“SO MUCH LOVE”
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 6)
June 12, 2016
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
“Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven--for she
loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
Luke 7:47 (ESV)
“How much do you love me?” Ever since time began poets and
philosophers, romantics and lovers have tried in vain to measure love.
Their efforts have been unsuccessful because love doesn’t come in
pounds and ounces, gallons and quarts, feet and inches, or minutes and
seconds. You can’t measure love, weigh it, or put a price tag on it.
Love is simply too great and too wonderful to be confined by
measurements. That being the case, how can we possibly tell if we are
loved or if we love someone or something else? Maybe love can’t be
measured but it certainly can be shown and seen. That’s what today’s
Gospel is trying to tell us. If we have received the redeeming love
of God in Jesus Christ, that love is going to be visible in our lives.
It’s a simple case of love begets love. We show love because we have
received love. And the love that we show is the evidence of the love
that we have received.
Now just what kind of love have we received? On the evening when He
was betrayed and arrested the Lord Jesus said to His disciples:
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life
for his friends” (John 15:13). The love that Jesus has for us is
truly without measure. We know this because He was willing to go all
the way to the cross and the grave in order to ensure our everlasting
happiness. We know it also because His love for sinners doesn’t quit
after two or three or four rejections, as human love so often does.
His love is endless and even today He calls out in love to all sinners
through the power of His Holy Spirit, inviting them to believe in Him
and thereby to have a share in His glory.
If the divine love of Christ for lost sinners like us doesn’t seem
impressive enough, it becomes even more impressive when you stop to
think about just how unlovable we really are. Let’s be honest with
ourselves for a moment as we examine the history of our human race.
Our first parents were created perfect by a perfect God of love and
were given a perfect environment in which to live. God’s only command
was that His perfect people in their perfect home should remain
perfect even as He is perfect. But pride got the better of them.
Adam and Eve were not content with all of the perfect things that God
had given them. Succumbing to the temptations of the evil one, they
threw it all away, choosing instead to be their own god. And lest we
be tempted to think of all of this in the third person, you and I
wouldn’t have behaved any differently. That fatal act of rebellion so
long ago is something that we still live with today. Once-perfect man
has become and continues to become more imperfect and more corrupt as
time goes on. Ever since that first act of disobedience all of
humanity (save Christ alone) has been and continues to be unacceptable
to the perfect God who created us all perfect in the beginning and
desired that we live forever in perfect fellowship with Him.
Sickness, death, hatred, and all other kinds of evil have become facts
of life for us. It’s a pretty miserable description of people, I
know. But in all honesty that is who we are. We are creatures of a
loving God who have deliberately rejected their Creator and broken
their perfect relationship with Him. Once we understand this (who we
are and what our standing with God is), it becomes even more
incredible to think that God should nevertheless love such unlovable
creatures as we are.
But He does! And that’s what gives us a sense of worth. No matter
how rotten-to-the-core we are, God loves and values us so much that He
was willing to lower Himself to the point of becoming One of us in
Christ and bearing not only the hardships of life that we all must
bear but also His own righteous judgment against our sin. And in
exchange for our guilt, which He took upon Himself, He gives us His
righteousness--His perfection--so that we might stand before our God
on the day of judgment not as the condemned sinners that we are but as
His obedient and beloved children. Saint Paul put it this way: “God
made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might
become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV).
Love like that cannot go unnoticed. There has to be some kind of
response from those who have been loved with such an all-embracing,
never-ending love. It is this response that we see in the Gospel for
today as we consider the actions of the sinful woman. She wasn’t
showering all of this affection on Jesus because she wanted to attract
attention to herself. She wasn’t doing it because she wanted Simon
the Pharisee to question Jesus’ powers of discernment. She did it
simply because she realized what God’s forgiving love meant in her
life. She who knew that she was a miserable sinner also knew the joy
of forgiveness. She certainly must have known what rejection was. In
all probability she was scorned and rejected by everyone in town. But
now that she had found acceptance and love, she overflowed with love
toward the One who had forgiven, accepted, and loved her. What a
tremendous example she is for us. Maybe we are not people of
particularly bad reputation. Maybe we’re not thieves, adulterers, or
murderers. But this much is clear: We are not perfect as God’s Law
demands that we be, and therefore we are no better off than this
unnamed woman of bad reputation in our text. Once we realize that,
certainly the love of Christ that we have received will move us to
respond with love toward the Savior as she did.
And just how do we do that? We do it in everything that we say and
do. We are doing it right now by being here today. We are showing
our love for the Savior who redeemed us by gathering together in His
presence--in His house--around His means of grace. We have gathered
to worship Him: to sing His praises, to thank Him for His love, to
sacrifice a portion of our time, talent, and treasure in the service
of Him who sacrificed everything for us. But our loving response
doesn’t end here. It goes right out those doors with us. It goes
with us to work, to school, to the shopping center, to our homes--even
to our vacations. It goes with us wherever we go. It is powerful
enough to change not only our relationship with God but also our
relationships with one another. It changes us. It changes us from
sinners to saints, from arrogant to humble, from phony to sincere,
from vengeful to forgiving, from greedy to selfless, from cold to
loving.
And so we revisit our original question: How much love have we
received? How much does God love us? It can’t be measured but it can
be--and has been--demonstrated. A number of years ago someone gave me
a small wall plaque that says it all. Perhaps some of you have seen
it or have one like it. It reads: “I asked Jesus, ‘How much do You
love me?’ ‘This much,’ He answered, and He stretched out His arms and
died.” He has shown us His redeeming love so clearly and so
graphically that by His grace, with His power, and in His name we, the
redeemed, can reflect it to others so that they, too, might know the
joy and power of His redeeming love.
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in
you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and
strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our
world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able
ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is
faithful, and He will do it. Amen.