The Coming Kingdom of Love

Over the last several Sundays we have explored the idea of a coming Kingdom, a Hope in the completion of God's work here on earth. We are drawn to this subject by the forward-looking spirit of Advent anchored in the event of Christ. The idea of Advent seems to offer us renewal, a refreshing taste of the anticipated Kingdom we labor to build. In the toil of our labor, in the difficulties of our service, we often find ourselves distracted from our Hope, our Expectation. Advent refocuses our desire, re-centers our actions. It is in Advent that we come back to that first Arrival, the arrival of Christ, so that we might continue to usher in the second Arrival; the arrival of the completed Kingdom.

What then, does that Kingdom look like? If we toil with such difficulty, if we are hard-pressed in service and sacrifice, where do we look to find encouragement and motivation? Last week, on the first Sunday of Advent, we exposed our Hope. The first Sunday of Advent had us light the first candle in our wreathe: the Hope Candle. The coming Kingdom is one of great Hope, a Hope centered in Redemption. This is something we have found to be anticipated, expected, participated in, and longed for. But how is such Redemption made real in our world? What is the medium of Redemption? What is the color of Redemption? Redemption is colored with Love. Redemption is made real in Love. It is in Love that the Kingdom of Hope is built. It is in Love that the Kingdom of Redemption stands tall, welcoming all those who are weary and weak. Now today, on the second Sunday of Advent, we light the candle of Love.

So this week, in our exploration of the Coming Kingdom, we turn to Love. And Love is a peculiar thing, in fact it is a topic I have addressed twice before. In two sermons last month I brought before you all two important ways of understanding Love. First, to Love is to have self-sacrificial action. This notion of intimate self-sacrifice is at the heart of the word agape. As a result, when we love one another and God, we must love with an attitude of service and sacrifice that seeks goals beyond our meager gain. Second, to Love is to be of God. This idea stems from the notion that God is in nature Love, and thus is embodied in our actions of Love. Both understandings of Love are crucial in getting at the concept of a Kingdom of Love.

In a Kingdom of Love we must have self-sacrificial action in order to dwell in the Spirit of God. But what's more, this self-sacrificial action, embodied in Christ, is not passive. Obviously action is not passive. It is quite clear that “action” is an active concept. But, if this is the case, why is our love so passive? Why do we wait to Love? Why do we passively expect Loving opportunities to find us? It seems this idea has infiltrated our minds and even poisoned our notions of romance and marriage.

Newspaper columnist and minister George Crane tells of a wife who came into his office full of hatred toward her husband. “I do not only want to get rid of him, I want to get even. Before I divorce him, I want to hurt him as much as he has me."

Dr. Crane suggested an ingenious plan "Go home and act as if you really love your husband. Tell him how much he means to you. Praise him for every decent trait. Go out of your way to be as kind, considerate, and generous as possible. Spare no efforts to please him, to enjoy him. Make him believe you love him. After you've convinced him of your undying love and that you cannot live without him, then drop the bomb. Tell him that you're getting a divorce. That will really hurt him." With revenge in her eyes, she smiled and exclaimed, "Beautiful, beautiful. Will he ever be surprised!" And she did it with enthusiasm. Acting "as if." For two months she showed love, kindness, listening, giving, reinforcing, sharing. When she didn't return, Crane called. "Are you ready now to go through with the divorce?"

"Divorce?" she exclaimed. "Never! I discovered I really do love him." Her actions had changed her feelings. Motion resulted in emotion. The ability to love is established not so much by fervent promise as often repeated deeds.” (www.sermonillustrations.org)

Amazingly, this woman found a “change of heart” through the active nature of Love. The Love which she so angrily missed, had in all reality disappeared when she ceased to be an active agent of Love. It re-emerged when she embraced the expressions of Love. What she found was that the very expressions she offered her husband actually created and developed Love. Love is not so much a noun as it is a verb. When we think of Love as a noun, as something we have and not something we do, then Love loses action and ceases to be Love. Love is active, it is action.

Happiness is often associated with Love. It is understood that Love brings with it great happiness. Many years ago, much before the time of Jesus, Aristotle took up the notion of Happiness. In an effort to clarify what it is that constitutes happiness, Aristotle explained that a happy life is a well-lived life. For Aristotle, to be happy was not to be in a state of bliss or enjoyment. Happiness was not an emotion as much as a motion. Aristotle taught that to live with a habit of doing happy things created “happiness.” Ultimately, you can't be happy unless you “do happy.”So to connect Love with Happiness we are forced to return to the active nature of things.

