1 John 3:16-24
Lessons in Love
James Sledge April
21, 2024
You’ve likely heard this before, but there
are several words in Greek, the original language of the New Testament, that
get translated into English as “love.” There is filos (fi/los)
which
speaks of affection and is the root for Philadelphia which refers to brotherly
love. Then there is eros (e/rws) which refers to
passionate love and is the root of our word erotic. Finally there is agapé (aga/ph) which might best
be defined as Christ-like love. When Fred Rogers said that love was an active
verb like struggle, he was thinking about this sort of love, as was the Apostle
Paul when he wrote Love is patient; love is kind…
In English, you have to use context to
tell what sort of love is being talked about, but I do think that the eros sort
of love is the favorite. This is the love they make movies about and write
poetry about, the true love that conquers all. There is an intensity about this
love that is powerful, that would make people go to great lengths for the sake
of their heart’s desire, but this love doesn’t show up much in the Bible.
Most often the word translated love in the
Bible refers to the agapé sort. There is nothing terribly romantic about this
sort of love. I think of the love of a parent that gets up with a sick child at
3:00 in the morning, the love that endures a child’s ire and disgust because it
is willing to say “no” and discipline children so they will grow up to be
responsible adults. Shakespeare didn’t write sonnets about the love that
dutifully attends a child’s sporting events, the love that struggles and saves
to help pay for a child’s college education.
This kind of love doesn’t only show up in parents.
I’ve seen grandparents lovingly raising their grandchildren due to inability or
unwillingness of the parents. You can see it when an older sibling takes loving
care of a younger sibling. You can find such love in many places, but for the
moment, I’m going to focus on parental love. I realize that some people did not
have loving parents, but I hope you had someone who loved you with the love
that I’m talking about.
Many of us learned a lot about love from parents
or people who know how to love like them. Much of what we learn in society is
about looking out for yourself, winning, doing whatever it takes to get ahead
of the other guy. But the love associated with parents stands as a counter
lesson, a reminder that true life is impossible when there is no self-giving,
no caring about others more than self. For many of us, our ability truly to
love another is a gift from a mother or father or someone who knew how to love
like one.
Learning how to love sounds a little
strange when you think about romantic love, the love of poetry and
Not so with parental love. I suppose a
certain amount of it may be inborn or instinctive, but primarily it is learned.
It is observed in and taught by the love we were given by a mother, a
grandparent, a father, or someone else who knew how to love us in this special
way. We know what this sort of love is because it was given to us. And for those
people who never experienced such love, life can be difficult. They often
struggle truly to give or receive love.
Our reading from 1 John talks about love
that is learned. John is the writer who says “God is love,” who repeatedly
calls us to love one another. And in our reading this morning he tells us that
someone has taught us what this love looks like and showed us how to give that
love to others. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us.
We know love by this, that he laid down
his life for us. There’s
an awful lot being said in these few words. If we know love by Christ’s dying
for us, then we must not know love without it. There’s something deficient in
our knowledge of love. If we haven’t learned love from Jesus, then we don’t
quite understand it. If we have not experienced the love of the good shepherd
who lays down his life for the sheep, we are like those unfortunate adults who
never experienced parental love from someone. We cannot live a full and
complete life because we lack the basic knowledge, experience, and training.
It’s that simple, that straightforward. If we have not experienced God’s love
for us in Jesus, we don’t fully know or understand love.
Experiencing the depth of God’s love for
us in Jesus is an incredible thing. God loves us so much that death, even death
on a cross is not too much to bear. But of course, the point of experiencing
God’s love for us in Jesus is not simply so we can enjoy it. It is wonderful to
feel such love, to know we are loved in this way. But just as a parent’s love
is not simply for our own benefit, but teaches us and gives us an example of
how to love, so the love we see in Jesus also teaches us and gives us an
example. We have been taught love by Jesus so that we can love like Jesus.
We know love by this, that he laid down
his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does
God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or
sister in need and yet refuses to help? Little children, let us love, not in
word or speech, but in truth and action.
When we truly experience Jesus’ love, when
his love dwells in us, it changes the way we live. When we know Jesus’ kind of
love, love is no longer a feeling or a desire. It is a way of life, a way of
giving ourselves for others; it is action—something parents know all about.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a human
tendency to receive love and not fully appreciate it. It is a common experience
for children not to realize the depth of their parent’s love until they get
older. It is easy to take love for granted, and so we need lessons in love. We
need to learn love from parents and people like them, but we also need to learn
how to appreciate love. We need to learn how to respond to that love.
The same is true
with God’s love in Jesus. It is easy to take God’s love for granted. I’ve heard
people say things like, “God has to love me. It’s his job.” Such people have
not learned the love lesson our scripture seeks to teach, the need to love in
return.
Many of you are probably familiar with the
wonderful writer Anne Lamott. In one of her books she talks about making her then
teenage son go to church even though he hated church. She writes,
Then why do I make
him go? Because I want him to. We live in bewildering times, and a little
spiritual guidance never killed anyone. I think it’s a fair compromise that
every other week he has to come to the place that has been the tap for me: I
want him to see the people who loved me when I felt most unlovable, who have
loved him since I first told them I was pregnant, even though he might not want
to be with them. I want him to see their faces. He gets the most valuable
things I know through osmosis.
Also, he has no
job, no car, no income. He needs to stay in my good graces.
While he lives at my house, he has to do
things my way. And there are worse things for kids than to have to spend time
with people who love God. Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God,
but they don’t get to meet people who love God back. Learning to love back is
the hardest part of being alive.”[1]
Learning to love back is hard, but it may
also be the most important part of being alive. Jesus came, in part, to show us
the true shape of human life, and that love loved God and loved neighbor even
when it cost him his life. When that fact really sinks in, how can we not want
to love God back?
Our scripture is talking about exactly
that. When we realize the depth of God’s love in Jesus, it changes us. And so
John can write, How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees
a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help? Little children, let us
love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
The great rabbi, the teacher par excellence, has given us the ultimate
lesson in love. He has showed us how much God loves us, no matter what wayward
children we might be, and he has shown us what it looks like to love. How is
Jesus calling you to love today? Who is Jesus calling you to love today? How
will you love God back?