Epiphany 4, February 3, 2019 John 21:15–19
“Do you Love Me?”
As we enter the world’s self-proclaimed “love month” we see, or will increasingly see, more and more hearts on social media, in stores, and all of it pointing to One day! Valentine’s Day? Actually, NOT! But we’ll get to that in a bit! Just as at Halloween, near the middle of this month, sugar intake will drastically increase and roses, those supposed love flowers, will fly off the shelves, all in an attempt to say: “I love you” (which is good!!!). Little ones will pass out those folded valentines at school, which say: “will you be my valentine?” (Sing) “Love is in the air, every-where I look around! Love is in the air, every sight and every sound …”
The world makes much, of love. And for good reason! We all need it! In fact we will die without it! Study after study has shown that a lack of physical affection can actually kill babies. … But psychology.com “says touch is even more vital than this: babies who are not held and nuzzled and hugged enough will literally stop growing and-if the situation lasts long enough, even if they are receiving proper nutrition-(they will) die.”
We were all made by God to be loved! He made us in the Garden of Eden in abject love for us. All that he created he created for us so that we could all joyfully exist in his eternal LOVE! But we, who will die, without that love, said we didn’t want God’s love! Crazy, and not so smart, but that’s what we chose! We choose to walk in the hatred of Satan and tossed the love of the One and Only God, without which, we will die!
Ever since the creation of all that exists, some 6000 years ago, we’ve been searching for love, and most of it, almost all of it, in all the wrong places!!!
Next Sunday on Feb. 10th, just before the 14th, our Jumbo Tron ministry poster will become a screen for all Fort McMurray drivers to see and be blessed by. At the top of the screen it will say, True Love…or…True Love? Beneath those words as you can see (if your reading this online please see the pic above) a loving couple on the left and a pair of nail pierced hands on the right.
Which shows True Love? The world would boldly say: “on the left!” Look at that couple! Look how they’re smiling at each other! “It even looks like they may be about to say, “I love you!” Isn’t that just beautiful!!! Much is made in our world about love and yet almost all of it, is not love! Not at all! Most of what is touted as love, when the word love is used, is in fact, Lust.
In Word, if you type in the word lust and go looking for a synonym the following words are offered to you. Lust = desire, envy, covetous, longing, yearning, hungering, hankering, thirst! Most of what passes for love in our day is lust! One’s physical desires and covetousness! One’s emotional envy and longings! One yearning, hungering, hankering, thirsting for the physical and the emotional! If you type in love, and check the synonyms, up pops, Darling, Dear, Dearest, Sweetheart, Honey, affection, adoration, friendship. Almost makes you think that Word was programed in Eastern Canada!
Truth is both lust and love, in Word, totally miss out on what True Love is! Biblical Love = sacrifice, death, giving, forgiving…! Only these represent True Love! Only these meet the needs of our hurting, broken and yearning hearts! Only these fill us up and quench the thirst that lust can never satisfy. And though it’s quaint, hearing dear or dearest or sweetheart that just doesn’t cut it and leaves one yet craving something that will sustain!
Have you ever heard the words, “I love you?” Of course! Prayerfully your parents said they loved you daily, and your spouse prayerfully says it over and over and over, not just at your wedding, or yearly! But at your Baptism (not at your wedding or the birth of your children) is where True Love came flooding into your life! God Almighty adopted you into his family and named you his child, his prince or princess, and said, “I Love You!” Every single Sunday you receive the very body and blood of our crucified and risen Lord and Saviour, in with and under the bread and the wine in Holy Communion, God says, “I Love You!” that’s why I feed you, that’s why I touch you with myself and forgive you, you are mine, you are loved!
All of God’s love points not to Valentine’s Day but to Good Friday! All the True Love we needed was given to us in a perfect sacrifice, a Love that gave up His life in place of our own soiled lives. A Love that was nailed to a tree so that we could be set free from searching for a love which we could never gain on our own! True Love is a gift to you, not from any girl or guy but from the God Man Jesus who gave His life into death to give you the forgiveness that your soul and mine desperately needs and now has forever!
