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Texts: I John 1:1-2:2; Acts 4:32-35
This is the Second Sunday of Easter,
and lectionary-appointed Gospel for this Sunday, every year,
is the story from John 20 of Jesus coming through the walls
of the room where the disciples are locked away in fear,
and offering them peace and forgiveness.
I think I’ve preached about 30 sermons on that passage over the years,
so I decided to skip that Gospel passage today,
and focus the first letter of John instead.
The three letters of John are attributed to the apostle John,
who is also said to be the evangelist John, author of the Fourth Gospel,
who is also identified with John, the author of the Book of Revelation.
This may be true, but there may have been three or four or more people
involved in creating this body of literature, known as the Johannine writings.
But in any case, they do share the same style and themes.
For instance, in the writings attributed to John,
the phrase "love one another" appears 8 times.
The word "love" is repeated 65 times in those writings.
Remember this text from later in that first letter of John?
"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God;
everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
"God’s love was revealed among us in this way:
God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
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.
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another." [I John 4:7-11]
According to legend John was the only one of the 12 apostles
who wasn’t martyred for being a follower of Jesus.
He was exiled to the isle of Patmos in Greece.
St. Jerome, the famed 4th century Biblical scholar, tells this story about John:
John continued to preach even when he was in his 90s.
Even when he was no longer able to walk on his own, or really preach any more,
the people would carry him into the church on a stretcher,
and at every gathering he would lean up on one elbow and say simply:
"Little children, love one another."
Then he would lie back down and they would carry him back out.
This continued on, even when the ageing John was on his death-bed.
Every week, the same thing happened, again and again.
And every week it was the same short phrase, exactly the same message:
"Little children, love one another."
One day, the story goes, someone asked him about it:
"John, you know so much, and you saw such visions,
and you have such stories you could tell.
So why is it that every week you say exactly the same thing,
‘Little children, love one another’?"
And John replied: "Because the Lord commanded it – and because it is enough."
For John, that is the whole Christian message, and the essence of Christian living,
in a nutshell. "Little children, love one another."
Here is another insight into the first letter of John:
This letter was written with the urgency of someone
who knew first-hand what the true message of Jesus was
– the message of love and light and life –
and who wanted to be sure that other false teachers didn’t mislead people
or subvert the message into some kind of Gnostic secret knowledge
and secret salvation.
The truth of Jesus Christ consisted not in what you knew, but how you lived.
That is why John starts his letter with the words,
"We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at
and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life
-- this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it,
and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father
and was revealed to us – we declare to you what we have seen and heard
so that you also may have fellowship with us;
and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ."
The poet Robert Browning wrote a lengthy work in the 1860’s
titled "A Death in the Desert" in which he imagines John’s dying words
to a few close companions in his exile, including these:
"If I live yet, it is for good, more love
through me to men: be nought but ashes here
that keep awhile my semblance, who was John,—
Still, when they scatter, there is left on earth
no one alive who knew (consider this!)
—saw with his eyes and handled with his hands
that which was from the first, the Word of Life.
how will it be when none more saith 'I saw'?
Such ever was love's way: to rise, it stoops.
Since I, whom Christ's mouth taught, was bidden teach,
I went, for many years, about the world,
saying 'It was so; so I heard and saw,'
speaking as the case asked: and men believed.
John is portrayed, in the scriptures, in Jerome, in Browning,
as an eye witness to the living, teaching, healing, dying and risen Christ,
one who "saw with his eyes and handled with this hands .. the Word of Life.
For John, what Jesus promised was eternal life.
That phrase, eternal life -- ( ) – appears 23 times in the Johannine writings ,
more than in all the rest of the Bible combined.
But for John, eternal life isn’t some reward of everlasting immortality,
something you get when you die, by and by, in the sky.
In John, eternal life is a present reality, not a future promise.
It is something believers have now, It begins now and lasts forever.
Just what is this "eternal life"?
Zoe aionion ( ) is the metaphor used by John
to describe the change in human existence wrought by faith in Jesus.
To have eternal life is to live life no longer defined by blood
or by the will of the flesh or by human will, but by God [cf. 1:13].
It’s a way of describing life lived in the unending presence of God.
To have eternal life is to be given life as a child of God.
To speak of the grace available to the believer as "eternal life"
brings our expectation of salvation and deliverance right here to the present,
here and now.
Those who see this and claim this, human and sinners though they be,
look to Jesus raised up before them and know that they have life,
abundant life, eternal life.
That is the light that illuminates and guides their way through the world.
Those who do not see this or claim it, do not know this abundant life,
do not have the light, and continue to stumble in the shadows.
But God so loves the world that the work of salvation goes on and on.
The offer of life, abundant life, endless life is never withdrawn,
the offer of love is never withheld,
and the lifting up of the Holy One, the lifting of the light
continues to be preached and taught and demonstrated
by Christians each and every day.
"Little Children, love one another, for God is love.
We are all missionaries of the light. And the world needs our witness.
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