What is love? – Sermon on 1 John 4

Faith, hope, and love: pillars of Christian virtue, guiding lights in the darkest of nights.

Much ink has been spilt over these three, and many a fight had. What are they? We could spend our whole lives on that. But suffice it to say that faith, our relationship with God through Jesus, anchors us in the trials of life. Hope, a remembrance of the future, leads us along the path forward with fulfilled promises yet unseen in a confidence in promises kept. And love, the cornerstone of all virtues, the greatest of these three—well, this one is hard to pin down. In one way, we might say that love is what transcends barriers and boundaries, but even that is a paltry explanation.

Whatever the case, together, these three form the holy triumvirate of spiritual fortitude, the sacred trio of saintly endurance. They’re there with us through trials and triumphs alike. And so as we go forward today, and every day, consider these three, the timeless treasures of God for the ones he loves, for you—faith, hope, and love.

Let us pray. May only God’s Word be spoken and may only God’s Word be heard; in the name of Jesus. Amen.

It is the best of emotions. It is the worst of emotions.

What is love, truly?

A word profusely uttered yet enshrouded in enigmatic depths. We cast it about in casual conversations, bind it in bonds of matrimony, and profess it in sacred vows. But what’s its essence? What lies beneath love’s beguiling surface? An emotion—to be sure. Soaringly wonderful at times, yet sorely terrible at others. An emotion—a mix of feelings and actions that shows a deep liking for someone or something. That’s the common understanding, and it covers the deficiency of thinking of love as some thing, even if intangible. There are many that insist that love is a verb, an action manifested in deeds of kindness and selflessness. Love is both verb and noun—something done and something given and something received. Yet even that’s insufficient for the full depth and breadth of love. Love is much more than a feeling, much more than an action. Love is much more than liking something, even if deeply. We use this word so much, both in our everyday lives, but more importantly perhaps, also in the church, that sometimes it seems to lose its oompf. At the risk of sounding trite, “What is love?”

“God is love.” Our second lesson today from St. John declares that to us. This entire first letter from John is been dedicated to exploring, to wrestling with this very question—“What is love?” And today, John answers it for us. God is love.

But to say that God is love, we need to drop the notion that love is simply a mix of feelings or actions motivated out of really liking something or someone. God is more than mere emotion. God is more than mere action. If God is love, then love is someone. If God is love, then love is sentient. Love is intimate. Love is real. Love isn’t impersonal. Love isn’t intellectual. Love isn’t merely someone, but love is a living thing—the ultimate thing, in fact. God is love.

Yet even saying “God is love” already says something about what love is—or rather, how love behaves. You see—those who insist that love is a verb, that love describes something done, given, or received, these types are onto something. God is inherently busy doing something. When we think or speak of God, we do best to think or speak about what God does much more so than when we think or speak about who God is. God reveals himself, who he is, through what he does.

The very fundamental nature of God is wrapped up in a relationship, a relationship that we attempt to describe through personal, intimate language—namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the very name of God himself. And so if God is a relationship between these three personal, intimate persons, equal in all respects yet different and distinctive, then it’s also right to say that each of the three persons of the Trinity gives equal yet different expression to the very personal, intimate nature of love. For, indeed, God is love—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the sometimes arcane mystery of the Trinity and the everyday-yet-penetrating confession “God is love,” the object of God’s desire comes into focus—a relationship between God and everything he has made that transcends time and space.

Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. In Genesis, when God created the heavens and the earth, when chaos and disorder reigned over everything, we learn that God’s creative act stems from his desire for relationship. Through his spoken Word, the cosmos and all living beings are brought forth. He brings forth something out of nothing because of love.

The creation account goes on to describe the special relationship God has with us, with human beings. We’re made in his image; in the image of God, God created us. At once this endows us with certain characteristics different from the rest of creation, but most importantly it marks us, like God’s very own self, as relational creatures. We like our creator need relationships. Needing, seeking out, and wanting relationships, in their many and various forms in our lives—all that is simply a reflection of God’s image marked upon us at the moment of our creation.

Today Isaiah reminds us of God’s message of assurance and encouragement, and he urges us to have patience and trust in God’s steadfast love. God is a loving Creator and invites his creation to abide in his strength and providence. Isaiah vividly portrays God’s majesty and power, likening him to an eagle soaring high above the earth, surveying all creation with a watchful eye. We are likewise reminded of our own human frailty, like grasshoppers. Yet despite our limitation, God’s love knows no bounds. He sustains us with his unfailing care.