Have you ever heard the words, “Do you love me?” Usually something, something painful, has gone on before those words are spoken! Even Jesus spoke those words. In our text we hear Him ask them three times! Something had happened! Yes it had! On Maundy Thursday Peter openly and vehemently, with a vow and a curse, denied Jesus! What did Jesus do about it? He went to the cross to forgive Peter, and you and me for every time we’ve denied Him. For every time someone in our hearing has used an expletive in front of Jesus’ Name and we’ve said nothing! Just like Peter cared more about what others felt and thought than about what Jesus felt and thought! In such we have denied Him as the True Love in our lives! Or when we despise preaching, teaching and his Word! In such we deny Him! And there are many other examples. And what does Jesus do? Our True Love points us back to his nail pierced hands and says I love you with True Love!
Jesus could have said to Peter after all I’ve done for you and your family! Who is it that healed your mother in law!!! You should all love me because of all I’ve ever done for you!!!! But Jesus doesn’t think or say these things, not to Peter, not to me, not to you!
Peter knew what Jesus had done for him! Jesus had died on the cross to forgive Peter’s abject denial, rejection and rebellion of his Saviour. Peter knew Jesus love! And because Jesus knows all things he knew of Peter’s repentant heart and his love for Jesus! But then why does Jesus ask him about his love? Even though Peter will become hurt on the third asking, the asking is for Peter! The asking is to assist Peter with the huge shift that is coming in his life! To help Peter to see his calling and all that it would entail.
Jesus was taking Peter from being an evangelist to being a shepherd. I don’t ask you three times in order to get something out of you Peter, I ask you and share with you these three times, that I may imprint on your life the love I have graciously and freely given you and you will need to rely on as you go forward! Use it to feed my lambs! Use it to tend my sheep! Use it to feed my sheep! Use my love, the love I have so freely shown to you, now as a Shepherd of people who will come to believe in me! And use it to face all that’s going to come your way. Because in following me your life is not going to be easy or pleasant! In fact, Peter, because I know all things, I know how you will die. With what type of death awaits you and how you will glorify me! Peter it’s not about you, it’s about me and the forgiveness I have showered upon you and therefore the joy I give you in being used by me to share and shepherd many with my True Love! For True Love is based on sacrifice, dying, giving and forgiving!
We are not to be afraid of any person! Of the person who so missuses God’s name on the job or wherever, but rather Follow Jesus and be used by him in all situations! With love and respect and sacrifice and dying and giving and forgiving we are to point them to Jesus. We are not to be afraid of any group, any agenda, any person but only fear (with awe, respect and true devotion) the One who had defeated all of the lust and false love upon the cross and at the empty tomb. There is only One Leader, Jesus our True Love. Follow Him!
NO MATTER WHAT! FOLLOW ME! says Jesus. I have you, you are mine. I’ve already blessed you with everything you need in me. I am True Love, Follow me and be blessed now and forever! Amen and Amen!
John 21:15-19
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” 19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”
Jeremiah 1:4–10, 17–19
4 Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” 6 Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” 7 But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. 8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.” 9 Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.10 See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”… 17 But you, dress yourself for work; arise, and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. 18 And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land. 19 They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the LORD, to deliver you.”
Psalm 71:1–6
1 In you, O LORD, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame!
2 In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me, and save me!
3 Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come; you have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.
4 Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.
5 For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth.
6 Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you.
1 Corinthians 12:31b–13:13
31bAnd I will show you a still more excellent way. 1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Luke 4:31–44
31 And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, 32 and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority. 33 And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, 34 “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” 35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. 36 And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” 37 And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region. 38 And he arose and left the synagogue and entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf. 39 And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she rose and began to serve them. 40 Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. 41 And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ. 42 And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, 43 but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.” 44 And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.