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WAGING WAR WITH LOVE: 1 John 3:11-24
By Ted Schroder,
October 26, 2014
"This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another." St. John loves to start "from the beginning." He starts his letter: "That which was from the beginning... concerning the Word of Life." At the beginning of all things is God, who has revealed himself to us as Father through Jesus Christ. The message from the beginning is a message of love. St. John will confirm this in the next chapter that God is love. This is tremendously reassuring that behind the universe and all of life, the source of life, is not the pitiless indifference of atheism, the cold nothingness of materialism, the endless absence of the impersonal, but instead there is the God of love. "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him" (Psalm.103:11). He imparts his love to us in Christ and wants us to love one another. "As I have loved you, so you must love one another" (John 13:34).
But if this is God's nature and his intention for us, if this is at the foundation of the universe, sustaining all things, how is it that there is so much hate in the world. St. John tells us not to be like Cain, who at the beginning of the creation of humanity, belonged to the evil one, and murdered his brother. His actions were evil. Why is it that people choose to do evil rather than good, who hate rather than love? Why are people cruel, mean-spirited, destructive and savage? Is it solely due to the Darwinian survival of the fittest, where the strong eliminate the weak, and where genocide and the taking of human life is acceptable? Jesus said of the Pharisees, "You belong to your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44).
C.S. Lewis addressed this brilliantly in Mere Christianity.
What is the problem? A universe that contains much that is bad and apparently meaningless, but containing creatures like ourselves who know that it is bad and meaningless. There are only two views that face the facts. One is the Christian view that it is a good world gone wrong, but still retains the memory of what it ought to have been. The other is the view called Dualism. Dualism means the belief that there are two equal and independent powers at the back of everything, one of them good and the other bad, and that this universe is the battlefield in which they fight out this endless war.
I freely admit that real Christianity... goes much nearer to Dualism than people think. One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe -- a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death and disease, and sin. The difference is that Christianity thinks that this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think that this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel. (p.44f.)
C.S. Lewis wrote this for a series of broadcasts he gave during World War II so he was very aware of the life and death battles that were being fought as he spoke and the terrible things that were being perpetrated by the Nazis in their death camps.
This is St. John's understanding of why people hate one another, and why they murder one another, and that we should not be surprised when we encounter hate. Hate turns into murder, and murder turns into eternal death. He makes the contrast between those who love and those who hate. Those who love have passed from death to eternal life. "Anyone who does not love remains in death." Wherever you see hate, and murder and other evil actions, you see a rebellion against the God of love by those who belong to the evil one. That is why the world suffers from deadly crime, cruelty, corruption and chaos.
In contrast to hate is love. He turns from taking life to giving life. What is love? He describes the content of love as revealed in Jesus. "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." Love is self-sacrifice. Love is unselfishness. Love is costly. Love is compassionate. Love is practical. Love is not a question of talk but of action. We need not feel guilty about the needs of others if we do something practical for them. Christians have always, from the beginning, taken action to help others in need. We see it in the New Testament where they shared with one another and they took up collections to meet genuine needs. They cared for widows and orphans. Churches distributed food to the hungry, set up hospitals for the sick, took in refugees, and counseled the troubled. Our congregation supports 30 missionary agencies with thirty percent of our offerings dedicated to outreach. "This is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence.....God knows everything. We have confidence before God because we obey his commands and do what pleases him."
When people criticize the church and dismiss Christianity they betray their ignorance of the stakes at risk. The church and Christianity is on the side of love and is waging a war against hate. Christians are engaged in a campaign of unselfish sacrifice. Its weapons are not just talk, but practical acts of love. C.S. Lewis again,
Enemy-occupied territory -- that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. (p.47)
Every act of love that we do contributes to the defeat of evil and triumph of goodness. Every time we lay down own selfishness to meet the needs of another we defeat evil and promote good. Our acts of love may be giving our time to listen to the concerns of another, or visiting with someone who is lonely, or praying for someone who is sick, or giving to a ministry through your church.
How can we lay down our lives for fellow Christians? It means involvement, caring and openness. Loving means listening and serving. We lay down our lives by sharing our own lives with others, sacrificing our personal privacy and images of adequacy. When we are vulnerable with others we earn the right to share the answers we have found and to witness to what the Lord has done in our own lives.
Prayer: Lord God of love, we thank you for shocking us with the urgency of loving. You created us so that we could not be fulfilled without your love and the love you inspire for us in others. Help us to know what it will means to lay down our lives for the people around us. Then motivate us to action, so that when this day ends we will be able to feel the excitement of praise for the ways you have loved through us. (Lloyd John Ogilvie)
(Ted's blog is found at www.tedschroder.com SOUL FOOD: DAILY DEVOTIONS FOR THE HUNGRY, Vol.4, October, November and December is now available on Amazon.)
