The Pure Lover
John 15:9-17
Last week, I sang for you one of my favorite hymns. This week, I am going to ask you to sing what I am sure is one of your favorite hymns. That may sound presumptuous, but “Jesus Loves Me” is perhaps the most recognizable song in Christianity everywhere. The immediately recognizable tune is sung all around the world. It has been translated into national languages, regional dialects, sign language, and even into languages which have gone extinct. At last count, this hymn is included in 529 different current hymnals.
Everyone likes singing “Jesus Loves Me.” It is easy to understand why. The message is simple, direct, and true. Jesus loves you. We have the Bible witness. We belong to God. God’s love protects us. This is Good News!
This hymn even appeals to every level of theological sophistication. We teach this hymn to our youngest children, and they learn that Jesus loves them. When Karl Barth, one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century, was asked by a student to share why he was a Christian, it is reported that he sang “Jesus Loves Me.”
This hymn unites people across cultures, across languages, and even across religious experience and understanding. Still, it is not a complete testimony for what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Over the years since Anna Bartlett Warner wrote this hymn in 1858, various people have added verses to try and fill it out.
Some writers, for example, believe that it is not enough to know that Jesus loves you, if you are not then moved to give your heart to Jesus. It is not enough, if you are not then moved to share the good news of Jesus with others. It is not enough, if you are not then moved to love your neighbors as Christ has loved us.
These second and third verses will vary from hymnal to hymnal, depending on what emphasis the denomination wants to make. You can find the names of these writers, but it is rare that the names will mean anything to you. Well, consider today to be a rare day. One of these added verses, published on the denomination’s website but not yet in their expected new hymnal, has names attached to it which you may recognize.
Nancy Ward asked me to write an additional verse as a segue for a funeral she was playing. She told me what she was thinking, and I worked it out for her, and then she approved it.
We will get to that verse eventually, but for now, let us sing the first verse of “Jesus Loves Me.” If you need the words, they are on the insert in your bulletin, as well as on the screen.
Jesus loves me! This I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong; they are weak, but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
Many of you may have seen the latest Marvel movie, “Avengers: Infinity War.” A lot of people have, but I haven’t – at least, not yet. The most important thing I know about the Marvel Universe deals with Uncle Ben talking to Peter Parker.
Uncle Ben knows that Peter is struggling with how to use his new powers as Spiderman. Uncle Ben tells Peter that “with great power comes great responsibility.” Many people credit Stan Lee, the story-teller of the Marvel Universe, with coming up with this line. But the origins of the phrase pre-date its use in Spider-Man. In 1906, it was Winston Churchill, not yet the Prime Minister of England, who said, "Where there is great power there is great responsibility.”
But Churchill was only reflecting what William Lamb, a member of the British parliament, said in 1817: "the possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility.” I think it is likely that Lamb was repeating what he heard his local priest say in a sermon on Luke 12:48. This is where Jesus said: “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required.” So, we have a direct line from Jesus to Stan Lee!
In the Marvel Universe, this understanding of power is how you know who the good guys are. The good guys use their power to be responsible for protecting others. It is not having powers which makes them good – it is how they use their powers for others.
Conversely, this is also how you know who the bad guys are. The bad guys also have great power, but they use it for themselves. Whatever power they have, whatever wealth they possess, whatever control they exercise, it is not enough for them. The bad guys believe the advantage of being powerful is that it allows you to exploit others for your own glory.
How do we know Jesus is a good guy? Time for our 2nd verse.
Jesus loves me! This I know, as he loved so long ago,
taking children on his knee, saying, "Let them come to me."
Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love.” This is what Jesus said. This is what Jesus did. The children Jesus invited in were powerless. They were dependent on others for survival. Jesus Christ, the Son of God Almighty, used his power to welcome the children.
We know Jesus is good because he abides in love. Pure love reveals its power through vulnerability, through risking oneself for others. Jesus tells us that we abide in his love when we “keep my Father’s commandments.”
To refresh our memories, there are 613 commandments in the Old Testament, which were the scriptures used by Jesus. If you want to include the commandments in the New Testament, Jesus only gave us one. But there is a group which has gone through the New Testament with a fine-tooth comb – and they have counted 1,050 additional commandments, for a grand total of 1,664 commandments for us to obey.
Personally, I think that group, and others like them, are missing the point – and more to the point, they are missing Jesus. We are not saved by keeping nearly 2,000 commandments. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
We cannot save ourselves – only Jesus can do this for us. That is the work of justifying grace. And we work out our salvation, as Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, when we love God and love our neighbors, as Jesus works through us. This is the work of sanctifying grace.
