Pastor Jim's Sermon, May 12, 2013

Christ United Presbyterian Church

Sermon

May 12, 2013 – The Seventh Sunday of Easter

John 17:20-26

If you'd like to read the sermon, the full text is below.  If you'd like to hear the sermon, click on this link and it will take you to an audio file:

https://www.box.com/s/s6h6s6igfs8j6pswok7q

Chapters 13 through 17 in the Gospel of John give us the longest sermon that Jesus gave to his disciples.  The words and action appear to have occurred during that last supper in the upper room.  Sometimes I think that I should just stand here and read scripture to you.

Four times in those 5 chapters Jesus 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.” “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

Do you get the message?

As he concludes the final sermon, he lifts up his arms to heaven and prays to his Father that the Father will care for and empower his disciples.  He already knows that he is about to be betrayed and die.  When he concludes this prayer he leads the disciples out to the place where he is arrested.  He has a sense of urgent concern for his disciples that only the imminence of death can produce.  He loves them and wants to do all that he can to protect them before he is gone.

Betty Jo Bell, a hospice volunteer from Holland, Michigan, writing about her experiences with death and dying says, “I am convinced that where life is beginning and where life is ending is holy ground. The knowledge of the imminence of death is a gift that sets us on holy ground.”

The knowledge of the imminence of death sets us on holy ground.

The setting of that last supper and the words of this final sermon and prayer tell us the story of one who knew he was on holy ground.  Jesus was surrounded by others who largely were oblivious to the dimensions of the tragedy that was just hours ahead of them. In these final moments with them, Jesus— aware of the dimensions of what they faced together and what he was to face alone — turned to his closest followers and said to them, "As the Father has loved me, so I love you." And then he tells them that in that same way, you must love one another.

In order for the world to understand the message of Jesus and his Father, you must love one another.  You must let the world see the love the Father has for Jesus and his love for you in the love you share with one another.  Over and over, desperate, knowing that he is running out of time, he repeats that clear message. 

A missionary friend of mine calls that the hardest message of the Gospel for us to carry out.  In fact that same friend says that preachers have failed to teach that message.  We have failed to make that message clear to our own members.  We have allowed bitterness and meanness and anger and cynicism and hostility toward one another to exist freely within our churches. 

There are parts of this final prayer that are specific to the disciples who followed Jesus through his ministry and who were surrounding Jesus at that moment.  Near the end the focus broadens:  “ ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

He is praying for you and for me, those of us who have come to believe in him through the words left for us in scripture by those original apostles.  He shifts the metaphor ever so slightly to unity.  Just as the Father and Jesus were as one, so too he prays that we might be part of that unity between Jesus and his Father.  Why?  So that the world can see that Jesus is the Son of God. Our behavior within our fellowship – our congregation, our denomination, our world-wide Christian presence – will set us apart and will show the world God’s will for us all.

As God has loved Christ, so Christ loves you. You.

On this day, we celebrate the sacrament of holy communion.  We remember and reenact that last supper at which Jesus called us all to love one another as he loves us and as his Father loves him.  This is the place where we remember that God's love of Jesus and Christ's love of us expressed itself in ways that lead out of love to a death and new life lived as God’s beloved.  And Jesus invites us to abide in that love; to abide in that new life as God’s own beloved.

As God has loved His son Jesus Christ, so Christ has loved you.  How incredibly wonderful that is, and how blessed we are.

As nice as it would be to stop in the depth and indescribable beauty and intensity of that love from God, there is one other word from him that we must take seriously in our lives. For the very one who described his love for us as like the love of God for himself, that very one went on to say, in this same way, "Love one another."

Do you ever ask yourself whether or not the action that you’re contemplating or the words you are about to say will be recognized by the world as a reflection of God’s love?

“As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Abide in Jesus’ love. Be loved. Accept God’s love into your heart.  That’s where it begins, not where it ends.  You have to accept the fact that God loves YOU!  Then go from this place and love the world. As He has loved you.  As the Father loved Him.  This is His commandment, “That you love one another as I have loved you.”  And your joy will be complete and God will be glorified.

Amen.