6 Easter, Year C

“IS LOVE AN EMOTION, OR A POWER?”
A sermon by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, May 9, 2010
Acts 14: 8 – 18; Psalm 67; Revelation 21:22–22: 5; John 14:23–29

“Class, it’s a pleasure to do theology!” So said one of my seminary professors, at the beginning of each class.

“Church, it’s a pleasure to do theology!”

Today, we hear a small portion of Jesus’ Farewell Discourse, which, in the Fourth Gospel, is quite long, stretching from chapters thirteen through seventeen. The Farewell Discourse is the body of teaching that Jesus gives during the Last Supper, on Maundy Thursday, just before His suffering and death.

Today, we hear Jesus talk about the other two members of the Holy Trinity, the Father, and the Holy Spirit (here referred to as the Counselor).

Today, we hear Jesus talk about the love we have for Him, and the love which the Father has for those who love the Son.

So, since the theme of love is woven throughout the Farewell Discourse, and is heard here in our reading today, here is our theological question for the day: “Is love an emotion, or is it a power, a force?”

How would you answer that question?

Normally, we think of love as an emotion, don’t we?

That is the image we have in our movies, novels, and poems, to be sure.

But, if we take another look at the idea and concept of love, we see that it has enormous power. For example, drawing from another remark that Jesus makes during His Farewell Discourse, we hear Him describe the awesome power of love. In John 15: 13, we hear these words, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” So, love can prompt an individual to do things that a person would normally seek to avoid. Here, in Jesus’ suffering and death, we see an example of self-giving, self-emptying love. The Greek word for this sort of love would be agape.

Connecting the idea of the power of this sort of self-giving love to the results it will produce, we hear Jesus say, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw everyone to myself.” (John 12: 32). Of course, Jesus is referring to His death by the use of the words “when I am lifted up from the earth”. It is a phrase which is used elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel.

So, we can see that love is a power, a force, which can produce significant results, significant change in people’s lives. The change cited in the verse from chapter twelve is the power to draw everyone to God through the sacrifice of the Son.

That is awesome power, a power which breaks down barriers of race, culture, economics, and class. It cuts across time, binding a chosen people to God through Jesus Christ’s life, teachings, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension.

Turning now to the relationships which bind together the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, theologians tell us that these three persons of the Holy Trinity are bound together by ties of love, a love which not only connects each person to the other, but a love which penetrates each of the other two persons of the Trinity.

Now, the great blessing is that you and I, as God’s chosen people, and invited into this equation of love. We are bound up in the very inner life of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are invited to learn and to experience the very life of God, the intimate life of God.

Or, we might add, we are invited to learn and to experience the very life of God, as much as we are capable of learning and experiencing this side of eternity, seeing that life of God in the Holy Trinity from the inside, due to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as one of us.

Jesus Christ is the doorway into this inner life of God. For it is by His coming to us as one of us, fully human and yet fully divine, that the connection is made between the Godhead and humankind.

So, if love is a power, and not principally an emotion, then what results will this divine love produce?

The answer can be found in our reading for today: Notice that Jesus tells His disciples that the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, will “teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

So, the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit will empower us as God’s children to do the things Jesus told us to do, or – in the words used elsewhere in the Farewell Discourse – we will be able to “Keep Jesus’ commandments.” If we do so, then the Father will love us, and the relationship between Father, Son and us will be cemented together for all time.

One final thought: Jesus told His disciples – in another part of the Farewell Discourse – that they would do the works that He did. But, in fact, He said, they “would do greater works” than He had done. (See John 14: 12)

Thanks be to God for the power of love which binds the Father to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God for the awesome power of love which binds us to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, inviting us to be a part of the inner life of the Holy Trinity, now and forevermore.

AMEN.