May 25, 2025 ~ Sixth Sunday of Easter
Rev. Beckie Sweet
During the late 19th Century, the great evangelist Dwight L Moody was preaching in Chicago. A man, under the influence of alcohol, seeing the warm lights of Moody’s tabernacle, staggered up the steps to the front door. Upon opening it, he saw no one within, but he did see the motto hanging above the pulpit: ‘God Is Love.’ The man slammed the door, staggered back down the steps, and muttered to himself, ‘God is love? God is not love. If God were love, God would love me, and God hates me.’ The man continued his uneven walk around the block, still muttering to himself. But those words began to burn images into his mind. A power seemed to draw him back to the tabernacle. With the throngs that were now making their way into the tabernacle, he soon found himself seated inside, and Mr. Moody was preaching.
When the sermon had ended, Moody made his way to the door to shake hands with the people as they left. But this man didn’t leave. He continued to sit in his seat, weeping. Moody came over to him, put his arm on the man’s shoulder and asked, ‘Is there something that I can do for you? What was it in my sermon that touched your heart?’
‘Oh, Mr. Moody, I didn’t hear a word that you spoke tonight,’ the man responded. ‘It’s those words up there over your pulpit – ‘God is Love.’ Moody sat down and talked with him for a while, and soon he gave heart to God. [i]
One of the early church historians, Jerome, said that when the apostle John was in his extreme old age, he was so weak that he had to be carried into the church meetings. At the end of the meetings he would be helped to his feet to give a word of exhortation to the church. Invariably, he would repeat, ‘Little children, let us love one another.’ The disciples began to grow weary of the same words every time, and they finally asked him why he always said the same thing over and over. He replied, ‘Because it is the Lord’s commandment, and if this only is done, it is enough.’ [ii]
I John is the great book of love. Love is mentioned 46 times in this short book. You see, it all begins with God’s love. In case we ever forget this basic, essential fact of our faith, I John makes it crystal clear. God is the source and definition of love. God IS love. God loves as the sun shines; love expresses who God is.
God’s love does not depend on our initiative or on our worthiness. We don’t have to reach out to God or even believe in God in order to be loved. We don’t have to clean up our act before God can love us. We don’t have to measure up to some standard in order to be lovable. No, God showers love on us whether we deserve it or not. And honestly, who could ever deserve such amazing, immeasurable love?
I John insists that the more fully and completely we know God, the more the immense reality of God’s love dawns on us. When we open ourselves up to the warmth and light of God’s presence, we find that even our deepest, darkest secrets and the ugliest parts of ourselves are not beyond God’s reach. God embraces us as we are, and works in us to make us clean and whole and new.
Remember, God’s love is NOT a passive love, or an abstract concept. Love is passion expressed in action. And in the same way, God’s love does not act passively in us. It drives us, it transforms, and it changes us. It drives us to love one another, to care for our siblings, gives us confidence toward God even in judgement, and transforms us to be more like Christ. If God is willing to take the initiative to love and sacrifice Christ for these people, then surely I can go out of my way to love them as well.
God’s love does not act passively in us. It drives us, transforms us, and changes us.
With a better understanding of how God takes initiative in love, how can we, today, take initiative in our love? What does it look like to take initiative to love a friend in a mental health crisis? A hart-to-talk-to neighbor? A family member with different political vidws? Maybe it’s something small, like asking and then listening well to how someone’s been doing.
Or maybe it’s something a bit bigger, like apologizing to a sibling, asking for forgiveness, asking for forgiveness for our mistakes. Regardless, we do not love because it’s something we have to do, or because we are obligated, but because God’s love drives us to do it. If we follow Jesus, we serve a God who decided to take initiative to give God’s one and only Child as a ransom in exchange for many. And that should change us, and transform us, to take some initiative of our own.
“God IS Love!” What does that mean to you?
[i] L.E. Tucker, These Times, November 1974, via the May 2006 Signs of the Times email newsletter.
[ii] Steven J. Cole, Flagstaff Christian Fellowship, cited by John Stott, The Epistle of John.