In preparing for today’s sermon, I thought it would be important to consider how our culture understands love.
So I went to that great repository of truth and I Google-d the 100 greatest love songs. Well there are a number of greatest lists of love songs, depending on who is creating the list but let me give you a smattering of what I learned.
The group foreigner asked: “I Want to Know What Love Is” and the Beatles sang about it being “Something.”
Heatwave believed it to be “Always and Forever” and Mariah Carey noted that “Love takes Time.”
Both Celine Dion and Huey Lewis affirmed the power of love. The Captain and Tennille believed “Love Will Keep Us Together”. And Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes believed “Love Lifts Us Up (Where We Belong).”
Some noted the downside of love. The group Nazareth states “Love Hurts.” Diana Ross sang about a “Love Hangover.” Paul Mauriat thought that “Love is Blue.”
It is not rational. Freddie Mercury sang about a “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, Beyonce fell “Crazy in Love”, and Frank Sinatra crooned love would “Fly me to the Moon.”
There is something irresistible about love as Elvis and Bono sang they “Can’t help falling in Love” and Ray Charles sang “I Can’t Stop Loving You.”
But there are problems, too. The Righteous Brothers lamented that “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”; Carole King thought “It’s Too Late”,
Stevie Wonder sang about a “Part-time Lover.”
Paul Simon sang about “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”, but triumphantly, Gloria Gaynor proclaimed “I Will Survive.”
And Tina Turner raised the most important question: “What’s Love Got to do With It?”
Well, according to what we hear in the gospel today, Jesus would say everything!
It was at the last supper. Jesus was there with his disciples in the upper room, the Passover had been celebrated, the wine and bread was blessed, broken, and eaten. He had just finished washing their feet, teaching them about servant ministry.
He was preparing himself and his disciples for the painful ordeal that was nigh upon him.
Judas just left, initiating the fall of dominoes that would result in his arrest, torture and death. Then, surprisingly, he proclaims God’s sovereign purpose is in this coming storm. He claims that God will be glorified by what he goes through and that God will glorify him in that work. We see that in his resurrection and Ascension.
Then, warning them that they will be separated from him, Jesus then says:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Jesus gives them a new command, not that the command to love one another was new, it was not. The Old Testament teachings emphasized loving God with all your heart, mind and strength, and emphasized loving your fellow believers.
But the kind of love; Agape, and how they were to love one another: As I have loved you, was new.
That word for love, agape, had specific implications. According to one dictionary, agape is a love which makes distinctions choosing and keeping to its object. (It) is a free and decisive act determined by its subject. (It) relates for the most part to the love of God, to the love of the higher lifting up the lower, elevating the lower above others.
Joe Cocker was right – who knew! Love, at least agape, does lift us up where we belong.
This reference continued: Agape must often be translated “to show love” it is a giving, active love on the other’s behalf. It can be applied to a thing which is right or a person who is dear. It is used above all of an only and precious child.
When the Hebrew Bible was translated into the Greek language in the Septuagint that unique word “Agape” was used to define the relationship of faithfulness between God and man. It is a covenant word, if you will.
Jesus is talking about love that is a matter of will and action to God and for God alone that is absolutely unconditional.
To again cite a commentary:
To (agape) God is to exist for Him as a slave for his Lord …. It is to listen faithfully and obediently to His orders, to place oneself under His lordship, to value above all else the realization of this lordship…..
It means to base one’s whole being on God, to cling to Him with unreserved confidence, to leave with Him all care or final responsibility, to live by His hand. It is to hate and despise all that does not serve God nor come from Him, to break with all other ties, to cut away all that hinders (Mt 5:29 f.) to snap all bonds except that which binds to God alone.
….. It is a glowing passion for God, the passion of a little flock which perseveres faithfully and unshakably, in spite of every puzzle, power or threat, until He is manifested whom it loves.
As Jesus’ love for the father was manifested in his absolute self-giving love for his disciples, so should our love for Jesus manifest itself in our absolute self-giving to one another because that is how the world will come to know the power of Jesus and his love.
As the disciples came to personally know God through Jesus, so the world will come to personally know Jesus through us-his disciples.
There is a story told of a woman who wanted to divorce her husband for his indifference to the marriage. She told the lawyer she wanted it to be as painful as possible. The lawyer told her then she must make herself indispensable to her husband through acts of deference and care and attention to him – be like Jesus to him.
Six months later the lawyer called the woman and asked her if she was ready to follow through with the divorce. She responded in shock that she could never consider divorce now that they were so much in love.
As Huey Lewis sang, “That’s the Power of Love.”
But if we are really honest, I think most of us find it really hard to love like that most of the time. We probably get it right some of the time with some people, maybe our spouses, kids & parents but sometime in those same arenas maybe not so much. And how about when we are stuck in traffic, or dealing with a grouchy boss or with unpleasant co-workers? Most of us are what Stevie Wonder calls “A Part-time Lover.”
We don’t love all those we are supposed to love, not all the time, not the way we should. And in Jesus’ understanding that circle of people we are supposed to love expands to include the whole world.
One little 6 year old summed up our predicament. She said if you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend you hate. Loving like Jesus is hard.
So how do we get there to love one another as Jesus loved us?
A mom tells this story: My 3 year old son was on my heels everywhere I went. Whenever I stopped to do something he’d bump into me. When I turned around to do something, I’d trip over him. Time and again I patiently suggested fun activities to keep him occupied but he simply smiled an innocent smile and said: that’s okay, mommy, I would rather be here with you. Then he continued to bounce happily along behind me.
After stepping on his toes for the hundredth time, I began to lose patience. When I asked him why he was under my feet all the time, he looked up with his sweet green eyes and said: Well mommy, my Sunday school teacher told us to walk in Jesus’ footsteps. But I can’t see him, so I’m walking in yours.
We learn to love as Jesus loved, agape, by walking close to Jesus, walking in his footsteps, meeting him in scripture, in worship, in prayer in talking with him daily.
If we are going to learn to love like Jesus loved we need to walk in Jesus footsteps so that we bump into him constantly. We need to be under his feet so that we will find ourselves going where he goes, and doing what he does and then loving as he loved. It’s then we will learn agape, how to love one another as he loves us. Then the world will know who Jesus really is.
(John 13: 31-35)