Love One Another: 1 John 4:11-16

1 John 4:11-16 5/6 Second Reading at Vespers, Feast of the Apostle John the Theologian (5/8) Love One Another: 1 John 4:11-16, especially vs. 11: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Here is a challenge. Don’t you just know the objections? 'How can I love those who hate me, despise and take advantage of me? No! I really need to defend myself against people like that.' Also, reject the simplistic idea that love for one another applies only to fellow Christians, another dodge of the command. You know those who are outside the Church and hate, abuse, and take advantage; but admit that you also know Christians within the Church who do the same. The truth is we have this same injunction defined comprehensively from Christ our God Himself: “But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you” (Lk. 6:27,28). Now in St. John’s First Epistle, you and I not only are given this basic requirement of life in Christ, but also are provided a guide for establishing it in ourselves as our practice. St. John spells out in simple steps how to grasp what may seem beyond you: practice loving the hateful, embrace love, make love your way, attain peace of heart, and thus gaining eternal life. First there is the phrase, “...so loved us...” (1 Jn. 4:11). By it St. John returns to the verse immediately previous to the present passage: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn. 4:10). This phrase also points ahead to verse 14 in this lesson. He speaks of Christ our God, born a flesh-and-blood man like ourselves, walking radiantly among us, embracing His Passion and death on the Cross, and trampling down death. Here is prima facie evidence that God does not ask of you what He Himself is not willing to do. The Lord Jesus is not God-in-the-abstract but He Who had to “suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the end of the ages...appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Heb. 9:26). In a way it is true that “No one has seen God at any time” (1 Jn. 4:12), yet, in Christ, we know in a direct, concrete manner that “If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us” (vs. 12). What we cannot “see” of God we know through life in His Body, the Church - through His Scriptures and Mysteries, and from His Saints. Who but a pagan or heretic will deny that the love of God abides in Christ and is perfectly revealed in Him? You know this yourself: “...that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit” (vs. 13). Surely you remember Chrismation, and “...the seal of the gift of [God’s] holy, and almighty, and adorable Spirit....”! The Spirit makes Christ present within us. Be confident, for we have the Apostle’s word based on years of physical, tangible experience “...that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world” (vs. 14). St. John learned this by living with Him (1 Jn. 1: 1), and that is exactly how you and I touch Him - in the Church. Do not hesitate at what you are reading and confronting here just because you have not touched the Lord Jesus in the same way that St. John did. Take the Apostle’s assurance to heart: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God” (1 Jn. 4:15). You did that at your Baptism the first time, and you repeat that confession each time you recite the Nicene Creed: “I believe in...one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God....” Pray God that you, like the Apostle, may know and believe “...the love that God has for us” (vs. 16). “God is love...” (vs. 16). Love is His essence; and, in Christ, He is seeking to have love be your nature as well, so that loving enemies becomes easier bit by bit until it is second nature. Thus, love will abide in you and you will abide in love and so abide in God (vs. 16). O Lord, come and abide in me: cleanse me that I may love fully as Thou commandest.