A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

Christ is … Lover

1John 4:7-16, Preached by Tom Lacey at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, October 1, 2006

Little four-year-old Johnny wanted to go to the zoo, so he kept pestering his parents for days. Finally, mom talked reluctant dad into taking him. "So how was it?" his mom asked when they returned home. "Great," Johnny replied. "Did you and your daddy have a good time?" "Yeah, Daddy really liked it," exclaimed Johnny excitedly, "especially when one of the animals came racing home at 30 to 1!" Now is that love?

How important is love? We are just empty shells without it. You know what’s amazing about our Christian faith? It’s this: the singular and signature act of God in Christ Jesus occurred because God so loved the world; Christ came, not because of anger, Christ died, not because of sin, Christ rose, not because of the desire for punishment; but first because God loved. Or faith is begins and ends with love. Paul saw God’s great new act of love in Christ and said: “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Gal. 2:20b Our faith is not about being right and good; it’s about being loved and being alive from the inside out because of God’s love. Christ gave his own commandment to his disciples and to us to sum up all his teaching: “we are to love one another, as he loved us.” We become changed people for God and good when we are changed by his love of us and our love of him.  

What we want to see this morning is that Christ is our confidant, our close friend, and even the lover of our soul, as Charles Wesley put it in his hymn. Next to his role as leader, Christ’s oldest role is as companion, for as soon as he called out, “Follow me,” and they did, he became the disciples’ companion for three years. And this function, this crucial spiritual role, has not lessened in importance over the past 2,000 years. It is, I would argue, the most important way Jesus Christ is in our life today. Pope John Paul II says Christ "walks through the centuries alongside each generation, alongside every generation, alongside every person. He walks alongside each person as a friend. An important day in a young person's life is the day on which he becomes convinced that this is the only Friend who will not disappoint him, on whom he can always count." Pope John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope. Christ is teacher, prophet, savior, leader, but most important because it is most a matter of the heart, Christ loves us as a close, close friend, our life-friend, and loyal companion. His love of us calls out our loyalty to him. This is the heart and soul of being a Christian.

In our impersonal world we need people who care and answer. We need a savior who answers, cares and comforts. But today’s world is so not like this. We just continually miss each other. We walk right by without seeing or really caring about each other. Reminds me of the story when from a passenger ship, everyone could see a thin, bearded man on a small island, shouting and desperately waving his hands. “Who is it on that island?” a passenger asked the captain. “I have no idea ... but every year when we pass, he goes nuts.”

Think of life without anyone looking out for you. Wouldn’t that be terrible? This is what a real friend does. He or she looks out for you. And this gives us strength and comfort. The great Christian St. Augustine said, “I have read Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful, but I never read in either of them, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden." This is the difference between our Jesus and everyone else. His companionship means something more, and something more important, because he faced it all, and he rose above it. Listen: A person surrounds herself with the things that make life comfortable, but she is still not comforted. Another has grown bitter in his old age. He refuses to be comforted. Someone else goes to worship but long ago gave up the ghost of hope that anything good would ever come of it. Real comfort begins with what God has done, what God is doing, what God will do. That’s the Christian Gospel. It is first a message concerning God and what God is doing. It is never a summons to you and me in our distraction and restlessness to rouse ourselves and to break our own bonds. That’s like telling a first-grader to look at the numbers two plus two on the board and add those together before ever giving him the method of addition. First God must act in His overpowering way to convince us that we need his love. Did you know that in an old and largely obsolete definition, comfort means "to make one strong." That certainly has more meaning here than the ease and relaxation that we might better describe as "comfy." To be strong to bear one’s burdens doesn’t sound like much of a miracle. The alcoholic will still have to take it one day at a time. Living the rest of our lives without a loved one who has died will not be easy. Coping with a disability, bearing pain, loving someone who is hard to love are all difficult to do. They require strength often beyond our limits. But there is reassurance, tender reassurance. "Don’t be afraid.... Behold, your God comes with strength, ... and reward ... and vindication. He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms. And he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young." (Isaiah 40:9-11)

But this is not easy for us, especially men. We don’t like to outsource the source of our strength, which is what I am saying you should do—to Nazareth, to Jesus of Nazareth, or even better, to heaven where Christ abides praying for you to the Father. But nah, we can handle it. Think again: A few years ago, a psychiatrist named Georgia Witkin-Lanoil wrote a book entitled The Male Stress Syndrome: How To Recognize and Live With It. The author interviewed a diverse group of 500 men and their wives, sisters and mothers, and as a result of that, said that male stress starts during the Little League years and doesn't let up until the grave. Seriously. As a result of that, the grave greets men an average of five and a half years before women—74.5 years for men and 79.9 years for women in 2004. Men are exercising more and smoking less, but are still stressed out. As a result, men suffer from more stress-related physical problems and are far more likely to die from heart disease, cancer, suicide, and accidents than women. ... More than 6,000 men die from ulcers each year; male alcoholics outnumber females seven to one." (USA Today, November 11, 1986 and 2004)

Fact is, we’re not so strong on our own. Men need to accept that they have a heart that needs caring for, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually, not just physically. The heart can break. I believe it is a muscle that feels the effects of relational pain and real stress. Jesus mends hearts and eases pain. He is the comfort of God. He is your companion who cares. This caring for you is what Jesus does to change your life. A radio station in Missouri had an interesting experience. They had a popular program that played the music that most of us like—music middle-America could understand. The program had a very loyal following. People would stay up into the night to listen. It became their friend, especially to those people who have difficulty sleeping. One day the disc jockey got an interesting letter. It said, "Dear Sir, I am a farmer living alone on my farm. My wife is dead and my children and grandchildren have moved away. I see them infrequently. There are three things in my life that give me comfort. One is the farm. Another is this radio program. The third is my fiddle. Sometimes in the night when you are playing music that I have known in past years, I get out my fiddle and play along with you. It brings me great comfort. But recently, a problem has developed. My fiddle is out of tune. The A string doesn't work like it should, and I don't have a tuning fork so there is no way I can get my fiddle back in tune. Would you be so kind as to play the note A? If you will do this, I will tune my fiddle." So the station did, and he did, and he was comforted and strengthened.  

When we are alone and needing comforting, needing someone to love us, this is what Christ does. This is who we are to be, as well. “Let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God….” This is our Christian faith, but we need to make it our Christian life.  A woman is walking down a city street when she sees a big sign in a window that says, “Pants pressed here.” Delighted to see the sign, she goes home and gathers up all of her wrinkled laundry. She carries it into the shop and puts it on the counter. “What are you doing?” the shopkeeper demands. “I brought my clothes here to be pressed,” she says, “just like your sign says.” “Oh, you’ve got it all wrong,” the owner says. “We don’t actually do that here. We’re in the business of making signs.” Let’s not just talk a good game. Let’s walk a good game. Amen.

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