Today is the last Sunday before Lent begins, but it is also the Sunday right before Valentines Day which also happens to be Ash Wednesday. St. Valentine’s day is so often associated with romantic love. A day looked forward to or dreaded for many. It is interesting that on this day as we anticipate St. Valentine’s Day, the assigned readings include 1 Corinthians 13, the often referenced chapter on what love is.
How different the Bible’s understanding of love is from that of the world and our flesh. Quite often we speak and think of love as conditional, that is for us to love something or keep on loving something or someone, whatever it is, it has to follow our very personal and subjective conditions. How do we become aware of what we love or might love, how do we often judge what is love worthy? Quite often with our eyes. With our experiences.
We may romantically declare that “love is blind”, but more often than not, for most of us it is by our eyes that we judge beauty, or desirability. “Love at first sight” is more what we do. By our eyes, we often will first judge a person romantically or personally: being attracted to or repulsed away from someone, whether or not, our prejudgments are accurate. Many people may “fall in love” because they desire a person for their own uses, pleasure, or to upgrade their status.
Paul said that Love, (that is “true love”) does not seek its own way. That is, true love is not motivated by its own selfish reasons. When love takes a stand, it does so for the sake of another, to defend, protect, rescue. True love delights in Truth, an objective truth, a truth that is not based on movable feelings, or the most recent fads. Truth is not changeable. The way we understand what Truth is may change, but Truth itself cannot and does not change. Real Love does not delight in wrongdoing, but conditional love will justify its temptations, and its wrongdoing, because of its own way, its own changing truth, based on what it desires at any given moment.
All too often, this way of “true and selfless love” is not how it works for us living with our fallen flesh. Once we get past the first impressions in relationships, we begin to measure love based on what we get in return. It may devolve to how we use our eyes of experience to observe the deeds and acts of others toward us as to whether or not we will love in return. If we only love because we can testify by our experience that this person has “earned my love”, then that love is merely a “conditional kind of love”.
Conditional love is by its very nature selfish. It thinks in terms of desiring and having, possessing, and conquering. This kind of love wants what it wants and wants it according to its own terms. It sees what it desires and will take it. It sees what is not given to it and becomes bitter. Conditional love is not a satisfied love, but a jealous, mistrustful, protecting its own interests, “what have you done for me lately?” kind of love. Is that even love of anything other than self? It certainly is NOT the unconditional love spoken of in 1 Corinthians. The Bible warns against us using our selfish eyes and experiences to judge a person romantically or personally.
In our Old Testament text Samuel was grieved that God had removed His Spirit and favor from Saul because of Saul’s unbelief, but Saul had looked every bit the part of a king. He was tall and physically strong, but he had lost his faith because of his pride.
When Samuel looked upon the sons of Jesse, he thought that he knew which one God would choose to be the next king, because of appearances. But God told him: “The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
This is such an important truth for us to remember on this Quinquagesima Sunday, as we prepare for Lent, for Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day when we will be gathered here and reminded of our mortality because of sin. The Lord looks upon the heart, not the outward appearance. For our sinful and selfish selves, this is a terrifying statement of the Lord. He knows what is going on in your heart. He knows what you are thinking and what you are doing and have been doing. If we honestly look at ourselves according to the Law of God, we should see that we have been terrible Christians. Terrible failures. We are not lovable according to the demands of the commandments. The conditions of God’s Law which are right and true show that we are eminently unworthy, hideous, putrid, and unfaithful people: people who do not deserve to be loved, but by our own disobedience and selfish cheating on God with the love of our selfish idols, should be thrown out of God’s sight. Thrown away from His presence and His grace into eternal hellfire and judgement. This is not unfair, but what we rightly deserve. So often we have been like the disciples who have seen Jesus, even as we see Him in the Sacrament of the Altar and in His Working of grace in His Word and water, and yet, we don’t understand nor appreciate it. We forget and take for granted what Jesus has said He and God would do, did, and will continue to be for us. We take His gifts for granted until something bad happens then we blame Him. We don’t trust Him. We are jealous and upset because God hasn’t met our conditional list of allowing us our way, our sin, our success, our pride.
“The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Let us repent. Let us finally see not with our selfish, lustful earthly eyes, but be turned to the eyes of faith and turned to the Love of God which does not fail, which hopes for you, so that you may hope in Him and His unconditional love.
A person is not saved because they have merited grace by their works, nor because they look pleasant or that they have it all together. No, salvation comes by admitting that you do not have it all together, by admitting that you are weak and that you need God’s strength, you need His forgiveness, His love, His guiding into His unchangeable truth. Cry out with the blind man who cried out with faith greater than those who had eyes to see but could not see God’s grace in Christ. Cry out in hope and faith: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Look to the cross of Jesus Christ. There see God’s unchangeable, unconditional love for you. A love that did not seek its own way, but sought for your salvation. Despite your sin, your miserable wretchedness, God saw you, me, and all people in the midst of our sin, and said: “they are worthy of my Love for the sake of Mercy, because if I do not love them, if I do not come to them, rebuke, rescue, and protect them, they will surely die eternally. So, with a true and selfless Love that only God could offer and give, He sent of Himself to join Himself to our flesh so that by His suffering and death in Jesus Christ crucified, our flesh could be redeemed, and made clean from our sin. Jesus died on the cross taking our sin upon Himself to reveal God’s love for you, and the hope for your salvation, the hope for your redemption. He has already given you salvation in your baptism when you were brought into Christ’s all atoning sacrifice for your sin. Now it is renewed as you have confessed your sins and you have heard His word of Grace and His love to you in forgiveness and reconciliation in Christ.
Now look by faith how He prepares you and gives you joy in the midst of a world still plagued with sin and temptation, with death, and hardship. Here for you (pointing to altar) is a taste of heaven already. Here is rest for your flesh, where the Spirit of God rushes upon you anew to uphold you in your spirit, by the crucified and raised body and blood of your ever loving, ever giving Savior, Jesus Christ. The Lord’s Supper is your strength for the journey of this life. Here you receive the benefits of His sacrificial love for you in the forgiveness of sins. This is true love; love that is not fickle based on feelings that change. It is not the love that is conditional, the incorrect selfish love which delights in wrong doing. No, this Love is that which rather delights in the rightful truth of your salvation and the power to live anew in Him.
Therefore, receive from Him, and live in Jesus Christ by faith. Continue to live in His love given for you where He says He is: in His Church with His Word and Sacraments. Then you may see by faith to do what is true and right and good, not as you earn God’s love, but as you are changed by His love, to understand His Truth, and His love for you, and then others may see God’s work in you and be led to Christ by the witness He gives for you to do. Live in His love, share in His love. Rejoice in His love, until we are brought from this world to be with Him: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to see Him as He is to receive His love in full forever, in Jesus Christ, Amen.
Pr. Aaron Kangas