To Love and be Happy is to be an active agent of Happiness and Love. And we see this in the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ. In fact we are brought back to this reality in the telling of Christ's Arrival. God was active in Loving the world. God DID Love for us by sending our Redeemer to dwell among us. God still Loves us by offering us that same Redeemer. These actions, these activities of Love, are what drive us to send forth that same Love. We cannot sit by and passively wait our turn to Love. We cannot hide our hearts with trivial pleasures and earthly concerns. This is ignoring Love. We cannot “have Love” and yet not “do Love.”

With this in mind, turn with me in your bibles to Matthew 24. Once again we are going to return to the “Kingdom Talk” of Jesus as he converses with his disciples. We are going to look at what Jesus says about the Kingdom so that we might be better instructed in our own attitude and actions toward the Kingdom we anticipate, expect, participate in, and long for. In our passage this morning, Jesus is discussing the coming Son of Man. Last week we noted that the coming Son of Man is intricately related to the coming Kingdom. The coming Son of Man is the climax of the completed Kingdom, the final stroke of the Kingdom-building.

Matthew 24: 42-51

Did you hear those first few words, that command from Christ: “Stay awake” (v. 42). To remain awake is to not fall asleep. To remain awake is an active state. To fall asleep is to fall into passivity. Christ instructs his disciples to remain active. To illustrate this meaning of “awake,” Jesus describes the wise and faithful servant as being responsible with appointed tasks, offering food at the proper time (v. 45). The unfaithful, unwise servant is the one who forgets the coming Son of Man, or the return of the master, and eats and drinks for personal pleasure. The servant who falls asleep with the drunkenness of earthly pleasures and concerns will be placed with the hypocrites where there is much “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The Kingdom that is illustrated is one of activity, of responsibility, of appropriate action. Jesus specifically reveals the model of faithful waiting: active anticipation. To be faithful in expecting the Kingdom is to be actively anticipating, actively participating. We cannot separate our longing and our anticipation from our actions and labor. There is not one moment that passes by which does not call for our hands and feet, for our thoughts and prayers. We are not a people of passivity, sleeping away the days until the Kingdom is at hand. No, such a Kingdom will never arrive. The Kingdom can only be ushered in by those who remain faithful in a waking, active service. This is the waking, active nature of Love. It is here that we find God's Kingdom coming to fruition; it is here that we realize God dwelling among us.

So often we have wanted to focus our attention on the Love that God gives us, and forget the important Love that we must be responsible for. In fact, C.S. Lewis once wrote: “On the whole, God's Love for us is much safer to think about than our Love for Him.” But why? Dr. Lewis also wrote, “To love at all is to be venerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable...The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers...of love is Hell. (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 169).

A motionless, dark, airless Love is no Love at all. Refusing to “do Love” is refusing Love itself. When we make life about our “hobbies and little luxuries,” we forsake Love and embrace ourselves. No Kingdom of God could ever by completed by people who dare not Love. And like Dr. Lewis wrote, Love is dangerous. There is toil and difficulty in our actions of Love. We suffer when we Love the suffering. We identify with those whom we Love.. when we Love. For in Love, there is no “them.” There is only “us.” And this is the Kingdom of Love which we anticipate, expect, participate in, and long for. A Kingdom where there is only Us, united in a Love originating from the Most High God. Such a Kingdom of self-sacrifice fits the model that Christ demonstrated on the cross, and of which we are reminded in His birth. A Kingdom where Love is ever-present, is a Kingdom where God resides, where Christ is glorified. This is the Kingdom we long to see. This is the Kingdom we await. But our anticipation and expectation is not passive. It is not without action. Our anticipation and expectation come with participation... for this is the heart of Love.

Benediction:

Glorious God, Almighty Redeemer, may we leave this place of worship with humble hearts and pensive minds. May we be renewed by Your Gracious Love, renewed in the spirit of service and sacrifice which anticipates your Kingdom. Lord God, may our hands not be clean on that day when we see You face to face. May we have the hands of working people, soiled with the labor of our Love. A Love that originates with You. For your Love was demonstrated through the gift of Christ, born so many years ago. May we be ever-hopeful in that most Merciful Gift, mindful of the persistent need we have for such a Love; mindful of the persistent need the world has for such a Love. Let us be instruments of Love, agents of Love, givers of Love. Remind us that Love is not a possession, it is an action. Give us the strength, courage, and desire to Love, so that one day we might witness the Glorious coming of the Kingdom of Love. For we are Yours, and we Love You. Amen.