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!
