God is Love

I struggled to come up with an appropriate sermon topic for this morning's message. Since I have the privilege of delivering the message this evening at the community Thanksgiving service, I thought it might be a little too much to focus on the issue of Thanks this morning. So instead of delivering a message about how to give thanks, or what thanks means, or our responsibility to be thankful, I thought I would touch on a scripture that provides us with something to be thankful for. And now this might seem basic, it might seem too simple, but I think the idea we will find in our passage this morning is often lost in the shuffle of Christian life and activity. Turn with me to our text.

Text 1 John 4: 7-12

There are about fifty sermon topics packed into this single passage from the author of the epistle of 1 John. But let's focus in on the heart of this message: Love. The first observation we should make is that the source of all Love is God. God produces Love. God is the spring, the generator, the creator of Love. There is not Love without God. The next observation is a little astounding: whoever loves is of God. Well, if you are like me, that seems like quite a radical jump. But I think that the connection is made quite clearly at the end of verse 8: God IS Love. Thus, if God is Love, and one possesses Love, then one possesses God. In other words, if you Love, then you are of God. God's presence saturates your being when you Love.

In a book written by Dr. Richard Selzer, there is a story that recounts an event surrounding one of his patients who underwent surgery for a facial tumor. The doctor found himself next to his patient's bed witnessing something that he attributed to the presence of God. He writes:

I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve. Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily?

The young woman speaks. "Will my mouth always be like this?" she asks.

"Yes," I say, "it will. It is because the nerve was cut."

She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. "I like it," he says, "It is kind of cute." All at once I know who he is. I understand and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.

The doctor, in his amazement of the young husband's love, recognizes him as a god. Why is that? Did the doctor truly think this young man was Ra, Zeus, Shiva, or Yahweh? I wouldn't venture to say that Dr. Selzer actually thought he had before him a God among Gods. What I believe this doctor recognized was that this young man possessed a God-like attribute, something peculiar that seems to point beyond self-absorbed humanity. This young man had Love. Genuine Love. Real Love. And, as our text explains this morning, since God is Love, our doctor friend immediately realized the presence of God. This young man, filled with Love, was filled with God.

Our passage this morning goes on to explain a further step in understanding the relationship between God and Love. Not only is it true that God is the very Love we see in the world, but God also Loves us from outside the world. God, the Almighty One, transcends our world. There is a song that says: “God is bigger than the air we breathe, the world we'll leave.” If this is true, then God, being in very nature Love, is not only within the world, but is transcendent and therefore outside the world. This Love from outside the world is the very idea of unconditional love. Our world is full of conditions. Our lives are full of conditions. There is always something that influences the situation, be it time, physical location, or people. These conditions of experience do not apply to the entirety of God's Love. God, being Love, Loves us inside our world and outside of it. God Loves us in our conditioned life, but with an unconditioned Love that is from Above. Time, location, and other people do not hinder God and God's Love.

Our passage of scripture points us toward God's unconditional, un-earthly Love: Christ. Jesus Christ is the un-earthly Love of God breaking into our world. The Love we find in Christ's sacrifice for the atonement of our sins not only demonstrates the supreme example of Love for our own actions, but is also the in-breaking Love of God that allows us to taste true, unconditional Love for ourselves. For God Loved us! What a thing to be thankful for. What a thing to rejoice and be glad about. God Loved us!! But what's more, God still Loves us!! Christ is not a one-time deal, but the eternal in-breaking of God's Love!! There is no condition on the Love of God as expressed through Christ. Christ is the condition-less expression of God, the transcendent nature of God's Love being shoved into a life of ministry, death, and resurrection.

So this Thursday, as you are celebrating Thanksgiving with friends, family, or anyone that might accompany you, be reminded of the Love of God; the amazing, beautiful Love of God. Be reminded that God's presence is marked by the Love that is seen in our world. As the famous hymn is entitled: “They will Know we are Christians by our Love.” Remember that this is true, for just as Christ was the eternal in-breaking of Love, we are the current expression of God's Love for those around us. Never forget that we must bring God to the world, and that the only way to make this happen is to Love; and to do it abundantly.

Let us Sing.

Hymn.

Benediction:

God of Love and Grace, may we be ever thankful for the Gift of Love that you sent into our World. Let us rejoice always in the bounty and majesty of your servant, Jesus Christ, who gave to us the truth of divine Love through the Cross. May we never forget the reality of God in Love, so that we might be inclined to be missionaries of Love in all of our thoughts, words, and actions. And Gracious God grant us the perseverance to Love with the eternal in-breaking Love of Christ despite the conditions that surround us. For in Christ we Love, and in Christ we are Loved. In all of this, we are Thankful.

Amen.