To Love God: A Meditation on John 14

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, 

he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, 

and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

While the way people speak of love in this world varies widely, Jesus speaks very directly about what true love is.  It is not selfish, coarse, or rude; it is not harmful, abusive, or domineering; it is not forced, compelled, or coerced.  Unlike so many expressions of what people call love, the love of God is pure, holy, and beautiful, with sacrifice and humility for the good of the other.  While people speak of what they deserve and demand from those they love out of hubris and conceit, God calls quietly and peacefully to everyone who will hear Him without the full display of His omnipotent grandeur.  Unlike the lies people tell one another to woo and deceive each others' affections, God speaks in truth with gentleness and compassion unfeigned.  In the Gospel reading from John 14 for this Sunday, Jesus invites us to understand the distinction of divine love which surpasses all expressions of fallen man's concepts of love.

To begin, we must remember that God's love is inextricably wound up in His Word.  His Law, as the Ten Commandments summarize and which Jesus Himself explains, is a law of love-- love of God for who He is, and love of our neighbors for who they are, created like us in God's image.  The Law which God breathes out in creation and which holds the universe together is at its foundation a reflection of the love and truth God is within Himself, eternally lived out in the unity of His Holy Trinity.  It is not God who left man, but man who left God, when Adam and Eve were deceived into rejecting the perfect Law of love and fell into corruption and death-- a fall which has contaminated and twisted every one of their children ever since.  It is our fallen corruption as a human race which often fails to see love for what it really is, and therefore perceives God's Law as a holy terror which convicts us of our own lack of love.  It is most certainly true that God's Law is good, and righteous, and true, even though it has become for us a divine mirror which shows us how far we have fallen from our created image in God.

And yet, God's love for us does not stop with the truth of His Law.  Instead, His love reaches out beyond His Law with compassion and mercy to all those who have fallen away from Him, by sending His Only Begotten Son to be among us as one of us, to suffer with us, die with us, and rise again that we might rise together with Him.  This love of God which seeks and saves the lost is a Gospel love which satisfies the justice of His Law, and reaches out with grace and mercy to all who will turn and believe in Him.  This is a Gospel which speaks a Word greater than the condemnation of the Law's holy mirror, with forgiveness, life, and salvation for everyone by grace through faith in Jesus.  This love of God is a Word of life, of hope, and of reconciliation to all who will trust in Him.  It is a commandment and a decree, written in the most holy blood of Jesus Christ, crucified, died, and risen for the sins of the whole world.  It is a Word alive with His all powerful Spirt, working miracles of resurrection and life through the waters of Holy Baptism, the bread and wine of His Holy Supper, the Absolution given to the penitent sinner, and the bold preaching of the Holy Scriptures with Christ as their source and summit.  It is a Word which gives what it promises, accomplishing the ends for which the Lord of Glory has sent it out int the world.

Thus we hear Jesus teach His disciples what it is to love God and to live in the love of God:  keep His Word.  The underlying Hebrew idiom which informs the Greek translated to the English word "keep," is a concept more literally rendered "guard," "defend," or "preserve."  The Word of God, His commandments given in both Law and Gospel which reflect His divine love for His people and His whole creation, which become incarnate in His Son, is the Word of love by which we live, and move, and have our being.  This love of God is found in His commandments to love Him for who He is and our neighbors made in His image, just as it is found by grace through faith in the vicarious atonement of sinners for Christ's sake alone.  By this Word we know the love of God for us, and abiding in this Word by faith, we show forth our love of God.

It is in this guarded and kept Word of love that we find God manifest to each and every repentant soul.  Here in His Word does He reveal Himself as mankind's Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, just as He reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Here in His Word does the Father send forth His Son to reconcile the world to Himself, and here in His Word does the Father and Son send forth the Spirit to work saving faith and repentance in the hearts of all who hear and believe.  By this Word does Jesus enliven cold, dead, and broken hearts, raising them to new life from above which can never die.  By this Word does the King of all creation come to you, calling you to the eternal embrace of His love, and into the endless fellowship of all His holy saints and angels who dwell in His light.

While the dark and sinful world has spent much of its history and even its present, rejecting, despising, and ridiculing this Word of life and love, still it comes to you today.  Have you been bruised and broken by the lying words of sinful men, who despite their silver tongues and well tailored clothes, gave you empty promises and an empty soul?  Have you despaired of preachers who speak with vanity and vapidity, who fill the Church of God with the chaotic echoes of their own delusional ambitions?  Have you heard all the broken promises, all the false gospels, all the social improvement programs, and lost hope in the wisdom of man?  Be of good cheer, for to you comes the Eternal Word of God's love and salvation which will never tarnish, never be broken, and never fail.  To you, drowning in the syrupy sweet manipulations of evil men who seek to use you, despoil you, and defraud you, comes a Word of free and everlasting grace-- of forgiveness and reconciliation which was earned for you by Jesus alone, and which He gives freely to all who will trust and abide in Him by faith.

Hear the Word of Christ come to you in both His Law and Gospel, that you might be found in Him.  Leave behind the empty promises of vain men, cloaked in self-congratulating peacockery and prancing about the world like delusional escapees of a mental ward, and receive instead God's Word of truth, love, simplicity, and beauty.  Let the shadows and lies of a fallen world recede from your sight, that you might see Jesus incarnate, crucified, risen, and returning for you.  Hear the Word of Jesus call you into His fellowship, where in love He manifests Himself to all who abide in Him, and guard the Word of love He has given them in His Holy Scriptures.  Hear Him today, believe, and live.  Amen.