Foretaste of the Sermon to Come

A little nibble of the Revised Common Lectionary

Sunday’s readings are Acts 17:22-31, 1 Peter 3:18-22, John 14:15-21

If you love me you will keep my commandments.  We humans are quick to jump straight to the inverse, since I am not keeping the commandments, I must not love Jesus. 

Jesus is talking with his disciples, giving his “Farewell Discourse” in the upper room where they will celebrate his last Passover, and by Friday he will be dead. He is speaking pastorally to this small group who have left everything to follow him. They must have been confused and terrified; they just entered into Jerusalem triumphantly, being welcomed by throngs of people waving branches and crying, Hosanna! Save us! And now he’s preparing them for his death? But he’s promising that he will not leave them orphaned; he will send them the Holy Spirit to continue to teach them and remind him of all he’s taught them. And they do love him, no matter how imperfectly they show it.

We modern people, we who often don’t keep the commandments (which in John are boiled down to love one another,) are quick to focus on our sin.  To see our sin as a sign of our unbelief, of our unworthiness, a challenge to our assurance.  But Jesus knows his followers, he knows our weaknesses, and has sent the Holy Spirit to hold us together as a Christian community, to keep us steeped in Word and Sacrament, to fill us with God’s love so that we can love God and our neighbors in return.  The fruit of this spirit includes love of God and neighbor. 

So it’s true, if we love Jesus we will keep his commandments, but loving Jesus is a gift of the Spirit. Luther understood this and explained the Third Article of the Creed in his Small Catechism, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” Amen