Pentecost, commonly called Whitsunday

Hear the words of the Gospel appointed for Whitsunday:

 “Jesus said unto his disciples, If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever…”

          I’ve come to believe that following rules is not something we do well in our current culture. Just watch people boarding a plane with their carry-ons and you will see how well we follow rules. There are signs about how many carry-ons you can have. There are small boxes at the TSA where you can place your carry-ons to measure and make sure they fit.

          There are pictures demonstrating how to properly store carry-ons in the overhead bins. Yet, there is always someone who has one too many carry-ons… and that carry-on is two sizes too big… and so they stand there, delaying the flight, as they try to shove it into the overhead bin.

          In our culture today, many people do what they want when they want, regardless of what anybody says. Such self-centered expressions of personal freedom only create more rules and regulations. Our public spaces become filled with more signs, more warnings, and more instructions, yet we only see more chaos as individuals resist the laws in a willful expression of their individual freedom.

          If you really want to know how people feel about rules and regulations, just listen to what they say – “Rules are made to be broken.” In our current culture, a lot of people live by that proverb and do whatever they want.

          All of this can make it hard for us to hear Our Lord in this morning’s text. It may be difficult to listen to Him and understand what He says because He is talking about rules. He speaks about commands, and the mere mention of commands usually causes our resistance to rise up.

But notice one thing – when Our Saviour speaks of commands, He does so in the context of love.

          In this day and age, when turning on the news or scrolling through social media, “love” is not quite the overriding theme of the day. We see dissension, animosity, conflict and chaos bring to light the condition of our world. The timeless beauty of the Scriptures reveals the same cultural struggles as we experience today. Reading through them we find stories of war, division, and opposition.

          Thankfully, we do find the overarching theme of “love” there also. The Father’s love for His creation, and His desire for us to always remain with Him, led Him to sacrifice His own Son, in the name of love, to atone for all   our sins. Scripture tells us that while love may not always be present, it should always be the goal.

          In the New Testament, Our Lord gives many commands regarding love. In John 13:34, He tells His disciples: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” . One chapter later, He tells them: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” He was sharing a final meal with His friends and His final words to them centered around love. He did not take these commands lightly.

          He tells the disciples that, to show their love for God, they had to keep His commandments. He was sharing with them the calling God had placed on their lives – and all our lives. Our Lord was preparing them for His absence. He would no longer physically be with them, but they were to go on loving others;  to reflect the Father’s love on the world.

               The “commands” He refers to were not specifically the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai in the book of Deuteronomy. In Matthew 22: 35-40, Jesus was approached by the Pharisees who were trying to trick Him. They were attempting to get Him to admit his teachings were false. So they asked Him which commandment, given to them by Moses, was the most important. He answers with the words we recite every Sunday morning: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

          The command to love Almighty God and to love others encompasses all of the Ten Commandments. Our Lord and Saviour spent His earthly ministry demonstrating love for others and reflecting the love of His Father. Jesus tells His disciples, “If ye love me, keep my commandments…” In other words, if you don’t keep God’s commandments to love, you do not love God.

          Later, He repeats the idea: “If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” Love is connected to keeping the commandments. Commandments are not kept because of fear, not because of force, not because of threats, and not because of punishment. No, God’s commandments are kept because of love. Love leads to a delight in the Law.

          Consider how strange that sounds in our culture today. Rules are made to be broken, not kept…and when it comes to keeping rules, we do so only because of penalties and policing. Our Lord, however, has nothing to say about penalties and nothing to say about policing. Instead, He talks about love, a deep and everlasting love which leads those who follow Him to obey His commands.

          In our text this morning, Jesus is preparing His disciples for a time of deep sorrow. They have been with Him for approximately three years, have experienced His love, and have loved Him in return. But soon He will be going away. He is about to show them the radical, the overwhelming nature of His love. He will endure the suffering of the cross, the punishment for all mankind’s sins, and be crucified and buried.

          The disciples will lose the one who loved them unto death. But this same Jesus will rise and reveal the power of the everlasting love of His Almighty Father. Sin, Satan, and even death itself cannot separate Him from His people. He will rise from the dead and ascend into Heaven.

          There, He will sit at the right hand of His Father and rule over all things. His rule, however, will not be imposing laws, rules, and regulations on people. He will rule through a relationship of divine love.

          Our Lord promises us an intimate relationship of love with Him. He promises He will send the Holy Spirit to live within us. The Holy Spirit will be our helper in times of trouble, our counselor in times of difficult decisions, our comforter in times of sorrow, and our advocate in times when we need defense.

          The Holy Spirit reminds us of Jesus and draws us closer to Him. The Holy Spirit recalls His words to our minds and His works to our hearts. So, when we hear the commands of Our Lord, they are the words of someone who loves us with the deepest love imaginable. To love Him is to live in His Word and follow His commands.

          Unfortunately, today we Christians can sometimes approach the commands of Almighty God more like those travelers in an airport. That is, sometimes we can find the commands of God burdensome. We can speak about them as rules we have to keep, penalties that make our travel in this world burdensome, and policing which restricts our freedoms and makes life less fun. We, in our stubborn way, attempt to resist these commands and do just what we want.

          In the Gospel this morning however, Jesus invites us into a way of life that is grounded in His all-encompassing love. We are called to hear the words of Our Saviour, to remember His great love for us and to follow His commands because they draw us closer to Him, closer to His desires for us, and they assure us that, in what we do in this life, we remain under His protection and are ever near to Him.

“If ye love Me,” Jesus says, “keep my commandments.” Our life of following Him is not done to earn His love or to win His approval. We don’t need penalties and policing to get us to follow. Why not?…because we have His love – freely offered. We have only to accept Him into our hearts.

          Loving Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, we should delight each day in following His commands and living in Him. Let us pray, and ask Him to help His love overflow through us, to everyone around us.

Amen,

The Rev Deacon Timothy Fleming