“Jesus Love Me”
Rev. Dr. David E. Gray
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church
April 11, 2010
Matthew 19: 13-15; 1 John 4: 7-11
Karl Barth was considered one of the great theologians of our Reformed tradition. He wrote many important doctrines and updated Reformed theology in the early 20th century. Someone once asked Barth what was the greatest theological discovery that he had made during his lifetime. Barth thought about his teaching and work and answered that his greatest theological discovery was, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
It wasn’t in Barth’s nature to try and be cute. This was a serious answer. Barth distilled the wisdom of his studies to the idea that Jesus loves you and loves me. It is a personal depiction of God’s love. We come out of Easter and wonder, “what does Easter mean for us?” It means Jesus Loves Us. Barth said that the way he knew that Jesus loved him was that the Bible told him so. So let’s look at what the Bible has to say about some of the characteristics of God and God’s love, through the First Epistle of John, written in Ephesus around the end of the first century A.D.
You noticed that we included a different invitation for the children to come forward this morning. Instead of singing Jesus Loves Me with the children’s sermon, we are going to sing it as the hymn after the sermon. Did you even realize it was in the hymnal?
Around 1860, when Jesus Loves Me was written, infant mortality was much higher than it is today, and the hymn was meant to be comforting to a child during a very difficult time. It’s based on our first lesson from Matthew 19 about Jesus welcoming little children into his arms.
But Jesus Loves Me is not only for children, it’s for adults too. It’s said that in 1943 when John F. Kennedy’s PT boat crashed off the Solomon Islands, the Marines and Islanders who rescued Kennedy sang that song to him.
You know how the first part goes, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong, they are weak but he is strong.” But did you realize there are other verses? There are and they demonstrate important characteristics of God’s love for us.
Jesus loves us and allows us to reach. The second verse of Jesus Loves Me is contained in our hymn book and we’ll be singing it shortly. “Jesus loves me! This I know, as he loved so long ago. Taking children on his knee, Saying, ‘Let them come to Me.’” The hymn depicts a welcoming God who encourages us to reach up to God knowing that God will reach back in love.
One well known description of God’s love comes from C.S. Lewis in his book, The Four Loves. Lewis writes near the beginning that there is “Gift-love” and there is “Need-love.” The example Lewis uses for “Gift-love” is a “man who works, plans and saves for the future well being of his family (the benefits to which) he will die without seeing.” Here God’s love seems somewhat disconnected from the beneficiary. The example Lewis uses for “Need-love” is a mother who comforts a lonely or frightened child into her arms. Lewis argues that God’s love is like the former. He writes that “Divine Love is Gift-Love.” For Lewis, God is all about giving in that the Father “gives all he is and has to the Son and…gives himself to the world.” Lewis argues that God has no “Need-love” because God is lacking in nothing. Humans, Lewis writes, have much “Need-love.” Lewis writes that humans “approach God when they are least like God.”
I believe Lewis is correct that we often turn to God when we are most needy, and that our sovereign God doesn’t need our affection to feel good about God's self. But God is not the only giver. Within our relationship with God we have the ability to give of our ourselves or withhold ourselves from our relationship with God. And we are not the only receivers. The God I experience in life and in the Bible includes qualities of both gift and need love.
One thing I enjoy about Jesus Loves Me is that each of its verses contains a different vision of the characteristics of God. God can seem distant, but sacrificial, a form of “gift love.” God can seem closer and friendly, similar to the depiction in John’s Epistle.
God can seem child-like at times; after all, God chose the form of a child to enter the world in flesh. And God can also be most welcoming. This is a characteristic of God’s love that I see most clearly during this season. In the paradigm of C.S. Lewis, I believe God is often most similar to mother who welcomes the child in his “Need-love” example. It is not only the child who is lifted up emotionally. It is the mother who feels along with the child. And that is a characteristic of God’s love. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that "There can be no love without sympathy." I believe that God, in God’s own way, God grieves when tragedy happens, such as for the coal miners in West Virginia this week or in Poland yesterday. And the Biblical witness is that God rejoices with humanity when we seek God’s comfort and warmth.
Different visions and characteristics of God’s love can help us to see God in new and exciting ways.
There is attention in the religious and popular press now paid towards people expanding their idea of what church leadership looks like. This week’s Newsweek magazine cover story, “What Would Mary Do?” lifts up the idea that more women in church leadership could help the Catholic Church in particular in the wake of clergy abuse scandals. Recognizing the leadership of all members of one’s church impacts one’s theology. When we see all members participating, men and women, mature members and children, it impacts our view of God’s characteristics, it impacts our theology, and helps one see the breadth and depth of God’s love.