As we gaze upon the stars in the night sky and listen to the rolling thunder, we are reminded of the vastness and grandeur of God’s creation. From the lofty mountain peaks to the tranquil brooks and gentle breezes that whisper through the woods, every aspect of nature reflects God the creator’s love.

And so we know that love creates.

But God doesn’t simply create something, or someone, and step back and let things go. After all, God created everything that is, including us, because he wanted a relationship. And like all relationships, God’s relationship with creation and with us is complicated—and sometimes it needs work. God wants to work, and we see that most clearly in Jesus. Jesus is the fullness of God’s working love and embodies the very essence of divine grace and mercy. We call this working love “redemption.” Through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus reveals God’s unwavering commitment to the redemption and restoration of humanity—and most clearly on the cross.

At the heart of Jesus’ redemptive mission is the “happy exchange.” That is, “for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin,” says St. Paul to the Corinthians, “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” This exchange, rooted in the boundless love of God, succinctly explains working, redemptive love—the transformation of brokenness into wholeness, of darkness into light, of sin into righteousness, of death to life.

Today we hear poignant words from John’s letter, echoing his gospel, about what this working, redemptive love looks like—“God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.” This is a testament to the selfless sacrifice Jesus offers us and is a glimpse of the heart of God’s redemptive purpose—a purpose rooted in love, fueled by love, and fulfilled in love. For “this is love; not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Working, redemptive love is transformative. Working, redemptive love knows no bounds in its desire to do the work of relationship, even when things get tough or break down.

And so we know that love works.

As we reflect on the working, redemptive of Jesus, we are called to embrace the transformative power of God’s love in our own lives. This redemptive love, rooted in the selfless sacrifice of Jesus, inspires us to action—to extend grace, forgiveness, and compassion to those in need. But what, or rather, who inspires us? The Holy Spirit is the gift of love in our lives today. She first breathed life into creation and to this day blows through our lives with unwavering grace and compassion—sometimes as a pacific breeze and other times as an angry whirlwind. The Holy Spirit helps us in every moment, in every aspect of life.

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit infused the first disciples with boldness and conviction to proclaim the transformative message of Jesus’ love to the world, and she hasn’t stopped since. The Holy Spirit continues to sustain and empower believers, she continues to sustain and empower us, offering us solace, strength, and wisdom in the face of life’s myriad challenges and uncertainties. Her comforting embrace envelops us with God’s own love and inspires us to acts of compassion, justice, and service that bear witness to God’s boundless love for all creation.

The Holy Spirit perfects love within us, by goading us on—even when we feel unmotivated, indifferent, or even fearful. Perfect love, embodied in the Holy Spirit, casts out fear, nurturing relationships built on love, built on God. Her tender presence comforts in life’s trials, and her dogged provocation emboldens us to confront injustice. The Holy Spirit, breathed into us by Jesus himself, sends us as he was sent us, empowered to do his work—to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. The Holy Spirit lights an urgent fire underneath us so that our cold hearts melt. She beckons us to stand in solidarity with the marginalized, the oppressed, and the downtrodden—to be agents of healing and reconciliation in a world wounded by sin and division. The Holy Spirit conforms us to the mind of Christ, who reached out to the outcasts and the marginalized. She calls us to extend hands of love and compassion to all who cross our path. She impels us to use our own words and own deeds to embody, to be the flesh-and-blood reality of love that heals the brokenhearted, restores the fallen, and redeems the lost.

The Holy Spirit comforts, strengthens, and enlightens us amidst our own challenges and uncertainties, and she unsettles, motivates, and leads us in the face of anything and everything that stands in the way of others and anything in creation from good relationship with God. Disciples of Jesus, filled with God’s love—we are inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit to bear witness to God’s love through acts of compassion, justice, and service.

And so we know that love helps.

And so now what is love? God is love—love who weaves the threads of creation with diligence and support. Love guiding us, sustaining us, lifting us higher. Love who molds us, love who toils, for us and alongside us, love who uplifts. Love resonates in your every heartbeat, in your every act of kindness, in your every word of compassion, in your every defense of the sidelined. God resonates in you—God who will never leave you, for we who abide in God and God in us, nothing in all creation can separate us from his love. Since in the end, love prevails. God is love, love for us, love for you.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.