Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 25, 2003
Acts 11:19-30 or Isaiah 45:11-13, 18-19; Psalm 33 or 33:1-8, 18-22; 1 John 4:7-21 or Acts 11:19-30; John 15:9-17.
The theme which runs through all of the lessons for this Sunday is that of love. The idea of love is probably more storied than other concepts the world has known. Regardless of the culture, literature is resplendent with examples of this great theme as it affects the lives of heroes and heroines. Music of every genre also celebrates the idea of love and its importance to our lives.
However, these concepts of love usually fall short of the ideal set forth in God’s word. Often we use the word “love” in careless ways. Perhaps it is the poverty of our English language that causes us to use the same word to describe our feelings about clothes, food, pets, spouses and God. Or perhaps it is just our inability to express ourselves carefully. For we really mean something different when we say “I love that dress” or “I love my wife” or “I love God.”
The love we find in the New Testament, the love that John tells is the very substance of God, is not mere affection. It is not a momentary attraction to some pleasing object, or an emotional response to something that meets our immediate needs. It is a willful decision to respond to another in a sacrificial way, to count others as better than ourselves, and to lay down our lives for each other.
It is the love exemplified in the reading from Acts today. When the Christian community hears the prophecy of a great and impending famine, the response is immediate. They determine not to provide for their own needs in order that they may reach out and provide for the needy in Judea. They take up a collection and send it personally by the hands of Paul and Barnabas. Love that has no outlet, no action, no incarnation, is not love at all. It is simply a philosophical concept without relevance to the world around us.
Christian love, however, is love in action, love incarnate, seen in practice and in self-sacrifice. It is the love of God who sends his Son to die that we might live, and who tells us that we are enabled to love because he first loved us.
Dr. Eleanor Chestnut was a physician who journeyed to China as a medical missionary in 1893. Using her own funds, she built a hospital for the sick, and until it was finished often preformed surgery in the kitchen of her home. One patient who came to her needed to have a portion of his leg amputated. After several days complications arose requiring skin grafts to be used. A few days later another doctor noticed that Dr. Chestnut was limping and asked her about it. She shrugged it off as nothing. Later a nurse revealed that Dr. Chestnut had obtained the skin for the graft from her own leg using only a local anesthetic -- an act unheard of, especially between the local poor and a “rich” westerner. Her sacrifice was love incarnate. This is love of God.
Look It Up
Note the definition of love in 1 Cor: 13:4-7. How is this love reflected in the life of Jesus?
Think About It
In what ways can I be a better example of love to those around me?
Next Sunday
Seventh Sunday of Easter, June 1, 2003
Acts 1:15-26 or Exodus 28:1-4, 9-10, 29-30; Psalm 68:1-20 or Psalm 47; 1 John 5:9-15 or Acts 1:15-26; John 17:11b-19.
