Rev. Jay Rowland
1 John 5:1-6 and John 15:9-17
God’s Testament of Love
We are all generally accustomed to dividing the Bible into the Old and New Testaments. It’s been a sort of natural way to distinguish between the part of the Bible that predates Jesus and the part of the Bible which presents Jesus as the promised Messiah.
Unfortunately, over the centuries this distinction has led some to interpret New Testament to mean Better or Best Testament, and to devalue the First Testament (aka “Old”) which Jesus himself cherished, studied, interpreted, and taught.
Jesus would never have conceived of anything called The New Testament.
Generally speaking, it seems to me that the Bible is essentially God’s Testament or Covenant (the word “testament” means covenant) in two parts. Each part or testament can be summed up using one definitive word concerning God and God’s doings: love.
Both Scripture readings today explicitly associate love with God. God is best known and understood in terms of love. And I know we all know this, and to say it and hear myself say it, it’s like, duh. Furthermore, modern culture and entertainment has so thoroughly diluted love by making it all about romantic love, and conditional love, that we easily lose the personal power, meaning and depth of the love that IS GOD.
Even so, whenever we may have felt or known what it feels to be unconditionally loved, however we may have experienced unconditional love, only then might we begin to comprehend and fathom the depth of God’s love for us.
…. when it comes to God’s love for us, there’s a verse in John’s gospel reading today which stands out, the one in which Jesus says,
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Jesus set aside his divinity, his life, his bodily and all senses of comfort—mental comfort, spiritual comfort, religious comfort as well as bodily safety and security for you and for me. It wasn’t taken from him. It wasn’t forced from him. He wasn’t a victim. Rather, he laid down his life … willingly … to demonstrate how far he was willing to go for love of you.
Some may think or argue, “well not literally for me, because I wasn’t alive when he did all that ... so that’s nice and all, but …”
And, well, that’s what makes it even more astounding.
Perhaps we’ve read about or seen situations in which people have laid down their life for a “stranger” … such as people have done who serve in the military, first responders, especially during the 9/11 attacks, and people here or there along the way who rushed into mortal danger out of a powerful love for human life. And that right there gives us a better sense of the love that is God … and that God introduces to the world through Jesus Christ.
Jesus willingly lay down his life to show that even when worldly forces come together to do whatever they want and hurt and destroy whoever they want, so that we might realize when it there appears to be yet another situation where some would comment, well, that’s just how life goes sometimes ... Jesus willingly lays down his life to prove that God can and will intervene at that precise moment when you’re convinced otherwise.
Jesus allowed worldly forces and hatreds to hunt him down, hurt him, beat him, ridicule him, put him on trial and convict him, then publicly shame and humiliate him and ultimately destroy him. He did this to show us the power of LOVE … God the Creator of Life, Jesus the Giver of Life and the Holy Spirit the breath of life has final and ultimate authority over what happens to our life--the life God created, the breath that God breathes in us. … so that if or when any such devastation comes upon us, and all seems lost, we shall not be lost. We shall rise with Him.
No greater love.
There is no greater love than the love of Jesus for you … he lay down his life for you.
That’s the Love that has claimed you from the time you breathed your first breath …. until you breathe your last and wake up breathing new life in the Kingdom of God.
That’s the love that defines your life and your death.
This attempt of mine to describe this indescribable power and mystery of life, this Jesus, with my written and spoken words is feeble. There is a song that I hope and prayed might convey the sense of this love better than my spoken words. It’s called The Face of Love*, written and recorded years ago by the group Sanctus Real. It’s better than what you’ll hear from me and I highly recommend it when you’re in need of assurance regarding the Love that will not let you go, shining in the Face of Jesus:
I’ve seen your face on stained glass,
in colored lights
in pictures of you looking to the sky ...
You’ve been portrayed
a thousand different ways
But my heart can see you
better than my eyes
‘Cause it’s love that paints
the portrait of your life
The face of love … The face of love:
You look more like love every day
I’ve read your words
in pages of your life
And I’ve imagined
what you were like
And I may not know
the shape of your face
But I can feel your heart changing mine
Your love still proves
that you’re alive
The face of love
The face of love
You look more like love every day...
The face of love
The face of love
You look more like love every day...
And you are the face
that changed the whole world
no one too lost for you to love
no one too low for you to serve
So give us the grace
to change the world
No one too lost for me to love
No one too low for me to serve
Oh Let us see
Let us be your face
Let us be your face.
The face of love; The face of love
You look more like love every day
The face of love;
The face of love
you look more like … love
… more like
… LOVE
* The Face of Love, ℗ 2006 Sparrow Records. Producer: Christopher Stevens
Composer/Lyricist: Matt Hammitt, Chris Rohman, Mark Graalman, Dan Gartley, Christopher Stevens. Released on: 2006-01-01