I have said this before, but every law, and rule, and regulation, exists because someone somewhere messed up. If you will, someone became a bad guy by using the power they had for what they believed to be good for themselves, rather than for the good of others – and the law was written to prevent the bad guys from acting badly again. There is good which can come from following the rules. However, in today’s world, sometimes it is the bad guys who are writing the rules, and that is when good guys have to stand up and witness!
Rather than focusing on the accumulated wisdom of dealing with bad guys through laws, Jesus focused on how the good guys were to use their power which comes from being the People of God. He, along with some other rabbis, had summarized all the laws in their scriptures down to two: love God and love your neighbors. Jesus then bound together in grace these two laws in order to make one inseparable, indivisible law: “that you love one another as I have loved you.”
Jesus loves us with the love of God. When we love others with the love of Jesus, Jesus says we are loving God. This is the pure love of neighbors, the love which reveals, and is empowered by, the pure love of God. This is how we are to love each other!
You don’t have to take my word for this, of course. If you want to study all the laws yourself, it can help you more fully live into God’s love. I recommend that you study the scriptures – all of the scriptures, with an eye to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
When you study the scriptures, you will see that, apart from the commandments about what to eat, and what to wear, and the other personal holiness commandments, there are a whole lot of commandments about how to deal with others. These commandments include loving “the other,” who are defined as the stranger, the outcast, the sick, the imprisoned, the hungry, the thirsty, the weak, the powerless, and the sojourner.
If you study all of the scriptures, you will come to one unavoidable conclusion. These commandments tell us that, by the great power of our relationship with God, we have a great responsibility for others – we are to be the good guys.
The question which remains, then, is how much are we to love others? How good do we have to be, in order to be a good guy? After all, even Jesus said that we will always have the poor with us. History and experience have taught us that no one person can deal with every person’s hunger, every person’s sickness, every person’s need when they are distressed. How good do we have to be, in order to be one of the disciples of Jesus Christ?
The answer is found in the last part of this commandment. Because the translators want the words of the Bible to flow smoothly, our English translations do not always express the fullness of the original languages. We come closer to what Jesus meant when we hear him say, “This is my commandment, that all of you together, working together, loving together as the Body of Christ, love one another as I have loved, and always will love, each and every one of you, individually and all together as the children of God.” That won’t fit on a bumper sticker, but it fits in the kingdom of God!
It is time for our third verse.
Jesus loves me still today, walking with me on my way,
wanting as a friend to give light and love to all who live.
Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
How did Jesus love us? He showed patience towards his disciples. He held them accountable for what they said. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, welcomed the outcast, forgave the sinner, and cast out their demons. He depended on God. He had confidence in God. He did not travel alone, even as he took time alone with God. He worked with others. He shared the opportunities. In everything he did, with every person he met, Jesus taught us how to love by word and example.
And then Jesus did what only Jesus could do, out of his love for us. He died for our sins and was raised for our new life with God, here and in the hereafter. That is what Jesus said: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one's friends.”
The love of Jesus is not just what he did for us in the past – as important and essential as that is. The love of Jesus for us continues today. It is offered today for every person who wants to be a good guy. It is offered through every person who believes. Jesus still walks with us on our way into God’s kingdom. Jesus is our constant and abiding friend.
But friendship with the ultimate good guy confers upon you great power, and with it a great responsibility. Jesus continued: “You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”
We are the friends of Jesus. We know what Jesus is doing, because we know what Jesus has done. Jesus is loving all who are in need of the love of God. As the friends of Jesus, we love not because we have to, but because we get to – this is how our joy is made complete.
And this leads us to our 4th verse.
Jesus is the friend I love! Made for me a home above,
Feasting on his heavenly food, all because my Lord is good.
Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
With great power comes great responsibility. The good guys use that power for the good of others. The bad guys use the power for themselves. But this truth doesn't mean that there isn't any benefit in being a friend of Jesus. Because Jesus loves us, here and in the hereafter, we have this assurance that Jesus has prepared a place for us with his Father. That is Jesus, the Good Guy, using his power for us!
The Apostle Paul wrote that faith, hope, and love abide – these are the great powers of the gospel – but the greatest of these is love. And while the hymn “Jesus Loves Me” is a great and powerful hymn, we can't expect it to carry the load of sharing the good news all by itself. We have to use the power God gives us to love our neighbors. We have to share our witness so that others may come to believe in Jesus.
So, it is time for us to stand and sing together a new hymn which is part of my witness to you. It is a hymn which describes our life of discipleship, our life of being the good guys. And that is a story worth seeing!
“Love is Our Call”