Love is in the air – the love of Christ

Homily for Easter – 6^th Sunday Year B 2015

Acts 10:25-26,34-35,44-48; 1 John 4:7-10; John 15:9-17

Introduction

Listening to the readings of today’s Mass, I am reminded of an old song of the 70s, entitled “love is in the air.”  Both the second reading and the gospel used the word “love” nine times each.  The message for us therefore is loud and clear: Christians must “love one another.”

But what does the word “love” really mean?  We use it in many different ways.

·        A teenager sends a text-message to her boyfriend saying “I love you.” Do those words mean the same thing when a couple who have been married for 40, 50 or 60 years say them to each other?

·        A mother kisses the forehead of her bruised five-year old son saying “I love you.” Do those words mean the same thing when a father says them to his daughter as he gives her away at her wedding?

·        And then you have the love about which we read in novels, we hear in pop music and we see in movies.  What does it really mean to love?

For us Christians, if we are to understand what “love” truly means, there is only one place to go.  We go to Jesus.

Scripture and Theology

In today’s gospel passage he tells us: “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”  The command to love is nothing new. Even the Old Testament and indeed most other religions command people to love.  What Jesus adds to the meaning of love is those four little words: “as I love you.” Besides telling Christians to love Jesus specifies that they are to love just as Jesus himself loves.  And how does Jesus love?

He says: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  That is how Jesus loves; he lays down his life for others on the cross.

But the love of Jesus started long before the cross.  His very coming into the world was an act of love.  Today’s second reading told us that the love of God was revealed to us in this way:  “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.”  And it goes on to define what true love: “not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”

A few chapters before today’s gospel passage, St. John describes Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.  John then says: “He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.”  And after washing their feet, after showing them a symbol of love, Jesus tells his disciples: “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

As we know, that very night Jesus actually puts his teaching into concrete practice.  He lays down his life, for the world, for you and me.  He is scourged, tortured and made to carry a cross.  He undergoes untold physical suffering, to take the place of a sinful world.  But his sacrifice goes beyond the physical pain; Jesus empties himself completely and gives himself body and soul to God, to redeem a world that rejected him.  That is how he loves!  That is radical love.  That is the way he wants Christians to love a he has loved. 

Christian Life

Christians throughout history have tried to imitate this radical love of Christ.

Think about the martyrs, those saints who give up their lives for the faith, when it would be just as easy to give in to the demands of their tormenters.  For example there have been several news stories recently, of Christians being killed by Islamist terrorists in the Middle East, for no other reason, than their faith.

But let me tell you about the Uganda Martyrs from my own country, whose feast is coming up on June 3rd.  When the missionaries arrived in Uganda in 1879, they set about preaching the gospel to the people.  Several natives joined them and became Christians.  But about six years later the Ugandan King was disturbed that his Christian subjects were turning their allegiance from him to this new religion.  They were abandoning some of the ways of their ancestors and living the Christian way.

·        For example, some of them abandoned the practice of polygamy and were now observing the Christian teaching on sexuality, particularly the teaching on monogamous marriage between one man and one woman.

·        And then the King’s own chief-minister, Joseph asked the King to spare the life of an innocent man who had been condemned to death.

And so, the King asked them to choose what they truly loved more.  They had to choose between their lives and their new faith.  Twenty of them chose to die for Christ, most of them by being burnt alive. They included a 13 year old catechumen who was baptized on the way to the execution. This is the greater love that Jesus speaks about, laying down one’s life for one’s friends.

Closer to home and especially as we celebrate Mother’s day, we must remember the many mothers who live out this radical love of Jesus day in day out.

·        Think of the many mothers, perhaps some among us here today, who juggle two or more jobs, to put food on the table for their children.  Think of the many mothers who spend sleepless nights with crying babies, sick babies, hungry babies.  This of the many mothers who have to deal with naughty teenagers. They lay down their lives for their children.

·        This morning I called my mother in Uganda, to wish her a happy mother’s day.  And I thanked her for putting up with a messy, bratty, naughty child, my sister.

·        Think of the many mothers who raise their children in truth, discipline and hard work.  Because these values are not popular today, these mothers would probably not win “Mother of the Year” award from their teenage children.  But they carry on, because they know that Christian motherhood is not a popularity contest.  It is laying down your life, your popularity for your children and even your husband.

·        Think of those women and girls, who choose the path of motherhood, when the path of abortion would have been easier.  Faced with an unplanned pregnancy that will affect their schooling, work and reputation, they still choose to keep the baby.  Sometimes the pregnancy is the result of rape or abuse; but they still decide to keep the baby.  But most radical are those women you hear about every now and then, who are diagnosed with cancer.  They know that terminating the pregnancy will give them a greater chance at recovery; but they choose to carry the pregnancy to full term, often at great risk to their own health and in some cases with the certain knowledge that they will die in the process.  All these women, in choosing Christian motherhood not only love, but love as Jesus loves.  This is the greater love that Jesus speaks about, laying down one’s life for one’s friends.

Conclusion

Many of us will not be martyred for the faith; some of us are not mothers, perhaps because we are men.  But we are all called to love as Jesus loved.  And we love in our day to day activities, in our daily duties, in random acts of kindness.

In one of my favourite movies, Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye asks his wife Golde: “Do you love me?”  She is confused and wonders what has brought this question on.  And then she wonders loudly?

Do I love you?

For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes

Cooked your meals, cleaned your house

Given you children, milked your cow

After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?

Jesus loved in a very concrete way, so must we love others in a very concrete way.  “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”