They'll Know We are Christians by God’s Love

One of the main, overarching themes of the Scripture readings that we hear during Easter season concerns life in the world of the risen Christ. Holy Scripture is full of stories about the times before Christ lived… stories of God’s saving actions and the peoples’ faithful response. And of course, the Gospels tell stories of Jesus’ own time. But during the great fifty days of Easter we are offered, again and again, teaching and illustration of what it is to be a faithful follower of Christ in the time after his life, after his death, and after his resurrection.

So, for example, every Sunday we hear a reading from Acts. The Acts of the Apostles, telling about the actions of those first apostles, first missionaries who went out to proclaim what they had heard and come to know about God in Jesus who was raised from the dead. They were the first Christians. Also during Easter, we read mostly from the Gospel of John. John’s gospel was written later than the other three, and it is clearly written through the lens of a Christian community’s experience. It reflects the perspectives and concerns of a group of people who were trying to be faithful in the time after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Yes, John tells of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry, but he tells those stories in a way that will best teach those people who will live in a later time.

In today’s gospel Jesus is teaching the disciples about what they should do when he is gone. He tells them that he is going, that this time with him on earth will soon come to an end. And then he says, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

There is a popular Christian song that some of you may know that seems to capture the spirit of this gospel passage. It has a catchy, sweeping refrain. "And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love. Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love." In the gospel Jesus says, "by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." This idea of what it is that makes us knowable, recognizable as Christians is an interesting one. Not just what makes us Christians within ourselves, but how could someone else, looking at us, as individuals or as a community… how could he or she recognize us as Christians? By our love, the song says. A person is recognizable as a Christian because he or she is a loving person. They’ll know us by our love. Well, yes, but. Certainly Christians should, as Jesus says, love one another. I think there is a better refrain the song might have had. It could have said, "And they’ll know we are Christians by God’s love, by God’s love. Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by God’s love." Not "our" love, but "God’s" love. It is embodying and sharing God’s love that makes us Christians.

Remember what Jesus says in the gospel. Love one another, just as I have loved you. Love one another in the manner in which I, God incarnate, have loved you. Just as Jesus has shared God’s love with the disciples, so are they to share God’s love with one another. And I expect that would set them and us apart, make us recognizable to others as Christians. Yes, in this time after Jesus’ resurrection, the world will know we are Christians if we live in such a way that embodies, as Jesus embodied, makes known, as Jesus made known, shares, as Jesus shared, God’s love with others.

It is an awesome vocation, but not an impossible one. It helps to remember that the love of God that Jesus brought to human kind was not what we often think of as love. It was not a feeling. Not a feeling of warmth, or affection or attraction. I cannot imagine that Jesus felt all warm and chummy with those bumbling and arrogant sons of Zebedee, James and John. Jesus did not live and die just to make people feel warm and tender towards one another. And for us to share God’s love with others does not require that we feel warm and tender towards those whom we encounter.

C. S. Lewis calls God’s sort of love "charity." And he reminds us that the characteristic of this sort of love is that it always seeks the good for the other person. To always seek the good for the other. No strings attached; no personal expectation or agenda on our part. To seek the good for someone else… purely for their own good. Not a feeling, but a way of acting, that seeks goodness for others. Charity. That is the love Jesus brought to his disciples, and it is the sort of love we are to bring into a world in desperate need of charity.

Although I would like to tweak the refrain of the song I mentioned earlier, it nonetheless offers a good picture of what the Christian life should look like. Listen to the words from the verses.

We are one in the Spirit, We are one in the Lord,
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored.
We will walk with each other, We will walk hand in hand…
And together we’ll spread the news that God is in our land.
We will work with each other, we will work side by side…
And we’ll guard each one’s dignity and save each one’s pride.
All praise to the Father, from whom all things come,
And all praise to Christ Jesus, His only Son,
And all praise to the Spirit, who makes us one.

We pray that all unity will one day be restored. Unity. Union. Communion. To work to bring these into the world is to spread God’s love. It is to bring goodness into the world for the sake of others, for the sake of the world. Jesus worked and preached often about reconciliation. First and foremost reconciliation between individuals and God. But when we are reconciled with God, then we also become reconciled, through God, with one another. So we must look first to our own hearts, to the dark places within ourselves where we are estranged from God. If through penitence and prayer we bring God’s light into the darkness of our own hearts, being reconciled with God, then we will have the power and resource within to offer that light, that love, that reconciliation, that goodness to others in our world and time. Unity. Reconciliation. Walking hand in hand with one another as the model and the means for the goodness of God’s reconciliation to be made known to others.

And together we’ll spread the news… the song says. You know, the greatest good we can bring to others is to bring them the Good News. I think our social sensibilities have taught us that respecting another person’s religious feelings, or even respecting the fact that they have absolutely no religious feelings… most of us have come to feel that this hands off respect is a greater good than spreading the greatest Good that the world has ever known. Tolerating individuality is more important than building the community of Christ. Is it? (Remember, all preachers preach to themselves.) We must ask ourselves: What really brings the greatest good to others? To "respectfully" leave them empty of God’s love, empty and alone, or to share with them the Good News of God made known in Christ Jesus?

The song concludes:

All praise to the Father, from whom all things come,
And all praise to Christ Jesus, His only Son,
And all praise to the Spirit, who makes us one.

All things come from God. C. S. Lewis writes of the gifts of love that God gives to us. God gives us the capacity for human loves: affection, friendship, romantic love. But in addition to these [human] loves God can bestow a far better gift. God communicates to human beings a share of God’s own Love… God’s own Gift-love or charity. Divine Charity—God as love working within us—desires what is simply best for the beloved. It enables us to love what would not naturally lovable by us human beings; lepers, criminals, enemies, morons, the sulky, the superior and the sneering. This love comes to us by grace. And by grace we mere, marred mortals can be the couriers of this Divine Charity to others.

Jesus said, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Yes, we will be Christians, and they will know we are Christians, by God’s love. By our actions that spread God’s love and make it known in the world.

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