations aside. Only God loves with such love. Yes, the One who never sinned grasped the world’s sin and took it into Himself to become Sin itself. Jesus became the Sinner that you could become the righteousness of God.
It’s only with that strong, wild, and heedless love that you, a sinner, could be raised from eternal death to life, and be declared a son of God. Because of Jesus’ love, the Holy Spirit wraps you in the righteousness that only God, that Jesus has.
So now when the Father sees you, He sees His Son, Jesus. For you have put on Jesus by His promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation. You received this by His Word in Holy Baptism. You are receiving this now by the Word ringing the eardrums of your heart. You receive this when Jesus sets before you at His Table His feast of forgiveness for you.
Now here’s the challenge Jesus gives you. Jesus teaches you to love, as well. Jesus, through the Spirit He has sent, inspired Paul to describe His love. Yet, Paul’s words do more than that: He also calls you to love one another with such love. Jesus calls you to love your lost-and-dying neighbor in the same way that He loves you.
Jesus sets His love in front of you and says to you, “This I give you. This I do for your sake, for your life. Now you take this love I give you, and love your neighbor with the same abandon, with the same selflessness, with the same courage, and strength, and endurance.” Jesus puts this challenge to you when He says to you, “Take up your cross, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).
Jesus has made you alive, and with such life, you can look at the harm that may afflict you in this world and see it for what it is: a speed bump on the way to eternity. You can even look into the open eye of your own grave as it stares back at you. For now it’s nothing more fearsome than your own bed. For it is from your grave that you will arise in such glory as the world blind in sin has not seen.
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). That’s love.
This is also love. The man, Valentine, whose martyrdom we don’t remember every February, would not stop following Christ. Valentine would not stop even when the emperor commanded it. And so while he was walking to his execution, because of Jesus, he handed a note to his jailer’s daughter telling her about the new life that is ours in Christ.
It was love that propelled our Lutheran fathers in the Faith to share the grace of Jesus. From such love, they became poor, were badly treated, endured hardship, and died far from their homes, so the life-creating and strengthening Word of Jesus might be propelled even a little bit farther, to even a few more ears.
Now you, you take this fierce, unconditional, God-made love that you have received from Jesus, your Savior, and you live in it. As you live in Christ’s love, extend it to others through your hands, lips, and life. For when you live out such Christ-filled love, you are simply being a Christian. You are simply living the Christian life.
If you have children, raise them in Christ. If you have the opportunity, speak the comfort and joy that you have in Christ to those who wonder at the hope you have. If you have treasure, invest it in the service of the Gospel. For such treasure is laid up where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. Invest in the dividend of gaining others in Christ, an investment that won’t devalue before the throne of our God who reigns.
As God loves you, love others. Take up your cross and follow Jesus. “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
And while you are fervently living out such love, you will become disgusted at your failures. So do not forget to take your failures, your sins, your fears, and self-seeking to Jesus. For Jesus does more than teach you to love. He also forgives your sins.
So take all that shames you and take it all to Jesus. For He IS Love, and forgives you your every sin. He IS Love, and takes that burden from you that you may then follow Him. For His burden is easy and His yoke is light. And He leads you at last to a life beyond this valley of tears to a Home that is everlasting, prepared for you.
For you are loved with Jesus’ love. In Him, you have a Peace that passes all understanding. You have that Peace even when those around you are in panic and travail. For the Peace of Jesus guards your heart and mind now and even forevermore. Amen.
