Dr S. Radhakrishnan, the late philosopher president of India once said, “Christians are ordinary people making extra-ordinary claims”. He said this when he found the professed claims of Christians were not matching their life style.
Christians, sure, are humans! And they have all the human weaknesses. But yet the world demands “a validation” from those, enthusiastically and very regularly, “professing faith”. For that is the way the world ratifies the truth of a faith.
This expectation is not a mere “worldly” one; it is also a “godly” demand. Hence, Jesus said: “If you love me, you will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14:23)
One of the first things that we may want to note is that the “Word” and “Commandment” in John’s Gospel are synonymous words. Hence, “keep my word” equals “keep my commandment”.
And if we probe a little more, even the word “love” belongs to the same category. In other words, to keep the word, or his commandment, is same as to “love”. So Christians regularly pray: “Pour into our hearts such love…” And Christians are expected to repeat this until that “love” happens. It is then a useful exercise to keep repeating, day and night, the phrase “pour into our hearts love that we may in turn love”. So as God pours this love into my feeble heart “I keep his word”, or “keep his commandment”.
Or, those who regularly walk to the “Lord’s Table”, to the altar for Holy Communion, may repeat the same prayer with modified words: “May we who receive this sacrament always be strengthened to do your will”.
Second, in the writings of John “faith” is very simple. It is to love. Likewise to do God’s will is to love; to keep the words of the Lord of the Worlds is to love; to obey the commands of God is, again, to love. It is those who love have faith. When there is faith there is love.
When I love - I may not speak of faith. But still I have faith. Love that which lives and dies for the other, for sake of the other is that which marks a life of a Christian. This is precisely what Jesus offered the world at the cross. It is this love that I receive as I gather, with others, around the Lords Table.
John confirms the same elsewhere: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” (1 John 4:16b) Or, in the same chapter, John said: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who love is born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7)
Perhaps, not strangely, the opposite is also true. “Whoever does not love does not know God.” (1 John 4:8) Still further down in the same chapter John has some very hard stuff. He said: “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20)
From this I learn that the only way to love and serve the eternal, unseen God, is to love and serve the mortal brother and sister whom I see in my every day life; now the brother and sister, as we all know, refers to every single human with no discrimination of color, race, or creed!
Earlier, I said, to have “faith” is simple. Because all that means is “to love”. Intellectually, it is a simple truth. But in reality, as we may very well know, it is the most difficult task. And perhaps that is why Christians as frail as they are fail to live up to their faith.
A reason for the failure to “love” is “forgetfulness”. At the beginning of the day, or on Sunday, at the beginning of the week, I say to myself I will worship and serve God by my love for my neighbour. But when I really encounter my neighbour, I see my neighbour not only as a threat to my interest but also as one who pricks my bloated ego. And I forget that love in my heart and replace with hate.
But I am not left alone to struggle without any support from above. The Gospel, the Christian Scriptures, speaks of the gift of the Holy Spirit, to “remind” (John 14:25) me of the need to love! Interesting aspect in this “support” from above is my actual doing love. When I “do love” then I “receive” this “support” from above. Love is given from above to those who love, not to accumulate but to spend. So it is not magical. Neither is it something that I do with my own strength. And therefore I cannot take credit for my loving. I love because I am loved first, and I am given to love.
It is grace and the power of the Holy Spirit that makes me and enables me to love, but that grace and power is experienced and realized only in my effort to love. They are both intricately connected. That is receiving love from above and spending my love are both inter-connected.
The love in the New Testament is not an expression of love from the “left-over” of my self-love. It is, as I said earlier, a love for the sake of the other; a love in which the other takes precedence to my own self. It is a love where the needs of the other is put before ones own need. It is, therefore, a costly love.
“For God so loved the world…” is the beginning of my faith. The “eternal city of love and light”, is the goal of my feeble and fragile faith. And this city has “riches beyond imagination” for those, and for only those, who love, and live this earthly life by loving!
Christians, sure, are humans! And they have all the human weaknesses. But yet the world demands “a validation” from those, enthusiastically and very regularly, “professing faith”. For that is the way the world ratifies the truth of a faith.
This expectation is not a mere “worldly” one; it is also a “godly” demand. Hence, Jesus said: “If you love me, you will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14:23)
One of the first things that we may want to note is that the “Word” and “Commandment” in John’s Gospel are synonymous words. Hence, “keep my word” equals “keep my commandment”.
And if we probe a little more, even the word “love” belongs to the same category. In other words, to keep the word, or his commandment, is same as to “love”. So Christians regularly pray: “Pour into our hearts such love…” And Christians are expected to repeat this until that “love” happens. It is then a useful exercise to keep repeating, day and night, the phrase “pour into our hearts love that we may in turn love”. So as God pours this love into my feeble heart “I keep his word”, or “keep his commandment”.
Or, those who regularly walk to the “Lord’s Table”, to the altar for Holy Communion, may repeat the same prayer with modified words: “May we who receive this sacrament always be strengthened to do your will”.
Second, in the writings of John “faith” is very simple. It is to love. Likewise to do God’s will is to love; to keep the words of the Lord of the Worlds is to love; to obey the commands of God is, again, to love. It is those who love have faith. When there is faith there is love.
When I love - I may not speak of faith. But still I have faith. Love that which lives and dies for the other, for sake of the other is that which marks a life of a Christian. This is precisely what Jesus offered the world at the cross. It is this love that I receive as I gather, with others, around the Lords Table.
John confirms the same elsewhere: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” (1 John 4:16b) Or, in the same chapter, John said: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who love is born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7)
Perhaps, not strangely, the opposite is also true. “Whoever does not love does not know God.” (1 John 4:8) Still further down in the same chapter John has some very hard stuff. He said: “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20)
From this I learn that the only way to love and serve the eternal, unseen God, is to love and serve the mortal brother and sister whom I see in my every day life; now the brother and sister, as we all know, refers to every single human with no discrimination of color, race, or creed!
Earlier, I said, to have “faith” is simple. Because all that means is “to love”. Intellectually, it is a simple truth. But in reality, as we may very well know, it is the most difficult task. And perhaps that is why Christians as frail as they are fail to live up to their faith.
A reason for the failure to “love” is “forgetfulness”. At the beginning of the day, or on Sunday, at the beginning of the week, I say to myself I will worship and serve God by my love for my neighbour. But when I really encounter my neighbour, I see my neighbour not only as a threat to my interest but also as one who pricks my bloated ego. And I forget that love in my heart and replace with hate.
But I am not left alone to struggle without any support from above. The Gospel, the Christian Scriptures, speaks of the gift of the Holy Spirit, to “remind” (John 14:25) me of the need to love! Interesting aspect in this “support” from above is my actual doing love. When I “do love” then I “receive” this “support” from above. Love is given from above to those who love, not to accumulate but to spend. So it is not magical. Neither is it something that I do with my own strength. And therefore I cannot take credit for my loving. I love because I am loved first, and I am given to love.
It is grace and the power of the Holy Spirit that makes me and enables me to love, but that grace and power is experienced and realized only in my effort to love. They are both intricately connected. That is receiving love from above and spending my love are both inter-connected.
The love in the New Testament is not an expression of love from the “left-over” of my self-love. It is, as I said earlier, a love for the sake of the other; a love in which the other takes precedence to my own self. It is a love where the needs of the other is put before ones own need. It is, therefore, a costly love.
“For God so loved the world…” is the beginning of my faith. The “eternal city of love and light”, is the goal of my feeble and fragile faith. And this city has “riches beyond imagination” for those, and for only those, who love, and live this earthly life by loving!
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