John 14:15-21
If You Love Me
Easter 6 A
25 May 2014 – Redeemer
If you love me you will keep my commandments.
What will we do with these words of Jesus? Shall we despair? For who among us could claim to keep the commandments? And if we must prove our love to Jesus what proof will we offer? He is God. He knows all things, sees all things, therefore He knows and sees that you love yourself most of all.
We are in trouble at the conditional part of the sentence. “If you love me.” Jesus knows we might not love Him. He knows that we are prone to love ourselves. You’ll drive a mile to save a nickel on gas and spend hours researching your next big purchase, but you put leftovers in the offering envelope and get anxious when the Lord’s Body and Blood costs us an extra 10 minutes every Sunday. Jesus says that our love for Him is displayed in how we regard the poor, the sick, the imprisoned – if you have shown mercy to one of the least of these you have shown Jesus your love – if.
“If you love me.” There are three different Words for love in Greek – this is the highest form. This is not “I love to go fishing on memorial day” or “I love a cold beer on a hot day.” This is God’s love in giving His Son to die for you. This is the love God expects of you in marriage. The love that works for the other, that fights against self-love, that closes your eyes to lust and your ears to temptation. This is the love that covers sin, hides faults and remains faithful to death.
“If you love me,” said Jesus. I am in trouble at “if” and I’m dead at “love.”
And yet, if I ask you this morning, “Do you love Jesus?” you would all raise your hands or say a silent “amen – yes I believe in Jesus. I love Him. He is my Savior.” And if your hand didn’t go up you would probably get the evil eye from your mom or the other people in your pew. And you would have to come to my office this week because we need to talk.
Jesus is not speaking these words to unbelievers. He is speaking this Word to His disciples, to those who love Him. They love Him because He first loved them. By His Word, by His preaching, by the signs He performed, Jesus called his disciples to believe in Him, to love Him. The disciples were people like you – people who liked to fish, people who had businesses, men who wore socks with sandals and embarrassed their children, moms who tried new recipes to which her family said “it was great.” These people were like you in every way, filled with the same self-love. People who by the corruption of sin wanted nothing to do with God. We love Jesus, yet not one of us was born loving Jesus, nor would we ever have come to love Him on our own. So how does our love for Jesus come to be?
Jesus Christ did not come into the world to be loved. He did not come for self-glory or to demand the obedience of creation. He came into the world to love, to serve, to give His life as the ransom price to free us from self-love, from our sin, and from the death and damnation that always accompanies sin.
God so loved the world He gave His Son for you. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10, ESV) There is no love like this in the world. This is love that only God can give – a love that loves us in our ugliness, a love that covers our sins, a love that takes what we deserve, a love that never keeps track of our sins, never fails to give, never stops. In the world the most powerful pictures of faithfulness and sacrifice are nothing compared to what God has done. Tomorrow we celebrate Memorial Day. Families lost children to war. Men and women lost their lives and their limbs. They defended our freedoms and we promise never to forget. They died for a great and noble cause. Christ died for a lost cause. He died for you. He died for the sin of the world. And the world doesn’t love Him. They rejected Him. And yet He died for them as He died for you.
He loved you to death and He loved you to faith, to life, to love. Jesus rose again on the third day. 40 days later He ascended into heaven, but in love He did not leave you alone. “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever.” That word helper means “someone called to stand beside you.” This helper is the Holy Spirit and the Spirit is the One who delivers the love of Jesus to you. It is the Holy Spirit who brought your parents to faith, who moved them to bring you to the waters of baptism and drop you off crying at Sunday School. It is the Holy Spirit that created in you a heart that loves God and desires Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit who has kept you in the faith for as many years as you are old. Jesus loved you into loving Him – by His death, His resurrection, His Spirit, His Word, His gifts.
Even as Jesus sits at the right hand of God in heaven He does not sit idly by. He continually loves you. Do you remember last week’s reading where Stephen was being stoned to death? When Stephen got a glimpse of heaven he saw Jesus “standing” at the right hand of God. This is your Savior’s love – you are on in His mind and in His heart. When there is trouble in your life He is on the edge of His chair. He stands, dispatching His Holy Angels, sending His Spirit to deliver His forgiveness and comfort. He stands ready to welcome you into heaven. This is His love toward you – ever vigilant, ever desiring, ever forgiving, ever present. This is love.
Do you love Jesus? By the faith worked in me by the Holy Spirit, by the forgiveness and life given me in baptism I say, “Yes.” It is a weak and feeble “yes” as it is a weak and feeble love. He has loved me and I have done nothing to deserve that love, but “yes” my heart has been made new. By His forgiveness I have been brought back to life and rescued from myself. His love has stirred love in my heart. I love His Word, even when it convicts me. I love His house even when it bores me. I love His people even when they sin. I love the world even when they reject Him.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Can you name the commandments that Jesus gave to all of us? What did the One who loved us to death, tell us to do? Think hard. I came up with three or four commands. “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.” Preach repentance and forgiveness of sins in my name. “Do this (that is eat my body and drink my blood) in remembrance of me.” Love one another as I have loved you.
Do you know what Jesus commands are like? They are like a father saying to his family, “Get in the car we’re going for blizzards at Dairy Queen.” Or a mom calling her children to the dinner table, “Come and eat – the ribs are hot off the grill.” Or a husband saying to his wife, “Get your coat on – we’re going to Anton’s for supper.” Those are all commands with a promise. They are invitations to receive gifts. We call them sacraments, the means of grace – Be baptized and receive adoption as sons. Eat my body, drink my blood, have life and have it to the full and hope with all certainty in the resurrection. Hear my Word and be comforted, be consoled, be forgiven – I love you to death and to life. “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” You have been loved, so you love – God’s Word, your baptism, the Lord’s Supper, your neighbor. All of that love is given you. In the name of Jesus. Amen.