God is not so distant as only to desire our obedience. God’s love encourages our relationship. For example, Moses said in Deuteronomy "the Lord comes near when we pray to him." In Exodus we read, "The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend."
In the Lewis example, there is not only a need in the child to be comforted, but a need in the mother that draws the mother towards the vulnerable child. God seems drawn to the vulnerable. I see that type of love when Jesus is drawn in sympathy to lepers, criminals, the unlovable in his society and world, and that can allow each of us to say, Jesus loves even me.
Jesus’ loves us and allows us to risk. The hymn continues:
“Jesus loves me when I'm good, when I do the things I should.
Jesus loves me when I'm bad, though it makes Him very sad.”
To love is to risk. To love genuinely means to make oneself vulnerable to being hurt. John writes that God loves us so much that God became vulnerable for us.
I have been thinking a lot this week about two friends whose relationship is strained. They express that they are afraid to communicate honestly about how they feel and that is keeping them from growing together in their relationship.
I sense a concern between them that they perceive a tradeoff between their being open and honest and their being loved. As if they must either hide parts of themselves and stand a chance of being loved, or reveal who they really are and then not be loved by the other. The result of this in-authenticity is mistrust and a lack of deep connection, but I can understand how they got to that point. I just hope they can get to loving each other for who they really are, regardless of where it takes them.
Recognizing God’s unconditional love is one of the secrets to our being authentic with other people. In fact, its one of the keys to our loving ourselves. God risks love for us by loving us not only when we are good, but when we are not particularly loveable. What John expresses in our lesson is that God doesn’t love us because we do great work or because we keep God’s commandments or because we love others, though all those are important, God loves us because God has chosen to love us. God’s love comes before our love. John writes, “Its not that we loved God, but that God loves us.” John knew all about God’s love, John, most scholars agree, even refers to himself in his Gospel as the “Disciple who Jesus loved.” He was in many ways the original example of “Jesus Loves Me.” This confidence can help us to be honest with ourselves. And to love ourselves even when we aren’t happy about the way things have gone. Perhaps we can risk being ourselves for other people and they might still love us, as God does.
Jesus loves us and allows us to reflect God’s love. The hymn continues:
“Jesus loves me still today, walking with me on my way.
Wanting as a friend to give, light and love to all who live.”
We affirm as we begin the season of Easter that Jesus’ light continues to shine in the world because it reflects through those he loves. That’s why Jesus told his followers, “You are the light of the world.” We reflect God’s light to each other.
If we look for examples of what it means to reflect Jesus’ light in love, Barbara Brown Taylor suggests recognizing people we don’t often have relationship with, “like the tollbooth operator, the cashier at the grocery store, the server at your local coffee shop,” people we come across in everyday life who we don’t know well, in addition to those people who we see everyday.
John concludes, “Since God loved us so much; we also ought to love one another.” I find it inspiring that John was the one writing this and to the community of the early church. For they were being greatly persecuted in the early church and still John says they should love others.
In John’s epistle, we find both a gift of God’s grace through love, and a requirement. There is a need for us to act.
Yesterday, we hosted a baby shower at our home. A friend is having twins and it’s an exciting time. My job was largely to keep our two boys in the “other room” and away from the shower. It’s been a little while since I’ve been to a baby shower and there were plenty of “ooohs” and “aaahs” coming from the other room as they opened the presents. Lots and lots of baby gifts were exchanged at our home and lots and lots of thank you notes will soon be written.
God does not just want a note of thanks for Easter. God’s love is a gift love, but God’s love doesn’t just end with the gift. We need to reflect it.
This first week after Easter Sunday, think about what Easter means? It means, Jesus loves you. To paraphrase Sally Field at the Oscars, Jesus really, really loves you. Jesus loves you enough to sacrifice for you on Good Friday and to rise for you at Easter. Right along with Good Friday and Easter is Maundy Thursday and Jesus’ commandment for us to love one anther. If we are trying to figure out what we do with God’s Easter miracle, this is a good place to start.
For God needs us to reach up to God as God reaches back. To risk being vulnerable knowing that Jesus will love us unconditionally. To reflect God’s light to the world.
Bottom line? “Jesus loves us this we know, for the Bible tells us so.” And as Karl Barth suggested, most days, that’s about all you need to know.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
