Saturday, May 17, 2014

V Easter May 6, 2012

V Easter
 May 6, 2012
Holy Trinity & St. Anskar

In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us                           and sent His Son to be the atoning Sacrifice for our sins.

+In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity

John the Divine, John the Theologian, John the Beloved Disciple,  makes it clear: love is everything. Whoever loves is born of God and knows God. He also makes it clear that he is talking not about our love for God, but our love for one another. Not that we loved God, but that God loved us. He doesn't even mention our love for God until the very end of the passage:
… those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
 I take this not as a description of duty — those who love God are obliged to love their brothers and sisters also — but as a simple statement of fact if somebody loves God it must mean that they love their brothers and sisters also, because without love of neighbor, there is no love of God.
Jesus said, The second commandment, to Love our neighbor as ourself, is like the first. This means that it is equal to the first — it is the same as the first.
Whoever says he loves God but does not love brother or sister is a liar.
John knows nothing about our love of God, except in our love of our brothers and sisters. There is in fact no such thing as human love of God except in our love of one another.
So, we have to understand today's Collect carefully :
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life, that we may steadfastly follow His steps in the way that leads to eternal life

Truly to know God is everlasting life. But It is too easy to think of this as a matter of believing the right things about Jesus in order to get the reward of everlasting life as a result of our knowledge. St. John makes it clear that true knowledge of God is found in love — love of our neighbor. With that interpretive key, the petition "to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the Way the Truth and the Life" and "steadfastly follow His steps in the way that leads to eternal life"  must be understood as a prayer to follow His commandment to love one another as He has loved us, which means without limit, even unto death. The footsteps of Christ lead to Calvary.
John goes on to talk about the "atoning sacrifice" of Christ:
… not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins…
As you know, I think there is a big problem with the notion of atonement or expiation, as bequeathed by the Middle Ages to Western Christianity — both Catholic and Protestant. As Timothy W are, now the Metropolitan Kallistos, asked packed house at the Greek Cathedral in Oakland a couple of years ago "to whom would such a price be paid"? So, I looked up the passage and, as usual, found something interesting. The verb translated as "atoning sacrifice" is related to the word for mercy: as in Kyrie eleison.  One form of this word is the name for the covering of the Ark of the Covenant, the "Mercy Seat". On the Day of Atonement, this covering was sprinkled with sacrificial blood, changing it from the Seat of Judgment to the Seat of Mercy. Clearly, the Blood of Christ is the propitiation for our sins, in the language of the religious imagination of Temple worship him. St. John, however, enlarges that imagination.
Our sins are our failures to love one another. God is not mad at us for that, and we don't have to do anything to appease God. The "atoning sacrifice" is not something we do for God, but something God does for us. The Sacrifice of Christ cancels our failures to love, absorbing them, or — better yet — filling up our lack of love with the love of God. Not that we loved God but that he loved us. This perfection of what is lacking in our love for one another also makes it possible for us to love one another.
Beloved, as since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.
Hear the word ought does carry the sense of an obligation. We are obliged to love one another because God loves us; but if God's sacrificial love for us imposes an obligation on us, it also confers at the same time the capacity to fulfill it. The Cross — the new Mercy Seat — is the expiation of our sins in that the Cross perfects human nature:
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and His love is perfected in us.
The perfection of divine love in us — in our love for one another — is not just the way to eternal life: it is eternal life and the knowledge of God.
Whoever loves is born of God and knows God    
Whoever! Think of it! And consider it along with that mysterious little announcement in last week's Gospel:
I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.
We do not know who those other sheep are, but it is safe to say that they are not to be found among those who say the correct things about Jesus' Identity. They are, after all, "not of this fold". What we do know is that
Love is from God; whoever loves is born of God and knows God.
Alleluia! Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death,and giving life to all in the tombs. Alleluia!

Comments: Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?