Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Perhaps we're beginning to get the message by now. All this talk of love over the past few weeks ought to be making an impression on us.

For Christians, love is not optional. It is basic, intrinsic, integral-of the essence of the Christian life. God is love. Christ is love incarnate. We are little Christs, bearing nothing less than the love of God into the world. And more than all this. Love is a commandment.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

We are commanded to love—with the kind of love that was shown to us in the way that Jesus loved. "That you love one another as I have loved you." This is not what one might judge to be an easy task.

Here's a fun story I heard from Dr. Richard Bliese. It speaks to an important aspect of the commandment to love.

It seems a Lutheran moved into an almost totally Roman Catholic neighborhood. The neighbors were tolerant, but the fellow next door found one of the Lutheran's habits particularly irritating. On Friday evening, as his family was sharing their meal of fish, it would often happen that the sizzle and aroma of steak on the grill would waft its way into the ears and nostrils of the faithful Roman Catholics. It made the neighbor bound and determined to find a way to put a stop to this disruptive and nearly pagan behavior.

It finally dawned on him that if he converted the Lutheran, his troubles would be over. So he set to work.

At long last, his invitations and harassments won the day, and the Lutheran's baptism into the church was scheduled. As the priest sprinkled the first bit of water over the head of the Lutheran at the font, he said, "You were born a Lutheran." He sprinkled water again and remembered for the congregation, "You were raised a Lutheran." Then he poured a lot of water on his head and announced, "But today you are transformed into a Roman Catholic." The entire community celebrated for five days at the conversion of the interloper.

And on the sixth, Friday night, everyone was enjoying their meal of fish. And, to the extreme surprise of the neighbor, he heard the distinctive sound of steak sizzling on the former-Lutheran's grill. He could hardly believe his ears, and so he moved over to the edge of the fence and craned his neck to confirm his worst suspicions.

As he did so, he watched the man sprinkling water on the steak, perhaps, he thought, to keep the fire low. But he could hear the words he spoke as he did so. "You were born a calf." He sprinkled more water and affirmed, "You were raised a cow." Finally he poured water over the steak and announced, "But today you are transformed into a fish."

The point of the story is that genuine transformation is not so easy to come by. It is desperately needed; it is difficult, but it is wonderful.

Our text today tells us, from the very lips of our Lord, that we are commanded to love. Transforming the contentious, sinful, prideful, bull-headed folks that we human beings are is a large enough task that it requires a commandment to love. Being transformed into truly loving people of God is no simple matter. And loving in the way that our Lord loved is a pattern of living that we can only hope to reflect in the smallest and dimmest of ways.

When a congregation was begun several years ago, there was a bit of wise counsel that came from one of the elders. He said, "I've been involved in the starting of several churches and my experience has always been the same. You begin with a flurry of enthusiasm and excitement, but sooner or later it comes down to just plain endurance just sticking it out."

Such a statement is not only true of starting a church, but of other areas of life as well. Certainly one of the basic forms of human relating comes to mind—marriage. For the first months or years, marriage is able to function on the fuel of romantic feelings. But sooner or later we come to the realization that marriage is not only enjoying, but enduring. There must be the transition from romance to routine. I don't mean, of course, that marriage is a drag to be endured with gritted teeth—at least not most of the time, but that it is not one continual high, perpetually warm fuzzy feelings. Work is involved. Love and work go together.

When the words of John chapter fifteen were spoken, the disciples had spent a great deal of time with their Lord; and the honeymoon period was about to come to a close. Their expectations of being part of an earthly reign of Jesus as a king like David were about to be shattered. Jesus points out to the eleven the realities of the future. He would not be heralded as Israel's king, but hated: "If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you." (18). They too would soon experience the hostility of an unbelieving nation (18-25). And then he gives instructions about the work they would need to do in order to maintain fellowship and fruitfulness in the difficult days to come. Jesus was soon to depart, and the nature of the relationship would change. From then on, it would be all about loving one another as their Lord had loved them.

It wouldn't be—and isn't—easy. It means compromising needs, desires, and expectations. It means working more at obedience and sacrifice than at serving the self and meeting ones own needs.

Philip Yancy writes about a definition of love that Mother Teresa gave at a National Prayer Breakfast.

...Rolled out in a wheelchair, the frail, eighty-three-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate needed help to stand up. A special platform had been positioned to allow here to see over the podium. Even so, hunched over, four-feet-six-inches tall, she could barely reach the microphone. She spoke clearly and slowly with a thick accent in a voice that nonetheless managed to fill the auditorium.

Mother Teresa said that America has become a selfish nation, in danger of losing the proper meaning of love: "giving until it hurts." (What's So Amazing about Grace?, p. 244)

I had never heard love defined like that before. We tend to think of love as a warm feeling or a sense of fundamental connectedness. We talk about loving things—a house or a shirt. We often think of love as something that just happens to us. We fall in love. It's a feeling I get or an object I want to get.

However, Mother Teresa says that love is giving—giving until it hurts. That's what Jesus does—to the point of dying. Such giving shapes the lifestyle that Mother Teresa sought to live.

To follow up from last Sunday's text about abiding in Christ, today we learn how it is that we abide in his love: "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His Love."

The finest illustration of this kind of abiding is found in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. He loved so much that he gave of himself until it hurt. If the love of Christ is to be shown in us, we are called to be willing to give of ourselves to and for others.

A man was waxing eloquent to his wife of how much he loved her. He told her he would even die for her. "That won't be necessary," she responded, unimpressed, "just pick up that towel and help me with these dishes." Few of us will be required to pay the ultimate price of friendship. All of us should be willing to do so-and to show it in simple acts of kindness.

Sometimes the words of Jesus are obtuse, difficult to understand, demanding an understanding of context and explanation. Here the case is different. Here he straightforwardly commands.

John Dominic Crossan, the author of some of the more provocative of books on Jesus and one who shares a measure of the suspicion that the church has produced "Christs" that "mute, mitigate, or manage" the program of the true, historical Jesus, nonetheless acknowledges the limits of his method. Crossan is honest enough to know that Jesus does not just want our admiration, or even our agreement. He wants obedience. Crossan imagines a conversation between himself and Jesus:

"I've read your book, Dominic," Jesus begins, "and it's quite good. So you're now ready to live by my vision and join me in my program?"

"I don't think I have the courage, Jesus, but I did describe it quite well, didn't I, and the method was especially good, wasn't it?"

"Thank you, Dominic, for not falsifying the message to suit your own incapacity. That at least is something."

"Is it enough, Jesus?"

"No, Dominic, it is not." ("The Historical Jesus: An Interview with John Dominic Crossan," The Christian Century, 108, Dec. 18-25, 1991, p. 1204.)

In this season of Easter, we are being taught that love is a part of the resurrection—part of the transformation—that comes to us through our resurrected Lord. It continually strikes me as a surprise that our gracious Lord frames this transformation as a command. I prefer the word of grace that is easy and warming of heart and soul.

This is different. It is likely different for a good reason, and probably because it is so basic—so very important. Jesus demands and commands here—that we be transformed by the amazing grace and power of his love for us. He tells us straight. If you have come, by grace and baptism, truly to know my love, then you will live it out in lives of service, obedience, giving, and joy. This is the meat, the heart, the relational truth of the gospel—and there is indeed good news.

"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord unto eternal life. Amen.